I claim to be no more than an average man with below average capabilities.
Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end.
We no longer have a choice between violence and non-violence. The choice of today stands between nonviolence or non-existence.
A person is bound to work in obedience to and in conformity to that person’s own nature.
I honor the place within you where, when you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
Priorities lie in your actions.
Think for tomorrow but act for today.
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
If you do what you enjoy doing you’ll never have to work hard.
With my meager knowledge of my own religion I do not want to belong to any religious body.
As a rule I had a distaste for any reading beyond my school books.
When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into the people.
I have known only one way of carrying on missionary work, viz., by personal example and discussion with searchers for knowledge.
He who runs to the doctor, vaidya, or hakim for every little ailment, and swallows all kinds of vegetable and mineral drugs, not only curtails his life, but by becoming the slave of his body instead of remaining its master, loses self-control, and ceases to be a man.
But the fact that I had learnt to be tolerant to other religions did not mean that I had any living faith in God.
The story of the creation and similar things in it did not impress me very much, but on the contrary made me incline somewhat towards atheism.
It was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it.
I felt that God could be realized only through service. And service for me was the service of India, because it came to me without my seeking, because I had an aptitude for it.
If I was to be their real teacher and guardian, I must touch their hearts, I must share their joys and sorrows, I must help them to solve the problems that faced them, and I must take along the right channel the surging aspirations of their youth.
Forgive and forget, but never forget to forgive. You may find a happier heart is the key to a happier life.