‘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.’
‘Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India’
‘Service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity'
‘Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments'
‘History begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about’
‘A new star rises, the star of freedom in the east, a new hope comes into being. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!’
‘All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations’
‘We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action’