“A vakil should know human nature. He should be able to read a man’s character from his face. And every Indian ought to know Indian history.”

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world”

“You must be the change you want for the world.”

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

“I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”

“The first principal of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.”

“Behaviour is the mirror in which we can display our image.”

“Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act which deprived a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

“Disease increases in proportion to the increase in the number of doctors in a place.”

“Where there is possessiveness, there is violence.”

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

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

“So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him.”

“Be the change you want to see”

“When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.”