Mahatma Gandhi

Knowledge gained through experience is far superior and many times more useful than bookish knowledge.

Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.

My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.

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

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

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

I have not conceived my mission to be that of a knight-errant wandering everywhere to deliver people from difficult situations. My humble occupation has been to show people how they can solve their own difficulties.

A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.

You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilisation to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.

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 think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but each step upwards makes me feel stronger and fit for the next.

The goal ever recedes from us. The greater the progress the greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

The devotee of truth is often obliged to grope in the dark.

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.

I understood . . . that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.

You can't shake hands with a closed fist.