“Let every youth take a leaf out of my book and make it a point to account for everything that comes into and goes out of his pocket, and like me he is sure to be a gainer in the end.”

“the basis of my vegetarianism is not physical, but moral. If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef tea or mutton, even on medical advice, I would prefer death.”

“My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth”

“But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I”

“Our contribution to the progress of the world must, therefore, consist in setting our own house in order.”

“My difficulties lay deeper. It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life. If God could have sons, all of us were His sons. If Jesus was like God, or God Himself, then all men were like God and could be God Himself. My reason was not ready to believe literally that Jesus by his death and by his blood redeemed the sins of the world. Metaphorically there might be some truth in it. Again, according to Christianity only human beings had souls, and not other living beings, for whom death meant complete extinction; while I held a contrary belief. I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the Cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept. The pious lives of Christians did not give me anything that the lives of men of other faiths had failed to give. I had seen in other lives just the same reformation that I had heard of among Christians. Philosophically there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles. From the point of view of sacrifice, it seemed to me that the Hindus greatly surpassed the Christians. It was impossible for me to regard Christianity as a perfect religion or the greatest of all religions.”

“How heavy is the toll of sins and wrongs that wealth, power and prestige exact from man!”

“Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.”

“I had never found people quick to pay the amounts they had undertaken to subscribe, and the Natal Indians were no exception to the rule. As, therefore, no work was done unless there were funds on hand, the Natal Indian Congress has never been in debt.”

“Who can say thus far, no further, to the tide of his own nature?” Who can erase the impressions with which he is born? It is idle to expect one’s children and wards necessarily to follow the same course of evolution as oneself.”

“Where there is fear there is no religion.”

“Salah sekali untuk menuntut orang lain agar bersih kalau kita sendiri tetap tidak bersih.”

“Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.”

“There are as many different religions as there are individuals.”

“Je n'ai jamais pu comprendre comment on pouvait se sentir honoré de voir ses semblables humiliés.”