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People with clenched fists can not shake hands.
Indira Gandhi
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Holding onto anger or resentment prevents meaningful connections with others.

This quote by Indira Gandhi emphasizes the importance of openness and willingness to interact with others. If one is tightly holding onto negativity or stubbornness, it becomes impossible to reach out for collaboration, friendship, or understanding. To build relationships, a person must be open to letting go of grievances and embracing humility.

Themes

RelationshipsOpennessAngerConnectionUnderstanding

In practice

Example use cases

During a team-building workshop, this quote was used to encourage participants to let go of their differences.

More from Indira Gandhi

If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.
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You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
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All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.
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The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
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My father was a statesman, I'm a political woman. My father was a saint. I'm not.
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A nation' s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.
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