“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”

“Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary."

“There is only one desire in life which is good and the desire for the means to realise it is also good.”

“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”

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

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thought become YOUR WORDS. Keep your words positive because your words become YOUR BEHAVIOR Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes YOUR HABITS Keep your habits positive because your habits become YOUR VALUES Keep your values positive because your values become YOUR DESTINY”

“I have from my experience come to the conclusion that Gita has been composed to teach this one truth which I have explained. We can follow truth only in the measure that we shed our attachment to the ego.”

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

“I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.”

“Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.”

“At every moment we have to decide whether a particular action will serve the atman or the body. We cannot, however, break open the cage of the body, and so we must simultaneously follow vidya and avidya, of knowledge and ignorance.”

“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.”

“Hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.”

“Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and it will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large.”

“Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.”