"(1908), all of which address a confluence of moral and intellectual errors he perceived in modern life and thought at the turn of the twentieth century. Like his contemporary Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), whom he never met, Tolstoy was broadly concerned with the spiritual future of the human race. He attempted to confront the gradual movement away from traditional values with an almost Aristotelian emphasis on the permanent relationships of things, promoting the universality of natural and religious values of love and labor to which he believed the human heart responds. Although the West now knows him as the writer of large and perhaps infrequently read novels, his influence on writers and political dissidents such as Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918) has been enormous, and his thought provides resources for ethical assessments of science and technology that have not yet been explored fully. The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience. Abhi SharmaPage 109 I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back. We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. Kings are the slaves of history. A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral. All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. What a joy it is to do a good deed! And this joy is strongest if no one knows that you have done it. Mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts. Until they throw the money changers out of the temple of art, it will never be a real temple. Religion and law try to escape from criticism, religion by saying that it is divine and law by showing that it is powerful. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. Abhi SharmaPage 110 M Mohandas Gandhi Mother Teresa Mark TwainBack to Content List Abhi SharmaPage 111 Marilyn Monroe Movies Music Back to Content List Abhi SharmaPage 112 Mohandas Gandhi Known as 'Mahatma' (great soul), Gandhi was the leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, and is widely considered the father of his country. His doctrine of non-violent protest to achieve political and social progress has been hugely influential. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar in Gujarat. After university, he went to London to train as a barrister. He returned to India in 1891 and in 1893 accepted a job at an Indian law firm in Durban, South Africa. Gandhi was appalled by the treatment of Indian immigrants there, and joined the struggle to obtain basic rights for them. During his 20 years in South Africa he was sent to prison many times. Influenced primarily by Hinduism, but also by elements of Jainism and Christianity as well as writers including Tolstoy and Thoreau, Gandhi developed the satyagraha ('devotion to truth'), a new non-violent way to redress wrongs. In 1922, Gandhi himself was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was released after two years and withdrew from politics, devoting himself to trying to improve Hindu-Muslim relations, which had worsened. In 1930, Gandhi proclaimed a new campaign of civil disobedience in protest at a tax on salt, leading thousands on a 'March to the Sea' to symbolically make their own salt from seawater. In 1931, Gandhi attended the Round Table Conference in London, as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress, but resigned from the party in 1934 in protest at its use of non-violence as a political expedient. He was replaced as leader by Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1945, the British government began negotiations which culminated in the Mountbatten Plan of June 1947, and the formation of the two new independent states of India and Pakistan, divided along religious lines. Massive inter-communal violence marred the months before and after independence. Gandhi was opposed to partition, and now fasted in an attempt to bring calm in Calcutta and Delhi. On 30 January 1948, he was assassinated in Delhi by a Hindu fanatic. We May Ignore Gandhi At Our Own Risk. - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.My life is my message. Abhi SharmaPage 113 I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes. You must be the change you wish to see in the world. A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act. I'm a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience, which is God. A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take. To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. Nobody can hurt me without my permission. Abhi SharmaPage 114 You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present, God has given me no control over the moment following. It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others. Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. Hate the sin and love the sinner. Abhi SharmaPage 115 Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What is faith worth if it is not translated into action? The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated. It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth. I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. In a gentle way, you can shake the world. If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her. The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity. The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart. Abhi SharmaPage 116 What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident. A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep. Democracy and violence can ill go together. Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side. It may be long before the law of love will be recognized in international affairs. The machinery's of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business. I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers. Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Abhi SharmaPage 117 Mother Teresa Work without love is slavery. Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work. On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order,"