“I believed then, and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's meals. It is my humble opinion that, far from taking away from one's capacity for work, it adds to it.”

“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.”

“Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question.”

“La non-violence est la loi de notre espèce, comme la violence est la loi de la brute. L'esprit somnole chez la brute qui ne connaît pour toute loi que cette de la force physique. La dignité de l'homme exige d'obéir à une loi supérieure. à la force de l'esprit.”

“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

“Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.”

“No one has attained his goal without action. Even men like Janaka attained salvation through action.”

“Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.”

“It takes two to make a quarrel. If I do not want to quarrel with a Mahomedan, the latter will be powerless to foist a quarrel on me; and, similarly, I should be powerless if a Mahomedan refuses his assistance to quarrel with me.

“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.”

“Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”

“I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.”

“A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.”

A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”

“The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of themselves by doing them a great kindness.”