Page:I Talked with Gandhi.djvu/6

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important, he renounced power. He didn't want power. He had power because he didn't want it. People came to him and offered to be his followers; to contribute their strength to him because he didn’t want anything for himself.

Burke: You know as I look at our own country, at the men who stand out pre-eminently, I wonder if Mr. Eugene Debs, had had the religious and deeply spiritual element that Mr. Gandhi had, if he wouldn’t be pretty much a type of Mr. Gandhi.

Fischer: Yes, there are quite a number of people who are say 10% Gandhi’s and 5% Gandhi’s. To the extent that they are spiritual, they approach the Gandhi, but the essence of Gandhi was not what he said, not what he wrote, not what he believed, but there was an integration; there was an intimate connection between what he said, what he believed, and what he did. His life was his great monument, the root of his life was what he did. Out of that grew what he believed and what he said, and of course there were imperfections in the trunk—there were imperfections in the leaves. He blamed it on himself, the way he lived. Everything in Gandhi came from the way he lived. The rest was the outgrowth. And what we are, we talk too much—we base too much on statements and professions of our faith; but there is such a gulf, and I always talk about this, but I think it bears repetition. There's such a gulf in our churches, in the lives of each one of us, a gulf between what we say we believe and what we actually do.


ANGER

To get angry for instance when somebody calls you a fool is to prove their assertion.
To get angry when things cannot be helped is to make them worse.
To get angry when folks disagree with your opinions is to discredit the worth of your opinion.
To get angry when you are slandered is the poorest kind of an answer to make.
To get angry when you cannot have your own way is to prove you cannot be trusted.
To get angry when your conscience tells you you are wrong is to fight a losing battle.


PLATO PHILOSOPHY

Plato was given training by four wise men into whose care he was committed at the age of fourteen.
The first wise man taught him religion.
The second taught him to be ever upright and true.
The third taught him to be master of his own desires.
The fourth taught him to fear nothing.

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