“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”

“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.”

“The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is.”

“it's easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone”

“God has no religion.”

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”

“Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.”

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.

“Europe I travelled third—and only once first, just to see what it was like—but there I noticed no such difference between the first and the third-classes. In South Africa third-class passengers are mostly Negroes, yet the third-class comforts are better there than here.”

“Children inherit the qualities of the parents, no less than their physical features. Environment does play an important part, but the original capital on which a child starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. 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. Polak and I had often very heated discussions about the desirability or otherwise of giving the children an English education. It has always been my conviction that Indian parents who train their children to think and talk in English from their infancy betray their children and their country. They deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the nation, and render them to that extent unfit for the service of the country. Having these convictions, I made a point of always talking to my children in Gujarati. Polak never liked this. He thought I was spoiling their future. He contended, with all the vigour and love at his command, that, if children were to learn a universal language like English from their infancy, they would easily gain considerable advantage over others in the race of life. He failed to convince me. I do not now remember whether I convinced him of the correctness of my attitude, or whether he gave me up as too obstinate. This happened about twenty years ago, and my convictions have only deepened with experience. Though my sons have suffered for want of full literary education, the knowledge of the mother-tongue that they naturally acquired has been all to their and the country’s good, inasmuch as they do not appear the foreigners they would otherwise have appeared. They naturally became bilingual, speaking and writing English with fair ease, because of daily contact with a large circle of English friends, and because of their stay in a country where English was the chief language spoken.”

“A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word.”

“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” 

“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.”

“The real seat of taste was not the tongue but the mind”

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