“Kekerasan adalah senjata orang yang jiwanya lemah.”

“No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.”

“people continued—regardless of all that leads man forward—to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence.”

“Il arrive un moment de la vie où l'on n'a même plus besoin de déclarer publiquement ses pensées et encore bien moins de les manifester par des actes extérieurs. Les pensées agissent par elles mêmes. Elles peuvent être douées de ce pouvoir. On peut dire de celui dont la pensée est action que son apparente inaction est sa vraie manière d'agir… C'est dans ce sens que je dirige mes efforts.”

“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.”

“A reformer cannot afford to have close intimacy with him whom he seeks to reform. True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world.”

“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”

“service can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the man and crushes his spirit. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.”

“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”

“Today I know that physical training should have as much place in the curriculum as mental training.”

“The path is the goal.”

“I believed then, and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one’s meals.”

“I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am invincible.”

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

“It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.  This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.”