“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. ”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Children inherit the qualities of the parents, no less than their physical features. Environment does play an important part, but the original capital on which a child starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.
Polak and I had often very heated discussions about the desirability or otherwise of giving the children an English education. It has always been my conviction that Indian parents who train their children to think and talk in English from their infancy betray their children and their country. They deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the nation, and render them to that extent unfit for the service of the country. Having these convictions, I made a point of always talking to my children in Gujarati. Polak never liked this. He thought I was spoiling their future. He contended, with all the vigour and love at his command, that, if children were to learn a universal language like English from their infancy, they would easily gain considerable advantage over others in the race of life. He failed to convince me. I do not now remember whether I convinced him of the correctness of my attitude, or whether he gave me up as too obstinate. This happened about twenty years ago, and my convictions have only deepened with experience. Though my sons have suffered for want of full literary education, the knowledge of the mother-tongue that they naturally acquired has been all to their and the country’s good, inasmuch as they do not appear the foreigners they would otherwise have appeared. They naturally became bilingual, speaking and writing English with fair ease, because of daily contact with a large circle of English friends, and because of their stay in a country where English was the chief language spoken.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“That matchless remedy (for self realisation) is renunciation of fruits of action.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Our contribution to the progress of the world must, therefore, consist in setting our own house in order.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I felt that God could be realized only through service. And service for me was the service of India, because it came to me without my seeking, because I had an aptitude for it.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I wanted to know the best of the life of one (Muhammad) who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind. I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“No matter how well one cultivates vairagya or how diligent one is in performing good actions or what measure of bhakti, devotion, one practises, one will not shed the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ till one has attained knowledge. One can attain self-realisation only if one sheds this attachment to the ego. Only when this ‘I’ is done away with can one attain self-realisation. A man’s devotion to God is to be judged from the extent to which he gives up his stiffness and bends low in humility. Only then will he be, not an impostor, but a truly illumined man, a man of genuine knowledge.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“A person who believes in fighting and does not regard it as violence, though it is violence, is here being asked to kill.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but at the same time where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man’s plans are frustrated, the issue is never injurious and often better than anticipated. The”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Chiar şi cel mai mic neadevăr îl strică pe om, la fel cum o picătură de otravă poate strica un lac întreg.”
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Mahatma Gandhi