“I realised that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism to a real monogamous marriage. “I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows,” is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realised the necessity of definite action. “But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow?” Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I must confess that here I had to compromise the principle of giving no commission, which in Bombay I had so scrupulously observed. I was told that conditions in the two cases were different; that whilst in Bombay commissions had to be paid to touts, here they had to be paid to vakils who briefed you; and that here as in Bombay all barristers, without exception, paid a percentage of their fees as commission.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“for every Christian feels the same, however vaguely he may do so. Socialism, Communism, Anarchism' Salvation Armies, the growth of crime, freedom from toil, the increasingly absurd luxury of the rich and increased misery of the poor, the fearfully rising number of suicides-are all indications of that inner contradiction which must and will be resolved. And, of course, resolved in such a manner that the law of love will be recognized and all reliance on force abandoned.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“We must be ever courteous and patient with those who do not see eye to eye with us. We must resolutely refuse to consider our opponents as enemies.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I shall think myself blessed only when I see Him in every one of my daily acts; Verily He is the thread which supports Muktanand's life.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I realised that even a man’s reforming zeal ought not to make him exceed his limits. I also saw that in thus lending trust-money I had disobeyed the cardinal teaching of the Gita, viz., the duty of a man of equipoise to act without desire for the fruit. The error became for me a beacon-light of warning.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“How much more does Sonia Gandhi’s son know about the past of the party of which he is now the vice president? Not very much. In Rahul Gandhi’s understanding of his party’s history, only five leaders have mattered: his mother, his father, his grandmother, his great-grandfather and Mahatma Gandhi, the only Indian politician whom he (and Sonia) have granted parity with their own family. Gokhale, Tilak, Rajaji, Azad, Kamaraj, even (or especially) Patel—these are merely names (and sometimes not even that) to the heir apparent. By”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“There is an incident which occurred at the examination during my first year at the high school and which is worth recording. Mr. Giles, the Educational Inspector, had come on a visit of inspection. He had set us five words to write as a spelling exercise. One of the words was 'kettle'. I had mis-spelt it. The teacher tried to prompt me with the point of his boot, but I would not be prompted. It was beyond me to see that he wanted me to copy the spelling from my neighbour's slate, for I had thought that the teacher was there to supervise us against copying. The result was that all the boys, except myself, were found to have spelt every word correctly. Only I had been stupid. The teacher tried later to bring this stupidity home to me, but without effect. I never could learn the art of 'copying'. ”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“A devotee of Truth may not do anything in deference to convention. He must always hold himself open to correction, and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong he must confess it at all costs and atone for it
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Mahatma Gandhi
