We are Indians, firstly and lastly.

For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.

A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society.

Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.

The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an end if we want to have a united integrated modern India.

We are Indians, firstly and lastly.

Law and order are the medicine of the body politic and when the body politic gets sick, medicine must be administered.

What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights.

Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government.

A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people.

The relationship between husband and wife should be one of closest friends.

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.

Life should be great rather than long.

History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.

Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.

So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.

Men are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die.

I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.

Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence.

I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.

Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.

In Hinduism, conscience, reason and independent thinking have no scope for development.

An ideal society should be mobile, should be full of channels for conveying a change taking place in one part to other parts. In an ideal society, there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared.

Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from co-mingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind.

Caste may be bad. Caste may lead to conduct so gross as to be called man's inhumanity to man. All the same, it must be recognized that the Hindus observe Caste not because they are inhuman or wrong-headed. They observe Caste because they are deeply religious.

Generally speaking, the Smritikars never care to explain the why and the how of their dogmas.

However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good.

One can quite understand vegetarianism. One can quite understand meat-eating. But it is difficult to understand why a person who is a flesh-eater should object to one kind of flesh, namely cow's flesh. This is an anomaly which call for explanation.

Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.

Religion and slavery are incompatible.

Man’s life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.

However good a Constitution may be if those who are implementing it are not good it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be if those implementing it are good it will prove to be good.

A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well being of the people.

In Hinduism conscience reason and independent thinking have no scope for development.

Time puts things in proper perspective.

When I went out or met people at parties, I fielded questions like ‘You seem normal...why are you still single?’ which made me feel like I had to defend myself just for showing up.

In a sense, habits never really disappear. Once formed, they always remain in our neurology.

I think the presence of caste in India, how the villages are geographically structured on caste lines, is very different from China. The presence of an egalitarian culture is striking in a Chinese village.

My family do not think I'm special - not one, one bit.

I spent my first two years at a small all-male college in Virginia called Hampden-Sydney. That was like going to college 120 years ago. The languages, a year of rhetoric, all of the great books, Western Man courses, stuff like that.

Trust yourself. You've survived a lot, and you'll survive whatever is coming.

Being a Baptist won't keep you from sinning, but it'll sure as hell keep you from enjoying it.

We have self centered minds which get us into plenty of trouble. If we do not come to understand the error in the way we think, our self-awareness, which is our greatest blessing, is also our downfall.

'The Art of the Brick' is an exhibition I've done where I've taken some works of art from art history and replicated them all out of Lego bricks.

City employees will be hired and promoted because of their abilities - without outside interference.

I learned, especially from my mother, to respect the profession and take it seriously, but not take yourself too seriously.

Celebrity or no celebrity, I think a lot of females deal with the fear of being abducted.

Some people call God, some people call Allah; I want to see the fruit of the love, I want to see the love, the love to help the brothers who may not be as fortunate as us.

The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.