Ambedkar Quotes - Social Reformer & Economist

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.

You say I have a homeland. But, I want to reiterate, I don't have that… If we are treated worse than dogs and cats, If there is no right to drinking water, any self respecting untouchable considers this country as his country?

The help this country has given us, like a mountain of tribulations and injustices, is imposed on us. Trampled underfoot for ages, for the rights of my downtrodden people, because of my efforts, no harm will come to this country.

First let a slave know that he is a slave. Then, he will automatically wake up.

No one surrenders himself, Do not act according to the wishes of others. Put anything to the test, in the light of knowledge, analyzing and accepting, he is a free man.

Indian nationality does not include the rights of the downtrodden. Therefore, the rights of the downtrodden cannot be sacrificed for nationalism.

The enemy of all others is imperialism. But the downtrodden people being surrounded by various enemies around them, not everyone can be resisted at once; so, for 2,000 years performed by high caste Hindus for cruelties and oppressions, I decided to fight back.

Life should be great rather than long.

The bitterest foe of the low-caste Hindu is not the high-caste Hindu, but his own neighbour of the same caste. The oppression of the high-caste Hindu is unpleasant, but the oppression of his own kinsman is unbearable.

The Hindu must learn to be his own friend and not his own enemy. If he continues to be his own enemy, the cause of the Untouchables will not progress. If we wish to make progress, we must learn to forgive our enemies.

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.

Without equality, there can be no liberty, fraternity, or democracy. Without erasing the word 'masculinity,' there can be no freedom for women. Without annihilating the caste system, there can be no democracy.

The first and greatest social reformer was Gautama Buddha. It is with him that the history of social reform begins.