“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”
In Ethical Religion, (Madras: S. Ganesan, 1922), p. 62 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002732066?urlappend=%3Bseq=66
1920s
Variante: A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
“Every Hindu boy and girl should possess sound Sanskrit learning.”
Part I, Chapter 5, At the High School
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)
Modern Review (October, 1935) p. 412. Interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose (9/10 November 1934)
1930s
“Action expresses priorities.”
Apparently a rephrasing of "Actions express priorities," from Peak Performers http://books.google.com/books?id=ztKNTGYyqokC&pg=PA78 (1987) by Charles A. Garfield. The phrase is adjacent to a Gandhi quote in at least one list of quotations alphabetized by last name.
Misattributed
Harijan (1933, July 8); also in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Vol. 61), and in The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Prabhu and Rao, eds., 1967, pp. 33-34)
1930s
citation needed
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Variant on aphorism "Study as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow" pre-dating Gandhi, variously attributed to Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636), in FPA Book of Quotations (1952) by Franklin Pierce Adams, to Edmund Rich (1175–1240) in American Journal of Education (1877), or to Alain de Lille in Samuel Smiles's Duty https://books.google.com/books?id=33UzAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA363&dq=live+die+tomorrow+learn+forever&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd3s_2m57MAhWFMGMKHe-sAl8Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=live%20die%20tomorrow%20learn%20forever&f=false (1881).
The 1995 book "The good boatman: a portrait of Gandhi," states that Gandhi subscribed "to the view that a man should live thinking he might die tomorrow but learn as if he would live forever."
In his 2010 Boyer lecture Glyn Davis (Professor of Political Science and Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University) attributes the quote to Desiderius Erasmus. "He [Erasmus] reworked Pliny to urge 'live as if you are to die tomorrow, study as if you were to live forever'. Many students obey the first clause - the best heed both."
There is a similar quote by Johann Gottfried Herder: "Mensch, genieße dein Leben, als müssest morgen du weggehn; Schone dein Leben, als ob ewig du weiletest hier." ["Man, enjoy your life as if you were to depart tomorrow; spare your life as if you were to linger here forever."] (Zerstreute Blätter, 1785).
Disputed
“If you don't ask, you don't get.”
Widespread late 20th century aphorism that appears to have been first attributed to Gandhi in various self-help books of the early 2000s. Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?lr=&as_brr=0&q=%22If+you+don%27t+ask%2C+you+don%27t+get%22+Gandhi&btnG=Search+Books
Disputed
Speech at Meeting in Lausanne (8 December 1931), in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999 electronic edition), Volume 54 http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/mahatma-gandhi-collected-works-volume-54.pdf, p. 272.
1930s
Part I, Chapter 5, At the High School
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
The earliest attribution of this to Gandhi yet located is in a T-shirt advertisement in Mother Jones, Vol. 8, No. 5 (June 1983), p. 46
Disputed
Part III, Chapter 18, A Month with Gokhale II
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)
Young India (8 April 1926)
1920s
Young India (15 December 1921)
1920s
"A Word of Explanation" in Young India (January 1921)
1920s
Mahatma Gandhi, June 1946, in an interview with Louis Fischer. Rabbi Stephen Pearce, Torah Offers Ethics, rules, so all is fair in love and war, September 2000, http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000901/torah.shtml . Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation https://web.archive.org/web/20060423090103/http://www.nhsf.org.uk/images/stories/HinduDharma/Interfaith/hinduzion.pdf The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950) by Louis Fischer. The quote is in the context of Gandhi's argument to his biographer that collective suicide would have been a heroic response that would have "aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence".
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)