Page:Great Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi.pdf/14

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FOREWORD
 

advocated a condensed Wordsworth. In the case of several other writers, we know that only the best that they have written has survived the test of time and the rest has perished. It is however not in that sense that Mahatma Gandhi's writings stand in need of any selective process. Every word of that saint, leader of men, practical idealist and “creator of a new humanity,” is a treasure unto the ages. It is little of all that Mahatmaji has written that posterity will willingly let die. Nevertheless as a means of propagation it is essential to bring home to men's minds some of the cardinal principles that Mahatma Gandhi has been preaching. That, one takes it, is the real purpose and the justification for making up this garland of the great thoughts of the world's greatest man.

Where everything is equally good and so essentially important it is difficult to make a selection. One most remarkable feature of Mahatma's writings is that we find in them a sustained simplicity of statement and an utter absence of any ornate flourishes or ‘purple patches.’ The

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