“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.”

“Stoning prophets and erecting churches to their memory afterwards has been the way of the world through the ages. Today we worship Christ, but the Christ in the flesh we crucified.”

“There are some actions from which an escape is a godsend both for the man who escapes and for those about him. Man, as soon as he gets back his consciousness of right, is thankful to the Divine mercy for the escape.”

“As a rule I had a distaste for any reading beyond my school books.”

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

“Le Mahatma Gandhi, que j'admire beaucoup, a dit : "Si tu rends oeil pour oeil, le monde deviendra aveugle." Je voudrais, quant à moi, dessiller les yeux des hommes plutôt qu'augmenter leur cécité ou leur indifférence devant les injustices.”

“I shall think myself blessed only when I see Him in every one of my daily acts; Verily He is the thread which supports Muktanand's life.”

“Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.”

“The first thing to bear in mind is that Arjuna falls into the error of making a distinction between kinsmen and outsiders. Outsiders may be killed even if they are not oppressors, and kinsmen may not be killed even if they are. The”

“But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the means thereto, and the capacity for it. He, who, being thus equipped, is without desire for the result and is yet wholly engrossed in the due fulfillment of the task before him is said to have renounced the fruits of his action.”

“There is no 'way to peace,' there is only 'peace.”

“The earth provides enough to satisfy every person's need, but not every person's greed.”

“I am of opinion that all exclusive intimacies are to be avoided; for man takes in vice far more readily than virtue. And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend.”

“Homeopathy cures a larger percentage of cases than any other form of treatment and is beyond doubt safer and more economical.”

“Je n'ai connu aucune distinction entre parents et inconnus, entre compatriotes et étrangers, entre blancs et hommes de couleur, entre hindous et Indiens appartenant à d'autres confessions, qu'ils soient musulmans, Parsis, chrétiens ou juifs. Je peux dire que mon coeur a été incapable défaire de telles distinctions”