“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

“God, help me to tell the thruth to the strong and to avoid telling lies to get the weak's applause. If you give me success, do not take away my humility. If you give me humility, do not take away my dignity. God, help me to see the other side of the medal. Don't let me blame others of treason just because they don't think they like me. God, teach me to love people as I love myself and to judge me as I judge others. Please, don't let me be proud if I succed, or fall in despair if I fall. Remind me that failure is the experience that precedes triumph. Teach me that forgiving is the most important in the strong and that revenge is the most primitive sigh in the weak. If you take away my success, let me keep my strength to succeed from failure. If I fall people, give me courage to apologize and if people fail me, give me courage to forgive them. God, if I forget you, please do not forget me.”

“Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.”

“If we see anyone who renounces his rights in regard to worldly matters and forgives even strangers, not to speak of relations, we should think of him as a good man. If we desist from beating up a thief or any other felon, do nothing to get him punished but, after admonishing him and recovering from him the stolen article, let him go, we would be credited with humanity and our action would be regarded as an instance of non-violence; a contrary course would be looked upon as violence.”

“I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. And since then, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little or no effect on me.”

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

“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.”

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

“But so long as I lived under a system of Government based on force and voluntarily partook of the many facilities and privileges it created for me, I was bound to help that Government to the extent of my ability when it was engaged in a war, unless I non-co-operated with the Government and renounced to the utmost of my capacity the privileges it offered me.”

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

“most Americans think of Rosa Parks as a demur, pleasant-enough seamstress who backed into history by being too tired to get out of her seat on a bus one day, in reality she had been trained in nonviolence spirit and tactics at a famous institution, Highlander Folk School. It seems to be a difficult concept for most of us that peace is a skill that can be learned. We know war can be learned, but we seem to think that one becomes a peacemaker by a mere change of heart.

“Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.”

“How was one to treat alike insulting, insolent and corrupt officials, co-workers of yesterday raising meaningless opposition, and men who had always been good to one?”

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”

“A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.”