“Someday your children will leave; you can’t hold on to them or control them forever, nor should you.”

“You are entitled to know that two entities occupy your body. One of these entities is motivated by and responds to the impulse of fear. The other is motivated by and responds to the impulse of faith. Will you be guided by faith or will you allow fear to overtake you?”

“La fuerza no proviene de la capacidad fisica. Proviene de una voluntad indomable.”

“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.”

“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. John Adams, U.S. President”

“I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it right.”

“I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.”

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

“I’ve learned that if you want people to be impressed, you can talk about your successes; but if you want people to identify with you, it’s better to talk about your failures.”

“Successful leaders are like icebergs. When you look at an iceberg, you see only about 10 percent of it, and the rest of it is hidden under the water. When you look at successful leaders, you see only a fraction of their lives. You see the part that looks really good, but there’s usually a lot that remains hidden that’s neither exciting nor glamorous.”

“Confident people do not concentrate on their weaknesses; they develop and maximize their strengths.”

“Young people are experts on leisure, water skiing, dancing, rock music, rapping, TV watching . . . by and large, chores are a thing of the past.”

“People who blame others for their failures never overcome them. They simply move from problem to problem. To reach your potential, you must continually improve yourself, and you can’t do that if you don’t take responsibility for your actions and learn from your mistakes.”

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”