Pranab Mukherjee Quotes

I was in high school when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled India's flag in New Delhi.

The Indian independence leaders, Nehru, Gandhi and others, were products of the West.

My grandfather passed away in 1946, too early to see his dream of an independent India being realized.

It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race; and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.

I never met Mahatma Gandhi, but, I think everyone felt they knew him even if they hadn't met him.

Yes, he [Mahatma Gandhi] was a great man. However...between me and Gandhi there was never the understanding there was between me and my father.

Leaving golf aside for the moment, I'd choose Roger Federer as a sporting role model, Muhammad Ali for a sporting and non-sporting role model and Nelson Mandela as a true and lasting inspiration.

I will only say that many freedom fighters of India found their calling in the institutions of Britain. And many makers of modern India, including several of my distinguished predecessors, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr. Manmohan Singh, passed through their doors.

When you see weakness in a hero, you are doing something to his identity. You take something away from the kids, the next generation; you steal away giving them anything to look up to.

I have stood on the shoulders of giants like Billie Jean King, Hillary Clinton, my mother - people who have really empowered and influenced my life in an incredible way.

When you look at some of the greatest people and players in the world they all stand for something outside their working lives.

Attenborough's 'Gandhi' shook me as a filmmaker.

Gandhi: My Father' is a project very close to our hearts.

Every generation has to have its heroes.

A lot of people say Michael Jordan and all of that. But Magic Johnson and my dad were my role models.

My life has been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi from the days of my childhood.

Ruth Gordon was such a delight to watch in 'Rosemary's Baby' after I had first seen her in 'Harold and Maude.' And Ellen Burstyn is a hero of mine from 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,' The Exorcist,' 'Requiem For A Dream.' These women impacted me greatly as an actress.

Can a person be inspirational? Does a person have global sensibility? That's the hardest thing to find.

We have lots of heroes today - sportsmen, supermodels, media personalities. They come, they have their 15 minutes of fame, and they go. But the influence of good teachers stays with us. They are the people who really shape our lives.

I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Mr. Cary Grant.

History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries.

Pick your role models wisely, find out what they did and do it.

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge... At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

You can't be what you can't see.

About Mahatma Gandhi: Great in taking decisions, great in executing them, Mahatma Gandhi was incomparably great in the last stand which he made on behalf of his country. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest men the world has ever seen. The world hath need of him, and if he is mocked and jeered at by "the people of importance," "the people with a stake in this country," - the Scribes and Pharisees of the days of Christ - he will be gratefully remembered, now and always, by a nation which he led from victory to victory.