“I can retain neither respect nor affection for government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend its immorality”

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated

“Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth.”

“The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions.”

“I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress.”

“I must confess that here I had to compromise the principle of giving no commission, which in Bombay I had so scrupulously observed. I was told that conditions in the two cases were different; that whilst in Bombay commissions had to be paid to touts, here they had to be paid to vakils who briefed you; and that here as in Bombay all barristers, without exception, paid a percentage of their fees as commission.”

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

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

“I learned from Hussain how to be wronged and be a winner, I learnt from Hussain how to attain victory while being oppressed.”

“But the fact that I had learnt to be tolerant to other religions did not mean that I had any living faith in God.”

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

“We should be able to refuse to live if the price of living be the torture of sentient beings.”

“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.”

“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”

“My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”