Mohandas K. Gandhi

“ Only yesterday I saw I had no room in my heart for those who would not let me have my way and my mind was all bubbling like seething waters. May the New Year do you good. May your physical, mental and spiritual attainments ever grow in grandeur, and may you lay them down at the feet of Mother India. ”

“ Every leaf has its own separate life. It drops and withers. But the tree lives on. Every tree falls in process of time or under the cruel axe, but the forest of which the tree is but a part lives, and so with us leaves of the human tree. ”

“ All the peace-talk only enhances the agony. However, like all human institutions, it must have an end, and our friendship must be a poor affair, if it cannot bide its time, and be all the stronger and purer for the long and weary waiting, and what is this fleeting, physical form after all? ”

“ If you spend after your workers you are sure to find you get a rich return. And will the brother wound the heart of his own sister ? And of a sister, such as Ansuyabehn is ? I, for one, have found her a very pure soul. It is but in the fitness of things, if her word becomes law to you. You will thus discharge a double duty in a single act; that of allaying the discontent of your workers and of winning the blessings of your sister. ”

“ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in inquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease ”

“ To say that perfection is not attainable on this earth is to deny God. The statement about the impossibility of ridding ourselves of sin clearly refers to a stage in life. But we need not search scriptures in support of the assertion. ”

“ The Ashram is undoubtedly intended to teach us to do our assigned task with the utmost attention and with cheerfulness. There is no meaning in our wishes (however pure) not being fulfilled. Not our will but His may be done.
Bapu" 1. Miss Esther Ferring first came to India from Denmark as a member of the Danish (Christian) Mission. From her contact with Gandhiji, she felt herself cramped in the Mission atmosphere and left it for good. After a short stay at Shantiniketan (Poet Tagore's Residential University) and then at Gandhiji's Ashram, she returned to her homeland. ”