I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect.Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. He is part of it. The sum-total of that life is God.I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species.
He who is discontented, however much he possesses, becomes a slave to his desires.It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
(Swaraj can mean self-governance or “self-rule” but the word usually refers to Gandhi’s concept for Indian independence from foreign domination)The Swaraj of my dream recognizes no race or religious distinctions.Independence means voluntary restraints and discipline, voluntary acceptance of the rule of law. We are dependent on him. What he thinks, he becomes.Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.My faith is brightest in the midst of impenetrable darkness.That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.Even if the paradise of material satisfactions, which they envisage as their final goal, were realize on earth, it would not bring mankind either contentment or peace.The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. Martin Luther King Jr (American minister and activist)You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. Learn as if you were to live forever. Rabindranath Tagore (Indian poet)You have to grow from the inside out. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or imperfections.Nonviolent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Mahatma Gandhi is a world renowned leader who was a politician, a writer, an intellectual and a gifted orator. Therefore, they are equally true, though being received and interpreted through human instruments equally imperfect.Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.It is the duty of every cultured man or woman to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.The essence of all religions is one. Character building comes from their very lives really speaking, it must come from within yourselves.When it is remembered that the primary aim of all education is, or should be, the moulding of the character of pupils, a teacher who has a character to keep need not lost heart.If teachers impart all the knowledge in the world to their students but inculcate not truth and purity among them, they will have betrayed them and instead of raising them set them on the downward road to perdition.Knowledge without character is a power for evil only, as seen in the instances of so many talented thieves and ‘gentlemen rascals’ in the world.Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind.There can be no knowledge without humility and the will to learn.Literary training by itself adds not an inch to one’s moral height and that character-building is independent of literary training.The students should be, above all, humble and correct… The greatest to remain great has to be the lowliest by choice.The utterly false idea that intelligence can be developed only through book-reading should give place to the truth that the quickest development of the mind can be achieved by artisan’s work being learnt in a scientific manner.We have up to now concentrated on stuffing children’s minds with all kinds information, without ever thinking of stimulating and developing them.