Great Throughts Treasury

"But all my life though, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom."

""Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world."

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means. Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings. But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experiences of the dormant passions lying hidden within me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. 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. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility."

"I had learnt at the onset not to carry on public work with borrowed money."

"Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal."

"This is no appeal made by a man who does not know his business. I have been practising with scientific precision non-violence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years. I have applied it in every walk of life, domestic, institutional, economic and political. I know of no single case in which it has failed. Where it has seemed sometimes to have failed, I have ascribed it to my imperfections. I claim no perfection for my self. But I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but another name for God. In the course of the search the discovery of non-violence came to me. Its spread is my life-mission. I have no interest in living except for the prosecution of that mission."

"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

"One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

"Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue."

"Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and it will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large."

"Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep."

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

"You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind."

"All faiths constitute a revelation of Truth, but all are imperfect and liable to error."

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."

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

"I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality."

"To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend."

"All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions."

"I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love."

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart."

"Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason."

"Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment."

"A living faith cannot be manufactured by the rule of majority."

"I need no inspiration other then Nature's. She has never failed me yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into ecstasies. Besides God's handiwork, does not man's fade into insignificance?"

"It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out."

"Each one prays to God according to his own light."

"The hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of non- violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of non-violence to generate heat."

"The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body."

"This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost."

"Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort."

"Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding."

"We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study."

"Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion."

"No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is 'making sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice."

"Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress."

"Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts."

"Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession."

"Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into."

"Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation."

"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance,cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side."

"Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education."

"Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment."

"The sacrifice which causes sorrow to the doer of the sacrifice is no sacrifice. Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy. The Buddha gave up the pleasures of life because they had become painful to him."

"To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness."

"Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul."

"Destruction is not the law of humans. Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another is a crime against humanity."

"One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's."