We notice that the mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions the more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor.... Millions will always remain poor.
I felt that God could be realized only through service. And service for me was the service of India, because it came to me without my seeking, because I had an aptitude for it.
Animal experimentation is the blackest of all the black crimes that a man is at present committing... We should be able to refuse to live if the price of living be the torture of sentient beings... I abhor [animal] experimentation with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence... The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
It is through truth & non-violence that I can have some glimpse of God. Truth & non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.
In the application of the method of non-violence, one must believe in the possibility of every person, however depraved, being reformed under humane and skilled treatment.
... when all violence subsides in the human heart, the state which remains is love. It is not something we have to acquire; it is always present, and needs only to be uncovered. This is our real nature, not merely to love one person here, another there, but to be love itself.