Quotes from Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Himachal is my second home.

We used to fight with Pakistan with bombs. Now we are fighting with them on the playing ground.

If the elections are a mere fraud, why are terrorists being trained and infiltrated into India at the command of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of Pakistan to kill election candidates and to intimidate voters?

We believe in resolving all disputes peacefully.

India has a legitimate right to becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

We want peace to be permanent.

Our aim may be as high as the endless sky, but we should have a resolve in our minds to walk ahead, hand-in-hand, for victory will be ours.

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.

Poverty is multidimensional. It extends beyond money incomes to education, health care, political participation and advancement of one's own culture and social organisation.

Did Indira Gandhi ask for somebody's permission to carry out the test in 1974?

Indian democracy's greatest strength is that we have always put the nation above politics.

We hope the world will act in the spirit of enlightened self-interest.

We are unnecessarily wasting our precious resources in wars... if we must wage war, we have to do it on unemployment, disease, poverty, and backwardness.

India has never played politics with national security.

While accepting donations, no one looks at the colour of money.

Let me make one thing clear. I have never considered mere survival in power as any achievement, just as I have never seen coming to power as an achievement in itself.

Population needs to be stabilised for sustainable development.

It requires an effort of logical acrobatics to believe that carnage of innocents is an instrument for freedom and elections are a symbol of deception and repression!

Our frequent initiatives to normalise relations with Pakistan are not a sign of our weakness; rather, they are an indication of our commitment to peace.

The BJP decides its own policies.

People who ask us when we will hold talks with Pakistan are perhaps not aware that over the last 55 years, every initiative for a dialogue with Pakistan has invariably come from India.

The Bio-diversity Convention has not yielded any tangible benefits to the world's poor.

We should always care for the minorities and be attentive towards their welfare.

Our words, actions, and diplomatic efforts should be aimed at trying to achieve pragmatic goals rather than creating rhetorical effect.