“Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. ~The Kreutzer Sonata”

“If the Soviet Union and its allies were allowed to continue subverting democracy with terrorism and fomenting so-called “wars of national liberation” in Central America, it wouldn’t stop there: It would spread into the continent of South America and north to Mexico. Then, as I was told that Lenin once said: “Once we have Latin America, we won’t have to take the United States, the last bastion of capitalism, because it will fall into our outstretched hands like overripe fruit. . .”

“Majority of excuses are deliberate attempts to keep success far away. Eventually, the success goes away because that is the command "excuses" gave out; "pack and go"!”

“True beauty after all consists in purity of heart.”

“Self-respect is the best means of getting the respect of others.”

“All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.”

“The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears.”

“hand God a blank sheet with your name signed at the bottom and tell him to fill in the details. The Bible says, “Give yourselves completely to God — every part of you … to be tools in the hands of God, to be used for his good purposes.”

“Men and women who give [Christ] first place find that there is no need for anxiety about this world’s goods.”

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.”

“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.”

“Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organize all your activities around it.”

“People who think they’re leading but have no one following them are only taking a walk.”

“Christians should seek after holiness—without which no man shall see the Lord. Let us seek ardently the kind of life that reflects the beauty of Jesus and marks us as being what saints ought to be!”

“When the church begins to entertain the flock and respond to the cult of self—it is diminished to a mere community center.”