“In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.”

“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.”

“No matter how well one cultivates vairagya or how diligent one is in performing good actions or what measure of bhakti, devotion, one practises, one will not shed the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ till one has attained knowledge. One can attain self-realisation only if one sheds this attachment to the ego. Only when this ‘I’ is done away with can one attain self-realisation. A man’s devotion to God is to be judged from the extent to which he gives up his stiffness and bends low in humility. Only then will he be, not an impostor, but a truly illumined man, a man of genuine knowledge.”

“If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.”

“You must be the change you want for the world.”

“The person who has the throne will not covet a position of civil or police authority.”

“But I could not for the life of me find out a new name, and therefore offered a nominal prize through Indian Opinion to the reader who made the best suggestion on the subject. As a result Maganlal Gandhi coined the word Sadagraha (Sat: truth, Agraha: firmness) and won the prize. But in order to make it clearer I changed the word to Satyagraha which has since become current in Gujarati as a designation for the struggle.”

“That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.”

“A devotee of Truth may not do anything in deference to convention. He must always hold himself open to correction, and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong he must confess it at all costs and atone for it.”

“Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals.”

“Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.”

“The devotion of such titans of spirit as Lenin to an Ideal must bear fruit. The nobility of his selflessness will be an example through centuries to come, and his Ideal will reach perfection.”

“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world’

“Men flocked to see it and ascended it as it was a novelty and of unique dimensions. It was the toy of the exhibition. So long as we are children we are attracted by toys, and the tower was a good demonstration of the fact that we are all children attracted by trinkets. That may be claimed to be the purpose served by the Eiffel Tower.”