“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.”

“Today I know that physical training should have as much place in the curriculum as mental training.”

“No hay caminos para la paz; la paz es el camino.”

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

“Where there is life, there is love.”

“Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals.

“The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally, go on together, and man must make his choice.”

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

“There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no cause that I am prepared to kill for. .”

“They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.”

“I have no doubt that the ideal is for public institutions to live, like nature, from day to day. The institution that fails to win public support has no right to exist as such.”

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

“religion is morality.”

“I have from my experience come to the conclusion that Gita has been composed to teach this one truth which I have explained. We can follow truth only in the measure that we shed our attachment to the ego.”