Verghese Kurien Quotes

#1. a person who does not have respect for time, and does not have a sense of timing, can achieve little.

Verghese Kurien

#2. I began to see then that when the government enters business, the citizens of India get cheated. The greatest repercussion of the government entering into business is that instead of safeguarding people from vested interests, they themselves become the vested interest.

Verghese Kurien

#3. Any sensible government must learn to unleash the energy of its people and get them to perform instead of trying to get a bureaucracy to perform.

Verghese Kurien

#4. We Indians are an extremely intelligent people but we can progress as a nation only when we learn the secret of unleashing this positive power of the people. Whenever this happens it disturbs a lot of people - because they know that a giant is waking up.

Verghese Kurien

#5. You must always remember that you are Kurien's second wife. His first wife is the dairy. Don't ever forget that and don't make yourself miserable by being jealous. And never, never try to snatch your husband away from his first wife.

Verghese Kurien

#6. If the situation demanded autocracy, I gave it autocracy.

Verghese Kurien

#7. I have found, in over fifty years of confronting governments and defending cooperatives from political and bureaucratic interference, that when you begin demanding what is rightfully yours, there are many people even within the bureaucratic system who ensure that you retain those rights.

Verghese Kurien

#8. I have always believed that once you identify the best person for a particular project and tell him or her exactly what you expect, you must put your complete trust in that person, allowing him or her to work independently without interference. If you do, the project is bound to succeed.

Verghese Kurien

#9. I realised, in all humility, that chosing to lead one kind of life means putting aside the desire to pursue other option.

Verghese Kurien

#10. Long hours of working barefoot in the pans saturates their legs so much with salt that these farmers cannot even have a satisfactory cremation after death because their lower limbs do not burn. It is a miserable existence.

Verghese Kurien

#11. India's place in the sun would come from the partnership between wisdom of its rural people and skill of its professionals

Verghese Kurien

#12. I am one of those who firmly believe that our cities thrive at the expense of our villages; that our industries exploit agriculture.

Verghese Kurien