In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.

Western dictionaries define secularism as absence of religion but Indian secularism does not mean irreligiousness.It means profusion of religions.

India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.

India has been born and reborn scores of times, and it will be reborn again. India is forever, and India is forever being made.

There is not a thing as the wrong place, or the wrong time. We are where we are at the only time we have. Perhaps it's where we're meant to be.

Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy -- and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks.

On Gandhi: Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground.

It's not the side of the bigger army that wins. It's the country that tells a better story.

Diplomacy is much like the "lovemaking of elephants", which is accompanied with a lot of bellowing and other sound effects, but no one can be sure of the consequences for at least the next two years

If you believe in truth and cared enough to obtain it, you had to be prepared actively to suffer for it.

India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. ... India matters to me and I would like to matter to India.

If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.

If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy practice compassion.

There is no real teacher who in practise does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech.

When I appear in public, people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground and swish my tail - none of which is easy.

Based on current surveys of public opinion in the United States, it turns out that the majority of Americans think I've done a pretty good job.

When you're younger, you ride with 90% physical and 10% mental. But if you could learn how to use 90% mental and 10% physical you'd be better off.

I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is (correcting himself), I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's advance in experience.

The way money goes so fast these days, they should paint racing stripes on it.

...all things speak, in their way, don't they?

Being able to choose the skin I live in was the draw of fashion.