More from and about
Mohandas Gandhi
(biographical info at bottom of page)

  

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

   

God is the hardest taskmaster I have known on this earth, and he tries you through and through.  And when you find that your faith is failing or your body is failing you, and you are sinking, he comes to your assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith and that he is always at your beck and call, but on his terms, not on your terms.  So I have found.  I cannot really recall a single instance when, at the eleventh hour, he has forsaken me.

      
People often become what they believe themselves 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.
  
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards him- or herself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
  
  
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.
   

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.  Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior.  Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits.  Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.  Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
  
I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.

     

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

   

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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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

    
Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869 to Hindu parents in the state of Gujarat in Western India.  He entered an arranged marriage with Kasturbai Makanji when both were 13 years old.  His family later sent him to London to study law, and in 1891 he was admitted to the Inner Temple, and called to the bar.  In Southern Africa he worked ceaselessly to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians.  It was there that he developed his creed of passive resistance against injustice, satyagraha, meaning truth force, and was frequently jailed as a result of the protests that he led.

Before he returned to India with his wife and children in 1915, he had radically changed the lives of Indians living in Southern Africa.  Back in India, it was not long before he was taking the lead in the long struggle for independence from Britain.  He never wavered in his unshakable belief in nonviolent protest and religious tolerance.  When Muslim and Hindu compatriots committed acts of violence, whether against the British who ruled India, or against each other, he fasted until the fighting ceased.

Independence, when it came in 1947, was not a military victory, but a triumph of human will.  To Gandhi's despair, however, the country was partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.  The last two months of his life were spent trying to end the appalling violence which ensued, leading him to fast to the brink of death, an act which finally quelled the riots.  In January 1948, at the age of 79, he was killed by an assassin as he walked through a crowed garden in New Delhi to take evening prayers.

  

    

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Other people:  Alan Watts - Albert Einstein - Albert Schweitzer - Andy Rooney - Anne Frank - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Wilson Schaef
- Annie Dillard - Anthony Robbins - Ari Kiev - Artur Rubenstein - Barbara Johnson - Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Franklin
- Benjamin Hoff - Bernie Siegel - Bertrand Russell - Betty Eadie - Booker T. Washington
Charlotte Davis Kasl
- Cheryl Richardson - Cristina Feldman - C.S. Lewis - the Dalai Lama - Dale Carnegie - Deepak Chopra
Don Miguel Ruiz
- Earl Nightingale - Elaine St. James - Eleanor Roosevelt - Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emmet Fox
- Frederick Buechner - George Bernard Shaw - George Santayana - George Washington Carver - Gerald Jampolsky
Harold Kushner
- Harry Emerson Fosdick - Helen Keller - Henry David Thoreau - Henry James - Henry Van Dyke
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Henry Ward Beecher - Hugh Prather - Immanuel Kant - Iyanla Vanzant - Jack Canfield
James Allen
- Jennifer James - Jim Rohn - Joan Borysenko - Joan Chittister - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - John Izzo
John Ruskin
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Leo Buscaglia
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Marianne Williamson
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Mohandas Gandhi
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Norman Vincent Peale
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Rabindranath Tagore
- Rachel Carson - Rachel Naomi Remen - Rainer Maria Rilke - Ralph Waldo Trine - Richard Bach
Richard Carlson
- Robert Frost - Robert Fulghum - Robert Louis Stevenson - Russell Baker - Sarah Ban Breathnach
Shakti Gawain
- Soren Kierkegaard - Stephen Covey - Stephen C. Paul - Sue Patton Thoele - Susan L. Taylor
Sylvia Boorstein
- Thich Nhat Hanh - Thomas Carlyle - Thomas Kinkade - Thomas Merton - Tom Walsh - Victor Cherbuliez
Wayne Dyer
- Wilferd A. Peterson - Willa Cather - William James - William Wordsworth - Zig Ziglar

   

       
   

Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.