The hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of non- violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of non-violence to generate heat.
A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curl'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon, — for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course truly.
The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)
Let still woman take An elder than herself: so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart, For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner to be lost and warn, Than women's are.
That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave, Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
I don't want to give a lecture to this body that's out there. You know, I mean, having had the heart attack, I want to get it back functioning. And as a practical matter, I mean if you were Bear Stearns, and you were a shareholder, you know, you lost 90 to 95 percent of your money. A good many lost their jobs. They lost very cushy lives, many of them.
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” “My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white. A little water clears us of this deed: How easy it is then! Your constancy hath left you unattended.
In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.
Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion.
Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.