Great Throughts Treasury

"The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is fear."

"The highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline and humility. Unbridled license is a sign of vulgarity, injurious alike to self and one's neighbors."

"The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership, by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery and tenacity."

"The machine has conquered man and man has become a machine, working but no longer living."

"The law of love knows no bounds of space or time."

"The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states."

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the "still, small voice" within me."

"The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree."

"There are limits to self-indulgence, none to self-restraint."

"There are seven things that will destroy us [seven sins of the world]: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Religion without sacrifice; Politics without principle; Science without humanity; Business without ethics."

"The true source of rights is duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek."

"The various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination?"

"We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other."

"When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they have seemed invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it: always."

"Why not learn by getting down to the actual practice?"

"There is a higher court of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts."

"There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed."

"This ahimsa [non-harm] is the basis of the search for truth . . . It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resists and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself."

"There is no limit to the measure of sacrifice that one may make in order to realize oneness with all life, but certainly that ideal will set a limit to your wants. That is the antithesis of the position of modern civilization which says, "Increase your wants.""

"To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest."

"Truth never damages a cause that is just."

"War is an unmitigated evil. But it certainly does one good thing. It drives away fear and brings bravery to the surface."

"I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease."

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

"Your capacity to keep your vow will depend on the purity of your life."

"The cry for peace will be a cry in the wilderness, so long as the spirit of nonviolence does not dominate millions of men and women."

"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."

"If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence."

"Leo Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non­resistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self­suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great and divine law of love. He applies it to all the problems that trouble mankind."

"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. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed."

"Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed."

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained."

"I’m a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience, which is God."

"To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?"

"It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all. The existence of God is like a geometrical axiom. It may be beyond our heart grasp. I shall not talk of an intellectual grasp. Intellectual attempts are more or less failures, as a rational explanation cannot give you the faith in a living God. For it is a thing beyond the grasp of reason. It transcends reason. There are numerous phenomena from which you can reason out the existence of God, but I shall not insult your intelligence by offering you a rational explanation of that type. I would have you brush aside all rational explanations and begin with a simple childlike faith in God. If I exist, God exists. With me it is a necessity of my being as it is with millions. They may not be able to talk about it, but from their life you can see that it is a part of their life. I am only asking you to restore the belief that has been undermined. In order to do so, you have to unlearn a lot of literature that dazzles your intelligence and throws you off your feet. Start with the faith which is also a token of humility and an admission that we know nothing, that we are less than atoms in this universe. We are less than atoms, I say, because the atom obeys the law of its being, whereas we in the insolence of our ignorance deny the law of nature. But I have no argument to address to those who have no faith."

"I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him."

"It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace … Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?"

"The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least."

"Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British."

"You assist an unjust administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil administration never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty."

"Remember that there is always a limit to self-indulgence but none to self-restraint, and let us daily progress in that direction."

"Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. I must continue to bear testimony to truth even if I am forsaken by all. Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other voices are silenced, if it is the voice of Truth."

"In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals."

"Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means “good conduct”."

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

"Nothing is impossible for pure love."

"In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be. Measuring myself by that standard I must exclaim with Surdas: ' Where is there a wretch So wicked and loathsome as I? I have forsaken my Maker, So faithless have I been.' For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them."

"Jealousy does not wait for reasons."

"A man of truth must also be a man of care."