“Even the most despotic government cannot stand except for the consent of the governed.... Immediately the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, his power is gone.”

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

“With my meagre knowledge of my own religion i do not want to belong to any religious body”

“It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.”

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thought become YOUR WORDS. Keep your words positive because your words become YOUR BEHAVIOR Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes YOUR HABITS Keep your habits positive because your habits become YOUR VALUES Keep your values positive because your values become YOUR DESTINY”

“My love simply greater than you always. Your each breath cuts me.”

“All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient.”

“God can never be realised by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life.”

“Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.”

“It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is shaming by his manners.”

“A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.”

“If we have lost faith in our vernaculars, it is a sign of want of faith in ourselves; it is the surest sign of decay.”

“Live simply so that others may simply live.”

“Duryodhana tells Dronacharya7 that his own pupil, Dhrishtadyumna8 has planned the deployment (on the Pandava side). They are, on both sides, his pupils, to whom he has imparted the same knowledge. But it depends on them whether they use that knowledge well or for ill.”

“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.”