“A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.”

“The mere fact that this thought has sprung up among different nations and at different times indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth.”

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

“And when the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a limited number of rulers.

“I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with Truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments; it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. But”

“La fuerza no proviene de la capacidad fisica. Proviene de una voluntad indomable.”

“Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself”

“The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.”

“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.”

“There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”

“We measure the universe by our own miserable foot-rule. When we are slaves, we think that the whole universe is enslaved. Because we are in an abject condition, we think that the whole of India is in that condition. As a matter of fact, it is not so, yet it is as well to impute our slavery to the whole of India. But if we bear in mind the above fact, we can see that if we become free, India is free. And in this thought you have a definition of Swaraj. It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.”

“Our contribution to the progress of the world must, therefore, consist in setting our own house in order.”

“Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question.”

“How can a person who has awakened to the truth about his body ever die? Such a one attains to immortality.”

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