Top 73 B.R. Ambedkar Quotes
#1. Caste may be bad. Caste may lead to conduct so gross as to be called man's inhumanity to man. All the same, it must be recognized that the Hindus observe Caste not because they are inhuman or wrong-headed. They observe Caste because they are deeply religious.
B.R. Ambedkar
#2. Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government.
B.R. Ambedkar
#3. There is a Difference Between Merely Living and Living Worthily
B.R. Ambedkar
#4. It is not enough to be electors only.
It is necessary to be law-makers;
otherwise those who can be law-makers will be the masters of those who can only be electors.
B.R. Ambedkar
#5. The reason why Broken Men only became Untouchables was because in addition to being Buddhists, they retained their habit of beef-eating, which gave additional ground for offence to the Brahmins to carry their new-found love and reverence to the cow to its logical conclusion.
B.R. Ambedkar
#6. The Touchables, whether they are vegetarians or flesh-eaters, are united in their objection to eat cow's flesh. As against them stand the Untouchables, who eat cow's flesh without compunction and as a matter of course and habit.
B.R. Ambedkar
#7. The food habits of the different classes of Hindus have been as fixed and stratified as their cults. Just as Hindus can be classified on their basis of their cults, so also they can be classified on the basis of their habits of food.
B.R. Ambedkar
#8. Democracy is not merely a form of Government.
It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.
It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards our fellow men.
B.R. Ambedkar
#9. The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an end if we want to have a united integrated modern India.
B.R. Ambedkar
#10. Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers,
but by relentless struggle ... Goats are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.
B.R. Ambedkar
#11. I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.
B.R. Ambedkar
#12. What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights.
B.R. Ambedkar
#13. Some people think that religion is not essential to society. I do not hold this view. I consider the foundation of religion to be essential to the life and practices of a society.
B.R. Ambedkar
#14. An ideal society should be mobile, should be full of channels for conveying a change taking place in one part to other parts. In an ideal society, there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared.
B.R. Ambedkar
#15. No Hindu community, however low, will touch cow's flesh. On the other hand, there is no community which is really an Untouchable community which has not something to do with the dead cow. Some eat her flesh, some remove the skin, some manufacture articles out of her skin and bones.
B.R. Ambedkar
#16. So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.
B.R. Ambedkar
#17. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women. These burka women walking in the streets is one of the most hideous sights one can witness in India.
B.R. Ambedkar
#18. Generally speaking, the Smritikars never care to explain the why and the how of their dogmas.
B.R. Ambedkar
#20. A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people.
B.R. Ambedkar
#21. A historian ought to be exact, sincere and impartial;
free from passion, unbiased by interest, fear, resentment or affection;
and faithful to the truth, which is the mother of history the preserver of great actions, the enemy of oblivion, the witness of the past, the director of the future.
B.R. Ambedkar
#22. Law and order are the medicine of the politic body and when the politic body gets sick, medicine must be administered.
B.R. Ambedkar
#23. Slavery does not merely mean a legalised form of subjection.
It means a state of society in which some men are forced to accept from others the purposes which control their conduct.
B.R. Ambedkar
#24. The Hindu civilisation is a diabolical contrivance to enslave humanity. Its proper name would be infamy.
B.R. Ambedkar
#25. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.
B.R. Ambedkar
#26. For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.
B.R. Ambedkar
#27. The question is not whether a community lives or dies, the question is on what plane does it live? There are different modes of survival. But all are not equally honorable.
B.R. Ambedkar
#28. Man is mortal. Everyone has to die some day or the other. But one must resolve to lay down one's life in enriching the noble ideals of self-respect and in bettering one's human life. We are not slaves. Nothing is more disgraceful for a brave man than to live life devoid of self-respect.
B.R. Ambedkar
#29. To my mind, there is no doubt that this Gandhi age is the dark age of India. It is an age in which people, instead of looking for their ideals in the future, are returning to antiquity.
B.R. Ambedkar
#30. A just society is that society in which ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society
B.R. Ambedkar
#31. Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people.
B.R. Ambedkar
#32. Though, I was born a Hindu, I solemnly assure you that I will not die as a Hindu
B.R. Ambedkar
#33. For an individual as well as a society, there is a gulf between merely living and living worthily. To fight in a battle and live in glory is one mode. To beat a retreat, to surrender and to live the life of a captive is also a mode of survival.
B.R. Ambedkar
#34. Constitution is not a mere lawyers document, it is a vehicle of Life, and its spirit is always the spirit of Age.
B.R. Ambedkar
#35. Humans are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die.
B.R. Ambedkar
#36. History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.
B.R. Ambedkar
#38. Untouchability shuts all doors of opportunities for betterment in life for Untouchables. It does not offer an Untouchable any opportunity to move freely in society; it compels him to live in dungeons and seclusion; it prevents him from educating himself and following a profession of his choice.
B.R. Ambedkar
#39. I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language.
I want all people to be Indians first, Indian last and nothing else but Indians.
B.R. Ambedkar
#40. Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.
B.R. Ambedkar
#41. There is one taboo against meat-eating. It divides Hindus into vegetarians and flesh eaters. There is another taboo which is against beef eating. It divides Hindus into those who eat cow's flesh and those who do not.
B.R. Ambedkar
#42. A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society.
B.R. Ambedkar
#43. Plato had no perception of the uniqueness of every individual, of his incommensurability with others, of each individual as forming a class of his own. He had no recognition of the infinite diversity of active tendencies, and the combination of tendencies of which an individual is capable.
B.R. Ambedkar
#44. If I find the constitution being misused, I shall be the first to burn it.
B.R. Ambedkar
#45. Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.
B.R. Ambedkar
#46. However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good.
B.R. Ambedkar
#47. The outcaste is a bye-product of the caste system. There will be outcastes as long as there are castes. Nothing can emancipate the outcaste except the destruction of the caste system.
B.R. Ambedkar
#48. Some men say that they should be satisfied with the abolition of untouchability only, leaving the caste system alone. The aim of abolition of untouchability alone without trying to abolish the inequalities inherent in the caste system is a rather low aim.
B.R. Ambedkar
#49. Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from co-mingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind.
B.R. Ambedkar
#50. I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.
B.R. Ambedkar
#52. Every man must have a philosophy of life,
for everyone must have a standard by which to measure his conduct.
And philosophy is nothing but a standard by which to measure.
B.R. Ambedkar
#53. The basic idea underlying religion is to create an atmosphere for the spiritual development of the individual.
B.R. Ambedkar
#54. Why is it that a large majority of Hindus do not inter-dine and do not inter-marry? Why is it that your cause is not popular? There can be only one answer to this question, and it is that inter-dining and inter-marriage are repugnant to the beliefs and dogmas which the Hindus regard as sacred.
B.R. Ambedkar
#55. In Hinduism, conscience, reason and independent thinking have no scope for development.
B.R. Ambedkar
#56. Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.
B.R. Ambedkar
#57. Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as a governing principle.
B.R. Ambedkar
#58. I refuse to join with them in performing the miracle - I will not say trick - of liberating the oppressed with the gold of the tyrant, and raising the poor with the cash of the rich.
B.R. Ambedkar
#59. That the object of the Brahmins in giving up beef-eating was to snatch away from the Buddhist Bhikshus the supremacy they had acquired is evidenced by the adoption of vegetarianism by Brahmins.
B.R. Ambedkar
#60. If you ask me, my ideal would be the society based on liberty, equality and fraternity.
An ideal society should be mobile and
full of channels of conveying a change taking place in one part to other parts.
B.R. Ambedkar
#61. Caste is not just a division of labour, it is a division of labourers.
B.R. Ambedkar
#63. One cannot have any respect or regard for men who take the position of the reformer and
then refuse to see the logical consequences of that position, let alone following them out in action.
B.R. Ambedkar
#64. Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence.
B.R. Ambedkar
#65. People are not wrong in observing Caste. In my view, what is wrong is their religion, which has inculcated this notion of Caste. If this is correct, then obviously the enemy, you must grapple with is not the people who observe Caste, but the Shastras which teach them this religion of Caste.
B.R. Ambedkar
#67. The relationship between husband and wife should be one of closest friends.
B.R. Ambedkar
#68. A bitter thing cannot be made sweet.
The taste of anything can be changed.
But poison cannot be changed into nectar.
B.R. Ambedkar
#69. One can quite understand vegetarianism. One can quite understand meat-eating. But it is difficult to understand why a person who is a flesh-eater should object to one kind of flesh, namely cow's flesh. This is an anomaly which call for explanation.
B.R. Ambedkar
#72. Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean,
man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives.
Man's life is independent.
He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self too.
B.R. Ambedkar
#73. If you believe in living a respectable life, you believe in self-help which is the best help!
B.R. Ambedkar
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