“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.”

“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 are two days in the year that we can not do anything, yesterday and tomorrow”

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

“Everyone holds a piece of the truth.”

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”

“You must be the change you want for the world.”

“There is no God higher than the truth.”

“Intolerance is a species of violence and therefore against our creed.”

“What does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

“Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap.”

“Vivre simplement, pour que simplement d'autres puissent vivre.”

“The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there”

“Even in small matters, we can say, our intellect is not resolute. It will be resolute only if we fix our minds on one purpose and cling to it with discrimination, only if we work without looking for immediate results. At present, whether in politics or social reform we leap from one branch to another. I began with the illustration of a ball of earth and told you that, even if we concentrate on that, we can realise the atman.”

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”