“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.”

“Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is the Truth.”

“masses follow the classes.”

“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.”

“I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with Truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments; it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography.”

“Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.”

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

“Sir Pherozeshah had seemed to me like the Himalaya, the Lokamanya like the ocean. But Gokhale was as the Ganges.” 

“shall be able to kindle the same in you. But one cannot light a piece of stone. Only those of you who have some oil and wick in them will light their lamp with this matchstick of mine.”

“If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.”

“Everyone holds a piece of the truth.”

“The Mahabharata was not composed with the aim of describing a battle. The description of the battle serves only as a pretext.”

“When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into the people.”

“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

“That which never was, cannot exist, and that which exists, cannot cease to exist. Even the Sun is transient, coming into existence and vanishing. The candle both exists and does not exist, for, when it is burnt, its substance dissolves back into the five elements. Everything which has a name and a form ceases one day to exist in that particular mode, though it does not cease to be a creation of God.”