“he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning “That path leads ever down into stagnation.”

“Un luchador por la libertad aprende, por el camino más duro, que es el opresor el que define la naturaleza de la lucha.”

“The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.”

“The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.”

“Most of us think wonderful things about people, but they never know it. Too many of us tend to be tight-fisted with our praise. It’s of no value if all you do is think it; it becomes valuable when you impart it.”

“The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good. ”

“Cemetery communication: lots of people are out there, but nobody is listening.”

“If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.”

“Because you have messed up, many of you believe your calling has been annulled. The devil is a liar, for “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). That is, they are irrevocable—He’s not taking them back.” 

“Opportunity is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

“Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties…and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all.”

“In everything, almost in everything, I wrote I was guided by the need of collecting ideas which, linked together, would be the expression of myself, though each individual idea, expressed separately in words, loses its meaning, is horribly debased when only one of the links, of which it forms a part, is taken by itself. But the interlinking of these ideas is not, I think, an intellectual process, but something else, and it is impossible to express the source of this interlinking directly in words; it can only be done indirectly by describing images, actions, and situations in words.”

“[God] will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest chemist's shop.”

“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.”