“Be the change you want to see”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”

“If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.” 

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

“As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.”

“A moral life, without reference to religion, is like a house built upon sand. And religion, divorced from morality, is like “sounding brass, good only for making a noise and breaking heads.”

“Why should I, who have no need to work for food, spin? ' may be the question asked. Because I am eating what does not belong to me. I am living on the spoliation of my countrymen. Trace the source of every coin that finds its way into your pocket, and you will realise the truth of what I write. Every one must spin.” 

“My difficulties lay deeper. It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life. If God could have sons, all of us were His sons. If Jesus was like God, or God Himself, then all men were like God and could be God Himself. My reason was not ready to believe literally that Jesus by his death and by his blood redeemed the sins of the world. Metaphorically there might be some truth in it. Again, according to Christianity only human beings had souls, and not other living beings, for whom death meant complete extinction; while I held a contrary belief. I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the Cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept. The pious lives of Christians did not give me anything that the lives of men of other faiths had failed to give. I had seen in other lives just the same reformation that I had heard of among Christians. Philosophically there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles. From the point of view of sacrifice, it seemed to me that the Hindus greatly surpassed the Christians. It was impossible for me to regard Christianity as a perfect religion or the greatest of all religions.”

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

“This is the centre round which the Gita is woven. This renunciation is the central sun, round which devotion, knowledge and the rest revolve like planets. The body has been likened to a prison. There must be action where there is body. Not one embodied being is exempted from labour. And yet all religions proclaim that it is possible for man, by treating the body as the temple of God, to attain freedom. Every action is tainted, be it ever so trivial. How can the body be made the temple of God? In other words how can one be free from action, i.e. from the taint of sin? The Gita has answered the question in decisive language: ‘By desireless action; by renouncing fruits of action; by dedicating all activities to God, i.e., by surrendering oneself to Him body and soul.”

“All your scholarship would be in vain if at the same time you do not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.”

“Where there is possessiveness, there is violence.”

“The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there”

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”