Echoes

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.

If you want peace, prepare for war.

It would be better for me that the whole world should disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

God rests in Himself, and makes all things rest in Him.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good. I swear by non-violence because I know that it alone conduces to the highest good of mankind, not merely in the next world, but in this also. I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy. From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.

My life is my message.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

Virtue is the root; wealth is the result.