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

“The devotee of truth is often obliged to grope in the dark.”

“No one has attained his goal without action. Even men like Janaka attained salvation through action.”

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

“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.”

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.”

“The heart’s earnest and pure desire is always fulfilled. In my own experience I have often seen this rule verified.”

“Purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings.”

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

“God can never be realised by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life.”

“My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.”

“had read the laws, but not learnt how to practise law.”

“It is my firm conviction that man need take no milk at all, beyond the mother’s milk that he takes as a baby. His diet should consist of nothing but sunbaked fruits and nuts.”

“Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”

“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.”