Shaheed Diwas: Here are some powerful quotes by iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh

Shaheed Diwas or Martyrs’ Day is marked on March 23 to remember the three brave freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar who were hanged by the British. The young revolutionaries had a dream for free India that they so badly wanted but did not live to see. However, their sacrificed remained etched in the Indian conscience. Considered one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian Independence Movement Bhagat Singh, became a martyr at the age of 23. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were hanged on March 23, 1931, at 7.30 pm in the Lahore jail by Britishers. Their bodies were then cremated on the banks of the Sutlej River in Firozepur district of Punjab.

On this day, we look back on some powerful quotes by Shaheed Bhagat Singh

• They may kill me, but they cannot kill my ideas. They can crush my body, but they will not be able to crush my spirit.
• Any man who stands for progress has to criticize, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosophy, his faith is welcomed. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain and makes a man reactionary.
• The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.
• 'Revolution' does not necessarily involve sanguinary strife nor is there any place in it for individual vendetta. It is not the cult of the bomb and the pistol. By 'Revolution' we mean that the present order of things, which is based on manifest injustice, must change.
• Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labor is the real sustainer of society, the sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers.