"You soon realize that the peak you've climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb...And the more you climb, the more you want to climb - even though you're dead tired."

"Until the day she died, my mother continued to fight for the rights of women. She joined all the women's movements of the time; she stirred up a lot of revolts. She was a great woman, a great figure. Women today would like her immensely."

"All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake."

"If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying."

"Wearing khadi was a badge of honour. It was something one was proud to do."

"I don't think my father was my mentor."

"One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money."

"If I see something dirty or untidy, I have to clean it up."

"Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning."

"On the one hand, the rich look askance at our continuing poverty - on the other, they warn us against their own methods."

"The people have nothing to fear of me; people have never feared me."

"I've never turned to anybody for advice and counsel. Even when I was a very small child, I had to stand on my feet because of the circumstances of those times, and somehow, the circumstances have remained more or less the same. I have to take my own decisions."

"The power to question is the basis of all human progress."

"All the people who fought for freedom were my heroes. I mean, that was the sort of story I liked reading... freedom struggles and so on."

"This is why we feel that democracy's important: because democracy allows you to have small explosions and therefore avoid the bigger explosions."

"We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further, and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?"

"The environmental problems of developing countries are not the side effects of excessive industrialisation but reflect the inadequacy of development."

"Ability is not always gauged by examination."

"I am not a person to be pressured - by anybody or any nation."

"I'm certainly not a workaholic."

"There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten."

"There is not love where there is no will."

"Have a bias toward action - let's see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away."

"Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic."