Gandhi Quotes - Page 3

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My father thought Gandhi was a great man. I suppose subconsciously, consciously even, I was aware that I wanted to please him and Ma, so I thought doing something like 'Gandhi' would be phenomenal.

Prime ministers with full majority have behaved differently from each other. Jawaharlal Nehru was a leader who ruled by consensus while Indira Gandhi was considered more unilateral in her approach.

Gandhi became my role model. I have always been interested in Eastern philosophy. Since early in my life I've been fascinated by India, and I have spent a great deal of time traveling in that country.

It's always the case, whenever you're doing someone real, how much you want to do an impression or a characterisation. If I was doing Churchill, or Gandhi - people know exactly how they talked, walked.

I am not too much into political awareness, but I had known a lot about Indira Gandhi's strong persona. Obviously, she had a powerful personality and a lot of clarity and wisdom to rule India for so long.

Gandhi has more recently recognized the need for continuance of British, American and Chinese efforts in India and has suggested that these troops might remain by agreement with some new Indian Government.

I have a strong spiritual life. I can't say that I have faith that Jesus is my Savior, but I look at Jesus in the same way that I look at, you know, Mohammed. He was giving everyone the goods. So was Gandhi.

I don't believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons. Gandhi is my life's inspiration: passive resistance. I don't want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max.

There are many people making a difference. I mean, Dr. King never held an office. Gandhi never held an office. There are people who are archetypes in our society who have never held office and made a difference.

I like Arvind Kejriwal and his work that he is doing for India, but I don't know why he is after Congress party and Gandhi family, why can't he see other leaders and parties which are also involved in corruption.

From time to time, you have seminal personalities who really change the way the world sees itself - people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Warren Buffett is that kind of person in the business world.

I would love to take a cooking class from Gandhi. Maybe I could teach him how to cook, and he could teach me his message. I wouldn't mind learning how to make couscous from scratch from a North African woman, either.

The most enchanting experience I had in Ahmedabad when I visited the Gandhi Ashram. I was moved by the information on Indian freedom struggle and there is a sense of tranquility and peace at this Ashram that moved me.

Congress is hiding the details of their party president Rahul Gandhi's citizenship. Rahul Gandhi's real name is Rahul Vincy. They are cheating people by hiding the real names of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Rajeev Gandhi was prime minister. We've had a long family relationship with them. He asked me to fight an election, and I went ahead and did it. But I was not qualified as a politician, and I am not going back there again.

I know Pandit Ravi Shankar was very upset with me, as I did not use his compositions in 'Gandhi.' I thought that the London Philharmonic Orchestra would prove more effective than his music. It was one of my biggest miscalculations.

One was a book I read by Mahatma Gandhi. In it was a passage where he said that religion, the pursuing of the inner journey, should not be separated from the pursuing of the outer and social journey, because we are not isolated beings.

The question is - did Richard Attenborough have a right to make 'Gandhi?' And did Danny Boyle have a right to make 'Slumdog Millionaire?' Quite honestly, if they didn't have the right to make these films, I had no right to make 'Elizabeth.'

This Sonia Gandhi thing should be seen in perspective - the people of India have an emotional attachment to the family. And why not? Three of the five Congress prime ministers belong to that family. The people empathise with the family name.

Rahul Gandhi has promised to remove poverty and unemployment. There is nothing new about the election promises of Congress. Had only half of those promises been fulfilled, India would have been the most prosperous country in the world today.

I see my shows like Gandhi, and I've got little baby Gandhis, and they are changing the world. I know that I'm a bit delusional about that, but I do think of them like Gandhi. They are not celebrities: they are like Gandhi and Mother Teresa.

I would still ask the government not to drive the people of India to desperation, or else there is no other course left open to the people except to inaugurate the policy of non-cooperation, though not necessarily the programme of Mr. Gandhi.

I don't know what has happened to movies, but lately every movie is at least 20 minutes too long. It used to be that if you were three hours long it was because it was epic - a movie about Gandhi; something with very important subject matters.

The fact is, human rights victories are rarely won by powerful governments or well-armed militaries. More often than not, these battles are led by individuals and small groups of people determined to overcome wrong. Think King, Gandhi, Mandela.

As a young man in South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, Gandhi developed satyagraha, a mode of political activism based upon moral persuasion, while mobilizing South Africa's small Indian minority against racial discrimination.

The manager believes soccer is a science and the field a laboratory, but the genius of Einstein and the subtlety of Freud is not enough for the owners and the fans. They want a miracle worker like Our Lady of Lourdes, with the stamina of Gandhi.

The leaders who we admire who have been able to bring great change in the past - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela - they're all inspirational religious leaders and smart tacticians. It would be nice to find the Muslim Gandhi, wouldn't it?

I don't think one gets to choose the kind of comedy he/she does. I may not talk about Rahul Gandhi's take on an ordinance, but I will talk about things as simple as a 'chappal' or a 'sherwani.' My comedy is about small things, and that is how it connects.

I think that I altered history in 'Elizabeth,' and I interpreted history far more than Danny Boyle or Richard Attenborough did to 'Slumdog Millionaire' or 'Gandhi.' They took Indian novels or Indian characters and very much stayed within the Indian diaspora.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.

I used to be a wannabe Genghis Khan and will always be that. He never lost any battles. Then I swung to the other side of the spectrum and settled on Mr. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Now I realise I should identify myself with those who strengthen my argument.

We're trained to see the world in terms of charismatic organizations and charismatic people. That's who we look to for leadership and change, for transformation. We're awaiting the next J.F.K., the next Martin Luther King, the next Gandhi, the next Nelson Mandela.

Heroes represent the best of ourselves, respecting that we are human beings. A hero can be anyone from Gandhi to your classroom teacher, anyone who can show courage when faced with a problem. A hero is someone who is willing to help others in his or her best capacity.

Sonia Gandhi and her husband have always been persons I look at with a lot of respect. Of course, one of the reasons we look at India with a lot of sympathy and enthusiasm is Sonia Gandhi. Now she is Indian, not Italian, but she will always represent a myth for Italians.

In 1971, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi defeated Pakistan, and our leader, A. B. Vajpayee, who was in the Opposition, praised her, and she was credited with the military victory, similarly, why can't Prime Minister Narendra Modi be credited for the Balakot air strike?

And there are certain things, and they are evident, obviously, without being boring about it, but I mean obviously, the two evident and easy ones being Gandhi and Cry Freedom, there are things which I do care about very much and which I would like to stand up and be counted.

'Gandhi' was a well-made film but surely not my best. It had flaws, which I understand two-and-a-half decades after I directed it. I will never call it a propaganda film for the Indian Congress, but it could have been made better had I concentrated on certain minute details.

There was that argument that if we had more women in positions of authority, the world would be a nicer place. And then we got Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi. When women become acclimatised to war, they can become every bit as ruthless as men.

Ben Kingsley was my ideal choice for Gandhi, and he really lived up to the expectations of an international audience. I did not find any Indian actor worthy to perform the role of Gandhi in the early Eighties, though there were brilliant performers like Naseeruddin Shah in India.

See, Indira Gandhi was wrong in declaring the Emergency. She tried to put me in jail, but she could not. People voted her back, and I worked with her after that. Even though I was not a member of the Congress, she sought my help on China. You can't have personal vendetta, you see.

It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, 'I think it would be a good idea.' That's how I feel about intelligent life on Earth, especially when I think about the question of what truly intelligent life might look like elsewhere in the universe.

Now, Rahul Gandhi has offered Rs 72,000 per annum scheme to every poor person in India. It is a miracle scheme. While Modi failed to give Rs 15 lakh he promised to every poor person, Congress will fulfil its promise as it did earlier. That is why Rahul Gandhi is hero while Modi is zero.

I grew up in India. From my childhood, I remember the great reverence that people held for our national hero, Mahatma Gandhi. He galvanized millions to march as one, disarmed the empire that had ruled his country for nearly a century, and enabled India to become a free and independent nation.

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.

My grandfather, or Nana Ji, as we called him, was a family legend. Amarnath Vidyalankar spent his life fighting for India's independence, which included spending four years in prison in Mahatma Gandhi's movement. I still remember the conversations we had together, many of them while playing chess.

My main aim in 'Gandhi' was to project him as the vanguard of non-violence. Nowhere in the world has a movement of non-cooperation sans violence received so much support from masses as Gandhi's movement in India did. He was, to a great extent, responsible for freeing his nation from the British Raj.

If I were able to write, I probably would. But movies have given me a part of my life where I can express feelings and bring convictions to an audience as if I could write. So I made 'Gandhi' about human relations, prejudice and the empire. In 'Cry Freedom' I expressed my horror and disgust about apartheid.

My great-great-aunt was a terrorist. I'm not talking about the sense in which the pacifist Mahatma Gandhi was branded a terrorist by the British parliament in 1932: Pritilata Waddedar was an active participant in armed struggle against the British state. She supplied explosives. She fired a gun. And I'm proud of it.

How shall we remember Mahatma Gandhi, that eternal pilgrim of freedom? Born of the very spirit of India, steeped in the tradition, the song, the legend of our ancient land - and yet he was revolutionary. Unique among revolutionaries, he marched for freedom, clad in the robe of truth, with non-violence for his staff.

When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others.

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