Gandhi Quotes

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

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

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

Where there is love there is life.

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.

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

The Seven Social Sins are: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle. From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

God has no religion.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.

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

Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

The future depends on what you do today.

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

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 in the holy name of liberty or democracy?

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

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: - I shall not fear anyone on Earth. - I shall fear only God. - I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. - I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. - I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Action expresses priorities.

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.

My Life is My Message

You don't know who is important to you until you actually lose them.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

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

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.

You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.

Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.

The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

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.

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.

I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.

I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon but i want to STAY ALIVE.

There is no 'way to peace,' there is only 'peace.

Truth is one, paths are many.

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

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.

Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.

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?" [To the Women of India (Young India, Oct. 4, 1930)]

My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.

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

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.

There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.

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 than the one derived from fear of punishment.

A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.

(When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.

If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.

On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 70th birthday. "Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.

What barrier is there that love cannot break?

The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth. (said of Mahatma Gandhi)

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.

Live simply so that others may simply live.

Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.

The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.

Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home

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.

There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.

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

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

When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. 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.

They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.

I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

The path is the goal.

You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.

Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.

it's easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone

In a gentle way you can shake the world.

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

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through. Tell me what the word home means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name just by the way you describe your bedroom when you were eight. See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate, and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms or would leave your snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name, and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind. Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel. Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school. If you were walking by a chemical plant where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would you whisper “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy!” Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me — how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? See, I wanna know if you believe in any god or if you believe in many gods or better yet what gods believe in you. And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you asked come true? And if they didn’t, did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass. If you ever reach enlightenment will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? Would you think less of me if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key? And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence. Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence? And if you do — I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar. See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving, and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes from other people’s wounds, and if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon — that if you wanted to, you could pop, but you never would ‘cause you’d never want it to stop. If a tree fell in the forest and you were the only one there to hear — if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist, or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness? And lastly, let me ask you this: If you and I went for a walk and the entire walk, we didn’t talk — do you think eventually, we’d… kiss? No, wait. That’s asking too much — after all, this is only our first date.

I have nothing to do with this pseudo-religious approach that Gandhi is advocating.

True beauty lies in purity of the heart.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people; those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Gandhi is the other person. I believe Gandhi is the only person who knew about real democracy — not democracy as the right to go and buy what you want, but democracy as the responsibility to be accountable to everyone around you. Democracy begins with freedom from hunger, freedom from unemployment, freedom from fear, and freedom from hatred. To me, those are the real freedoms on the basis of which good human societies are based.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.

The only difference between man and man all the world over is one of degree, and not of kind, even as there is between trees of the same species. Where in is the cause for anger, envy or discrimination?

Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.

The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

Wherever you are you will always be in my heart.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them-a desire, a dream, a vison.

If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

Don’t say you don’t have enough time or enough money to change the world. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Gandhi, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci and Jesus Christ.

The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognise this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.

True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.

I am Plato's Republic. Mr. Simmons is Marcus. I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and-this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

But you can wake a man only if he is really asleep. No effort that you make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending sleep.

Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man's supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live.

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.

A Manifesto for Introverts 1. There's a word for 'people who are in their heads too much': thinkers. 2. Solitude is a catalyst for innovation. 3. The next generation of quiet kids can and must be raised to know their own strengths. 4. Sometimes it helps to be a pretend extrovert. There will always be time to be quiet later. 5. But in the long run, staying true to your temperament is key to finding work you love and work that matters. 6. One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards. 7. It's OK to cross the street to avoid making small talk. 8. 'Quiet leadership' is not an oxymoron. 9. Love is essential; gregariousness is optional. 10. 'In a gentle way, you can shake the world.' -Mahatma Gandhi

Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle, and a victory.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

Where love is, there God is also.

Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.

You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve love and affection.

Where there is life, there is love.

True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.

Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Everywhere we walked we got plenty of attention due to the camera and sound men. The locals love to get on camera. [...] I'd seen footage of Gandhi surrounded like this and always thought it was because he was very popular, but now I wonder if it was just because he had a camera crew with him.

I learned from Hussain how to be wronged and be a winner, I learnt from Hussain how to attain victory while being oppressed.

Violence begins with the fork.

The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see Truth in fragment and from different points of vision.

I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

If I were asked to define the Hindu creed, I should simply say: Search after truth through non-violent means. A man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu. Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth... Hinduism is the religion of truth. Truth is God. Denial of God we have known. Denial of truth we have not known.

Everyone holds a piece of the truth.

Men often become what they believe themselves to be.If I believe I cannot do something,it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can , then I acquire the ability to do it even If I didn't have it in the beginning".

There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

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

Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is the Truth.

I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.

To believe that what has not occurred in history will not occur at all, is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary." (Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13, 3 May 1919)

If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

I should love to satisfy all, if I possibly can; but in trying to satisfy all, I may be able to satisfy none. I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the best course is to satisfy one’s own conscience and leave the world to form its own judgment, favorable or otherwise.

Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.

The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is really fear.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends. Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was. Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill. Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia. Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognise him. Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor. And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.

It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from "Secondly." Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with "Secondly," and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with "Secondly," and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victims. It is enough to start with "Secondly," for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with "Secondly," and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British.

Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.

The only tyrant I accept is the still, small voice within me.

I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am invincible.

Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak.

Hatred can be overcome only by love.

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?

I can tell you get it -- you're different. And I know how hard being different can be. But I also know how powerful a weapon being different can be. How the world needs such weapons. Gandhi was different. All great people are. And unique people such as you and me need to seek out other unique people who understand -- so we don't get too lonely and end up where you did tonight

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.

A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it. (Young India 1924-1926)

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that one that must be loved is not a friend. There is not merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.

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.

There are two days in the year that we can not do anything, yesterday and tomorrow

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

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.

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 peace.

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any

Whatever you do in life will be insignificant. but it is very important that you do it because, You can't know; You can't ever really know the meaning of your life, and you don't need to. Just know that your life has a meaning. Every life has a meaning; whether it lasts one-hundred years or one-hundred seconds.Every life and every death changes the world in its own way. Gandhi knew this. He knew his life would mean something to someone, somewhere, somehow. And he knew with as much certainty that he could never know that meaning. He understood that enjoying life should be of much greater concern than understanding it. And so do I. You can't know. So don't take it for granted; but don't take it too seriously. Don't postpone what you want. Don't leave anything misunderstood. Make sure the people you care about know. Make sure they know how you really feel. Because just like that it could end.

It is not that I do not get angry. I don't give vent to my anger. I cultivate the quality of patience as angerlessness, and generally speaking, I succeed. But I only control my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant practice.

I become more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of Hussein, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers and his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

چیزی در درونم مرا وامی دارد رنج خود را با صدای بلند فریاد کنم.من نیک دانسته ام که چه باید بکنم.آنچه در درونم هست و هرگز فریبم نمی دهد اکنون به من می گوید:باید در مقابل دنیا بایستی،حتی اگر تنها بمانی.باید چشم در چشم دنیا بدوزی،حتی اگر دنیا با چشمان خون گرفته به تو بنگرد.ترس به دل راه نده.به سخن آن موجود کوچکی که در قلبت خانه دارد اطمینان کن که می گوید:دوستان،همسر،و همه چیز و همه کس را رها کن و فقط به آنچه برایش زیسته ای و به خاطرش باید بمیری شهادت بده

I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-advantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.