Success can come to you by courageous Devotion to the task lying in front of you I can assert with out fear of contradiction that quality of the Indian mind is equal to the quality of any Teutonic, Nordic, or Anglo-Saxon mind. What we lack is perhaps courage, what we lack is driving force which takes one any where. We have I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit.

This is from his address to the young graduates in 1969 quoted in Kalam, A P J Abdul (1 September 2010). Ignited Minds: Unleashing The Power Within India. Pearson Education India. pp. 28–29. ISBN 978-81-317-2960-1.