New Delhi: One of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian Nationalist Movement, Bhagat Singh was born on September 27, 1907, in British Punjab. He became a martyr at the age of 23, sixteen years before India gained independence. 

On March 23, 1931, Singh, along with freedom fighters Shivaram Rajguru, and Sukhdev Thapar was hanged by the British Raj for murder during the Indian struggle for independence.

On Singh’s 111th birth anniversary, MyNation takes a look at 10 powerful quotes by the freedom fighter.

1.    Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking. 

2.    Lovers, lunatics, and poets are made of same stuff.

3.    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.

4.    The romance of militancy dominated our predecessors; now serious ideas ousted this way of thinking. No more mysticism! No more blind faith! Now realism was our mode of thinking. At times of terrible necessity, we can resort to extreme methods, but violence produces opposite results in mass movements.

5.    Bombs and pistols don’t make a revolution. The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting stone of ideas.

6.    By crushing individuals, they cannot kill ideas.

7.    Every tiny molecule of ash is in motion with my heat. I am such a lunatic that I am free even in jail.

8.    If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud. 

9.    Any man who stands for progress has to criticise, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith.

10.    I emphasize that I am full of ambition and hope and of full charm of life. But I can renounce all at the time of need, and that is the real sacrifice.