“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

“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.”

“Du und ich: Wir sind eins. Ich kann dir nicht wehtun, ohne mich zu verletzen.”

“Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.”

“Do not crave to know the views of others, nor base your intent thereon. To think independently for yourself is a sign of fearlessness.”

“But all my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise.”

“And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend”

“A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.”

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

“I crave to die with my hand at the spinning wheel.”

“What lies ahead of you & what lies behind you is nothing compared to what lies within you.”

“Violence begins with the fork.

“people continued—regardless of all that leads man forward—to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence.”

“They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”

“Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.”