“The mere fact that this thought has sprung up among different nations and at different times indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth.”

“Where there is possessiveness, there is violence.”

“Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.”

“What barrier is there that love cannot break?”

“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.”

“But you can wake a man only if he is really asleep. No effort that you make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending sleep.”

“The manner in which the Gita has solved the problem is to my knowledge unique. The Gita says, ‘Do your allotted work but renounce its fruit — be detached and work — have no desire for reward and work.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

“To believe that what has not occurred in history will not occur at all, is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.”

“Truth is one, paths are many.”

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.”

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

“If we have lost faith in our vernaculars, it is a sign of want of faith in ourselves; it is the surest sign of decay. And no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak.”