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. Jawaharlal Nehru

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. Jawaharlal Nehru

Freedom is not given - it is taken. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself. Mahatma Gandhi

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made. -Albert Einstein

If yet your blood does not rage, then it is water that flows in your veins. For what is the flush of youth, if it is not of service to the motherland.-Chandra Shekhar Azad

We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future? Jawaharlal Nehru