“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.”

“I can think of only one remedy for this awful state of things—that educated men should make a point of travelling thirdclass and reforming the habits of the people, as also of never letting the railway authorities rest in peace, sending in complaints wherever necessary, never resorting to bribes or any unlawful means for obtaining their own comforts, and never putting up with infringements of rules on the part of anyone concerned.”

“The closet was also not cleaned during the journey and there was no water in the water tank.”

“Duryodhana tells Dronacharya that his own pupil, Dhrishtadyumna has planned the deployment (on the Pandava side). They are, on both sides, his pupils, to whom he has imparted the same knowledge. But it depends on them whether they use that knowledge well or for ill.”

“The Hindus have written to me complaining that I was responsible for unifying and awakening the Mussalmans and giving prestige to the Moulvis which they never had before. Now that the Khilafat question was over, the awakened Mussalmans have proclaimed a kind of jehad against the Hindu... The tales that are reported from Bengal of outrages upon Hindu women are the most disquieting if they are even half-true.”

“The indifference of the railway authorities to the comforts of the third-class passengers, combined with the dirty and inconsiderate habits of the passengers themselves, makes third-class travelling a trial for a passenger of cleanly ways.”

“What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered, and conducted wars, war criminals? War criminals are not confined to the Axis Powers alone. Roosevelt and Churchill are no less war criminals than Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler was “Great Britain’s sin”. Hitler is only an answer to British imperialism, and this I say in spite of the fact that I hate Hitlerism and its anti-Semitism. England, America and Russia have all of them got their hands dyed more or less red — not merely Germany and Japan. The Japanese have only proved themselves to be apt pupils of the West. They have learnt at the feet of the West and beaten it at its own game.”

“The Goondas came on the scene because the leaders wanted them. The leaders distrusted one another. Distrust never comes from well-defined causes. A variety of causes, more felt than realised, breeds distrust. We have not yet visualised the fact that our interests are identical. Each party seems vaguely to believe that it can displace the other by some kind of manoeuvring. But I freely confess as suggested by Babu Bhagwandas that our not knowing the kind of Swaraj we want has also a great deal to do with the distrust. I used not to think so, but he had almost converted me before I became Sir George Lloyd's guest at the Yeravada Central Prison. I am a confirmed convert. The 'points of contact' referred to by me is a phrase intended to cover all social, religious and political relations alike as between individuals and masses. Thus, for instance instead of accentuating the differences in religion, I should set about discovering the good points common to both. I would bridge the social distance wherever I can do so consistently with my religious belief, I would go out of my way to seek common ground on the political field. As for the referee, I have named Hakim Saheb’s name undoubtedly for the universal respect that it carries with it. But I would not hesitate to put the pen even in the hands of a Mussalman who maybe known for his prejudices and fanaticism. For as a Hindu, I should know that I have nothing to lose even if the referee gave the Mussalmans a majority of seats in every province. There is no principle at stake in giving or having seats in elective bodies. Moreover experience has taught me to know that undivided responsibility immediately puts a man on his mettle and his pride or God-fearingness sobers him.”

“If you hold dear the memory of Swami Shraddhanandji, you would help in purging the atmosphere of mutual hatred and calumny, you would help in boycotting papers which foment hatred and spread misrepresentation. I am sure that India would lose nothing if 90 per cent of the papers were to cease today. Now you will, perhaps, understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother, and I repeat it, I do not even regard him as guilty of Swamiji's murder. Guilty, indeed, are all those who excited feelings of hatred against one another. For us Hindus, the Gita enjoins on us the lesson of equality; we are to cherish the same feelings towards a learned Brahmin as towards a Chandala, a dog, a cow or an elephant.”

“Creo que en el otro mundo no hay hinduistas, cristianos ni musulmanes. Todos son juzgados, no de acuerdo con sus rótulos o profesiones, sino de acuerdo con sus acciones, independientemente de la profesión que tengan.”

“[I]t seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.”

“The police... should never go on strike. Theirs was an essential service and they should render that service, irrespective of their pay. There were several other effective and honourable means of getting grievances redressed.”

“Muslims must realize and admit the wrongs perpetrated under the Islamic rule.”

“And now after considerable experience with the many public institutions which I have managed, it has become my firm conviction that it is not good to run public institutions on permanent funds. A permanent fund carries in itself the seed of the moral fall of the institution. A public institution means an institution conducted with the approval, and from the funds, of the public. When such an institution ceases to have public support, it forfeits its right to exist. Institutions maintained on permanent funds are often found to ignore public opinion, and are frequently responsible for acts contrary to it. In our country we experience this at every step. Some of the so-called religious trusts have ceased to render any accounts.”

“There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.”

“We were greedy and so was England. The connection between England and India was based clearly upon an error.”

“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.”

“The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy.”

“I can retain neither respect nor affection for a government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend its immorality.”

“I draw no distinction between error and sin. If a man commits a bona fide mistake and confesses it with a contrite heart before his Maker, the merciful Maker sterilizes it of all harm.”

“Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.”

“The law of Karma is inexorable and impossible of evasion. There is thus hardly any need for God to interfere. He laid down the law and, as it were, retired.”

“Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.”

“Action expresses priorities.”

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

“I have no doubt that the ideal is for public institutions to live, like nature, from day to day. The institution that fails to win public support has no right to exist as such.”

“Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.”

“A man of truth must also be a man of care.”

“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole”

“We who seek justice will have to do justice to others.”

“Scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature.”

“Ethical axioms are founded and tested not very differently from the axioms of science.”

“I do not believe we can have any freedom at all in the philosophical sense, for we act not only under external compulsion but also by inner necessity.”

“As it is, the hardly bought achievements of the machine age in the hands of our generation are as dangerous as a razor in the hands of a three-year-old child.”

“Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.”

“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”

“Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”

“Force always attracts men of low morality.”

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters”

“There is no such thing as a self-made person. Every success story has many unseen hands; acknowledge that.”