Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi Quotes

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people's houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave."

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

"The hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of non- violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of non-violence to generate heat."

"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

"They can not take away our self respect if we do not give it to them."

"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history."

"Action expresses priorities."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

"Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking"

"Ahimas is the attribute of the soul, and therefore, to be practiced by everybody in all affairs of life. If it cannot be practiced in all departments, it has no practical value."

"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress."

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."

"The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience."

"Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy."

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

"I want freedom for the full expression on my personality."

"As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it."

"Be the change that you want to see in the world."

"Between husband and wife there should be no secrets from one another. I have a very high opinion of the marriage tie. I hold that husband and wife merge in each other. They are one in two or two in one."

"I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers."

"One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds."

"Hatred ever kills, love never dies such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred."

"I think it would be a good idea."

"Non-violence and cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true non-violence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness."

"Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it."

"I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following."

"Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy."

"A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act."

"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."

"Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself."

"My life is one indivisible whole, and all my activities run intoone another, and they all have their rise in my insatiable love of mankind."

"Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way to find oneself."

"Let no one say that he is a follower of Gandhi. It is enough that I should be my own follower. I know what an inadequate follower I am of myself, for I cannot live up to the convictions I stand for. You are no followers but fellow students, fellow pilgrims, fellow seekers, fellow workers."

"Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself."

"Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will remain."

"You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind."

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning."

"Everyone has faith in God though everyone does not know it. For everyone has faith in himself and that multiplied to the nth degree is God. The sum total of all that lives is God. We may not be God, but we are of God, even as a little drop of water is of the ocean."

"I saw that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the Cross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself."

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."

"No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is 'making sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice."

"The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity."

"It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, ruled us we should have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence."

"Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness... It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."

"In a gentle way, you can shake the world."

"I may live without air and water, but not without Him. You may pluck out my eyes, but that cannot kill me. You may chop off my nose but that will not kill me. But blast my belief in God, and I am dead."

"It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out."

"The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different."

"Have I not gazed at the marvellous mystery of the starry vault, hardly ever tiring of the great panorama?"

"Don't listen to friends when the Friend inside you says 'Do this.'"

"Ill-digested principles are, if anything, worse than ill-digested food, for the latter harms the body and there is cure for it, whereas the former ruins the soul and there is no cure for it."

"Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living ?"

"To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest."

"Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation."

"Human kind has to get out of violence only through nonviolence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred."

"In nature there is fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity."

"Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue."

"We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party."

"Evil is, good or truth misplaced."

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves."

"Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment."

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may. We are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say."

"Restraint never ruins one's health. What ruins it,is not restraint but outward suppression. A really self-restrained person grows every day from strength to strength and from peace to more peace. The very first step in self-restraint is the restraint of thoughts."

"Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear."

"A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion."

"Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature."

"Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it."

"Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding."

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

"Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or lordliness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds, not in words."

"I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease."

"I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience, which is God."

"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

"A dissolute character is more dissolute in thought than in deed. And the same is true of violence. Our violence in word and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging violence of thought in us."

"Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man theniron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal."

"Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be."

"Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes."

"Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart."

"There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever."

"There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts."

"If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause."

"I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps."

"An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."

"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side."

"Fear has its use but cowardice has none."

"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."

"Self-respect knows no considerations."

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

"I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence."

"Consciously or unconsciously, everyone of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and it will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large."

"Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul."

"Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent."

"To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer."

"If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake."

"If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm."

"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action."

"Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone."

"I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others."

"I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others."

"Surely conversion is a matter between man and his Maker who alone knows his creatures' hearts. A conversion without a clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of God and Religion. Conversion without cleanliness of heart can only be a matter of sorrow, not joy, to a godly person."

"Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be inseparable part of our very being."

"I need no inspiration other then Nature's. She has never failed me yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into ecstasies. Besides God's handiwork, does not man's fade into insignificance?"

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err."

"Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into."

"It is easy enough to say, 'I do not believe in God.' For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment."

"I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust."

"There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed."

"Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment."

"Real suffering, bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha."

"As a rule, the mind, residing in a body that has become weakened by pampering, is also weak, and where there is no strength of mind there can be no strength of soul."

"All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take."

"Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion."

"I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice."

"Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth."

"I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality."

"God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless."

"Courage has never been known to be a matter of muscle; it is a matter of the heart. The toughest muscle has been known to tremble before an imaginary fear. It was the heart that set the muscle atrembling."

"I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith."

"Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being."

"One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's."

"I claim to be no more than an average person with less than average ability. I have not the shadow of doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith."

"God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west... keeping the world in chains. If our nation took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts."

"An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his principles as we would expect others to have for ours. Non-violence demands that we should seek every opportunity to win over opponents."

"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes."

"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave."

"A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help. Therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and a snare."

"Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion."

"Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him."

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him."

"Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God."

"Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practises untruth or injustice. Only then can love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one party disregards the obligation of friendship."

"I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time, where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better then anticipated."

"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

"My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family, that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty, and that this defence prevails, though the world be against the individual resister."

"The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body."

"Suffering has its well-defined limits. Suffering can be both wise and unwise, and when the limit is reached, to prolong it would be not unwise but the height of folly."

"It may be long before the law of love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another."

"It is man's social nature which distinguishes him from the brute creation. If it is his privilege to be independent, it is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an arrogant man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be self-contained."

"A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal."

"Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you."

"He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa. He who is angry is guilty of Himsa."

"Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle."

"I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith. Work without faith is like an attempt to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

"I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time, where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better then anticipated."

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."

"It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh."

"Rights accrue automatically to him who duly performs his duties. In fact the right to perform one's duties is the only right that is worth living for and dying for. It covers all legitimate rights. All the rest is grab under one guise or another and contains in it seed of Himsa."

"I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace."

"Destruction is not the law of humans. Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another is a crime against humanity."

"Democracy must in essence, therefore, mean the art and science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all the various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all."

"Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lie not in hatred but in justice, if not in love."

"Perfection is the exclusive attribute of God, and it is indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is possible for human beings to become perfect. It is necessary for all of us to aspire after that perfection but when that blessed state is attained, it becomes indescribable, indefinable."

"Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory."

"Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality."

"Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position."

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."

"Rights accrue automatically to him who duly performs his duties. In fact the right to perform one's duties is the only right that is worth living for and dying for. It covers all legitimate rights. All the rest is grab under one guise or another and contains in it seed of Himsa."

"Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point."

"God tries his votaries through and through but never beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through the ordeal he prescribes for them."

"Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause."

"No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is 'making sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice."

"In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place."

"Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress."

"Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth."

"A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people."

"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator."

"I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world."

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

"It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head."

"Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts."

"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within."

"Peace is its own reward."

"Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another."

"I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people."

"Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion."

"Indeed one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest."

"Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness."

"Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience."

"Those who know how to think need no teachers."

"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth."

"Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom."

"Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort."

"The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent."

"That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake."

"Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education."

"Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared."

"I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another."

"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is."

"When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible."

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."

"Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other."

"God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained."

"Indeed one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest."

"Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realize that they need not fear brute force, if they would but know the soul within."

"Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man."

"It is through truth non-violence that I can have some glimpseof God. Truth non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin."

"Where there is love there is life."

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

"But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac."

"Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is notworth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be."

"No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive."

"The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless."

"Proved right should be capable of being vindicated by right means as against the rude i.e. sanguinary means. Man may and should shed his own blood for establishing what he considers to be his right. He may not shed the blood of his opponent who disputes his 'right'."

"I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter's divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me."

"Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy."

"Must I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up."

"Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances."

"It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head."

"There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good."

"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."

"I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world."

"It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity."

"Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep."

"Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame."

"For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion."

"The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted."

"Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all."

"The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart."

"If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children."

"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action."

"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."

"The first condition of humaneness is a little humility and a little diffidence about the correctness of one's conduct and a little receptiveness."

"Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession."

"Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up."

"A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice."

"I need no inspiration other then Nature's. She has never failed me yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into ecstasies. Besides God's handiwork, does not man's fade into insignificance?"

"Where love is, there God is also."

"Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages."

"I want to see India free in my life-time. But God may not consider me fit enough to see the dream of my life fulfilled. Then I shall quarrel, not with Him but with myself."

"Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her."

"Manliness consists in making circumstances subserve to ourselves."

"Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort."

"The badge of the violent is his weapon, spear, sword or rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent."

"No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of merit."

"Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men."

"It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings."

"Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit."

"I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force."

"An eye for an eye makes us all blind."

"All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth."

"Humility cannot be an observance by itself. For, it does not lend itself to being deliberately practised. It is, however, an indispensable test of 'Ahimsa.' For one who has 'Ahimsa' in him it becomes part of his very nature."

"Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her."

"We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study."

"We must become the change we want to see in the world."

"Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle."

"Humility cannot be an observance by itself. For, it does not lend itself to being deliberately practised. It is, however, an indispensable test of 'Ahimsa.' For one who has 'Ahimsa' in him it becomes part of his very nature."

"Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands."

"Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment."

"My life is my message."

"Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive."

"Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness."

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

"Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith."

"Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment."

"A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness."

"Each one prays to God according to his own light."

"I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the sacrifice demanded my very life, I hope I may be prepared to give it."

"If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty."

"Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment."

"Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts."

"Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands."

"I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace."

"A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit thesin again, when offered before one who has the right to receiveit, is the purest type of repentance."

"Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it."

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problem."

"I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed."

"I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter's divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me."

"Surely conversion is a matter between man and his Maker who alone knows his creatures' hearts. A conversion without a clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of God and Religion. Conversion without cleanliness of heart can only be a matter of sorrow, not joy, to a godly person."

"The first condition of humaneness is a little humility and a little diffidence about the correctness of one's conduct and a little receptiveness."

"We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?"

"We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it."

"An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

"Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies."

"It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business."

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart."

"God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us."

"My trust is solely in god. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species."

"I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul."

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."

"Truth never damages a cause that is just."

"Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain."

"The good man is the friend of all living things."

"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good."

"Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality."

"I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust."

"It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business."

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea."

"Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison."

"It is easy enough to say, 'I do not believe in God.' For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment."

"The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted."

"However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes."

"Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up."

"Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening."

"Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion."

"Non-violence is the article of faith."

"Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being."

"Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment."

"Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed."

"Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it."

"Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness... It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."

"If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide."

"What is true of the individual will be to-morrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope."

"I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically inexpedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint."

"One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's."

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it."

"I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill."