“The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.”

“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole”

“If we are unmanly today, we are so, not because we do not know how to strike, but because we fear to die.”

“Lebe, als würdest Du morgen sterben und lerne, als ob Du ewig leben würdest.”

“Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…”

“shall be able to kindle the same in you. But one cannot light a piece of stone. Only those of you who have some oil and wick in them will light their lamp with this matchstick of mine.”

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

“To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect and their oneness, and should insist upon choosing as their representatives only such persons as are good and true.”

“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.”

“But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the means thereto, and the capacity for it. He, who, being thus equipped, is without desire for the result and is yet wholly engrossed in the due fulfillment of the task before him is said to have renounced the fruits of his action.”

“When your intellect, once perverted by listening to all manner of arguments, is totally absorbed in the contemplation of God, you will then attain yoga. When a person is firmly established in samadhi — samadhi means fixing the mind on God — he is filled with ecstatic love and, therefore, can be completely indifferent to this world.”

“The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is.”

“That we should obey laws whether good or bad is a new-fangled notion. There was no such thing in former days. The people disregarded those laws they did not like and suffered the penalties for their breach.”

“Um homem não pode fazer o certo numa área da vida, enquanto está ocupado em fazer o errado em outra. A vida é um todo indivisível.”

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”