Great Throughts Treasury

"Much that we hug today as knowledge is ignorance pure and simple… It makes the mind wander and even reduces it to a vacuity."

"My austerities, fastings, and prayers, are, I know, of no value if I rely upon them for reforming me. But they have an inestimable value if they represent, as I hope they do, the yearnings of a soul striving to lay his weary head in the lap of his maker."

"No nation can find its own salvation by breaking away from others. We must all be saved or we must all perish together."

"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good."

"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."

"Nothing so completely describes my God as Truth."

"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; to me, the female sex is not the weaker sex."

"Our prayer for others ought never to be: “God, give them the light Thou has given to me!” but: “God! Give to them all the light and truth they need for their highest development!”"

"Retreat is often a plan of resistance and may be a precursor of great bravery and sacrifice. Every retreat is not cowardice which implies fear to die."

"Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not of cowardice."

"Prayer is an impossibility without a living faith in the presence of God within."

"Prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined with utmost humility."

"Prayer is not asking; it is the longing of the soul."

"Religion is not what is grasped by the brain, but a heart grasp."

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

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

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

"Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others."

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

"The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose."

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

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

"The best politics is right action."

"The challenge is to hate the sin but love the sinner."

"The greatest lessons in life, if we would but stoop and humble our selves, we would learn not from the grown-up learned men, but from the so-called ignorant children."

"The moral law has its seat in the soul of man. Truth is within ourselves. There is an inmost center in us all where Truth abides in fullness."

"The most ignorant among mankind have some truth in them. We are all sparks of Truth. The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as-yet-Unknown-Truth, which is God."

"The lower animals are our brethren. I include among them the lion and the tiger. We do not know how to live with these carnivorous beasts and poisonous reptiles because of our ignorance. When man learns better, he will learn to befriend even these. Today he does not even know how to befriend a man of a different religion or from a different country."

"The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within."

"The only devils in the world are those running in their own hearts. That is where the battle should be fought."

"The test of friendship is assistance in adversity – and that, too, unconditional assistance. Cooperation which needs consideration is a commercial contract, and not friendship. Conditional cooperation is like adulterated cement which does not bind."

"The music of life is in danger of being lost in the music of the voice."

"The spirit of nonresistance… is the greatest force because it is the highest expression of the soul."

"The principle of nonviolence necessitates complete abstention from exploitation in any form."

"The purpose of life is undoubtedly to know oneself. We cannot do it unless we learn to identify ourselves with all that lives. The sum total of that life is God. Hence the necessity of realizing God living within every one of us… The instrument of this knowledge is boundless, selfless service."

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

"They can’t take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them."

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."

"The willing sacrifice of the innocents is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet to be conceived by God or man."

"There is no other God than Truth… 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."

"To a man with an empty stomach, food is God."

"Three of the greatest teachers of the world, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, have left unimpeachable testimony that they found illumination through prayer and could not possibly live without it."

"To lose patience is to lose the battle."

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

"Truth is like a vast tree which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of Truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there in the shape of opening for an ever greater variety of service."

"Truth is superior to man’s wisdom."

"We do not know whether it is good to live or to die. Therefore, we should not take delight in living, nor should we tremble at the thought of death. We should be equiminded towards death. This is the ideal. It may be long before we reach it, and only a few of us can attain it. Even then, we must keep it constantly in view, and the more difficult it seems of attainment, the greater should be the effort we put forth."

"We may not be God, but we are of God even as a little drop of water is of the ocean. Imagine it torn away from the ocean and flung millions of miles away; it becomes helpless, torn from its surroundings, and cannot feel the might and majesty of the great ocean. But if someone could point out to it that it was of the ocean, its faith would revive, it would dance with joy and the whole might and majesty of the ocean would be reflected in it."

"We must become the change we wish to see in the world."

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