“But all my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise.”

“ordinary man can try million times..but only a ambitions man try diffrent in million ways...create new ways to solve existing problems.jj”

“I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.”

“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.”

“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole”

“As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.”

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

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

“About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service.”

“Numerous examples have convinced me that God ultimately saves him whose motive is pure.”

“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”

“Finally, this is better, that one do His own task as he may, even though he fail, Than take tasks not his own, though they seem good. To die performing duty is no ill; But who seeks other roads shall wander still.”

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.

“All your scholarship would be in vain if at the same time you do not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.”

“To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion.”