“Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills, and in it you too have the only method of saving your people from enslavement.”

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

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

“La non-violence est la loi de notre espèce, comme la violence est la loi de la brute. L'esprit somnole chez la brute qui ne connaît pour toute loi que cette de la force physique. La dignité de l'homme exige d'obéir à une loi supérieure. à la force de l'esprit.”

“The first principal of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.”

“Un país, una civilización se puede juzgar por la forma en que trata a sus animales.”

“He who is ever brooding over result often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action never remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is like a man given to objects of senses; he is ever distracted, he says goodbye to all scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul to attain his end.”

“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”

“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself.”

“(When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.” 

“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.”

“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.”

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.”

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

“Even the most despotic government cannot stand except for the consent of the governed.... Immediately the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, his power is gone.”