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That Long-Overdue Gandhi Quote…

Posted by :James Howden On : June 29, 2007
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Category: At First Glance

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If you ever take a look down and right for the He Said/She Said… section of this cyberspace pit of thrills, you’ll know more about me than is probably healthy. Sucker for quotes. Sets lofty goals and doesn’t meet ’em. Can’t find his keyboard when life gets fast. Needs, even in the ever-advancing senilization of middle age, reminders about the most fundamental things…

Nobody reminded me, though. I’ll blame it on you. Yes, in that month-old (at least) quotation from the mighty Helen, I promised another similar sentiment from Mr. G. It’s a double-barrelled shotgun blast of humility AND the need to act. This passage is taped to the wall, nine o’clock high, next to my writing desk. Sorry, don’t know where it comes from.

Shining Lamps of India (small deeds)

Posted by :James Howden On : May 14, 2007
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Category: He Said/She Said

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“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

This gorgeous paradox comes from Mahatma Gandhi. I have proven it true.

“We can do no great deeds. We may do only small deeds with great love.”

This parallel thought is supposedly Mother Teresa; this may be true.

“Do I really believe that my work is crucial to the planet’s survival? Of course not. But it’s as important to me as catching that mouse is to the hawk circling outside my window. He’s hungry. He needs a kill. So do I.”

The writer Steven Pressfield is not from India, but he echoes the subcontinental heroes above in The War of Art, p. 66.

Tripping Over Gandhi

Posted by :James Howden On : December 18, 2006
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Category: At First Glance

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I must be reading (at least some of) the right things. I’ve stumbled over citations of Mohandas K. Gandhi three times in the last half hour. Three of them, in “He Said/She Said” just down there to your right, come from a passionate, funny and often gloriously written book called God Laughs and Plays by the American novellist, rough-edged mystic, fly-fishing environmentalist and anti-fundamentalist Christian David James Duncan. (I’ll post a review of the book when my site allows me; troubles continue.)

The other Gandhi Trap was in the back of the wonderful Cosmo Doogood’s Urban Almanac 2005, which I picked up just now in a spasm of brainlessness. Beneath a set of “Weather Facts” — fastest tornado winds: 286 mph, Wichita Falls, Texas, April 2, 1958 — was this delicious food for thinking:

Gandhi’s Seven Deadly Sins

Wealth without Work.

Pleasure without Conscience.

Science without Humanity.

Knowledge without Character.

Politics without Principle.

Commerce without Morality.

Worship without Sacrifice.

(Wonderful, yes? I don’t know its source. It is widely cited, in Stephen Covey’s Principle-Centered Leadership, for example.)