This collection of quotations is copyrighted as a whole, but, of course, individual quotations are not.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78) lead India to independence using non-violent means. Indians refer to him as Mahatma Gandhi which means great soul. Martin Luther King later used these same techniques to fight for black civil rights in the USA.
I have always felt a special kinship with Gandhi. He was assassinated on 1948-01-30 by a Hindu fanatic. As he was dying he blessed his assassin. I was born five days later, just missing any chance to even hear him on the radio. Gandhi inspired Martin Luther King. And King in turn inspired me in my work with gay liberation in the 1970s. When I started, 95% of the gays were against me and 100% of the straights. I figured it was pointless, but I wanted to make a token gesture of defiance anyway. In only two years we had the first gay rights legislation.
When I went to India in 1985 I met Gandhi’s godson, a wealthy industrialist who owned an automobile, washing machine,… manufacturing company called Tata He told me what it was like as a boy living with Gandhi. Later he let me spend an afternoon in his private museum of Gandhi memorabilia. On that trip a woman gave me an uncopyrighted little book called Quotes of Gandhi. Here I share with you from that book and other sources.
I find Gandhi’s and King’s obsession with God somewhat embarrassing. However, that belief was central to their thinking, so I don’t censor it here.
I care so deeply about this matter that I’m willing to take on the legal penalties, to sit in this prison cell, to sacrifice my freedom, in order to show you how deeply I care. Because when you see the depth of my concern and how civil I am in going about this, you’re bound to change your mind about me, to abandon your rigid, unjust position and to let me help you see the truth of my cause.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest most helpless destitute person you have seen and ask yourself, Is what I am about to do going to help him?
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
We must become the change we want to see in the world.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Be the change that you want to see in the world.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Be the planetary citizen you want everyone else to be.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Action expresses priorities.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
For me the present is merged in eternity. I may not sacrifice the latter for the present.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Consciously or unconsciously, everyone of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger and it will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I claim to be no more than an average person with less than average ability. I have not the shadow of doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
If we are to teach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A person who is worried about the outcome of his work does not see his goal; he sees only his opposition and the obstacles before him.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Service that is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures as possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A true soldier does not argue as he marches, how success is going to be ultimately achieved. But he is confident that if he only plays his humble part well, somehow or other the battle will be won. In is that spirit that every one of us should act. It is not given to us to know the future. But it is given to everyone of us to know how to do our own part well.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa [non-violence]. He who is angry is guilty of Himsa.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Breach of promise is no less an act of insolvency than a refusal to pay one’s debt.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for the confession.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
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?
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The good man is the friend of all living things.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Peace is its own reward.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
However, much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth & violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Violent men have not be known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising; cowardice always is.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or lordliness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds, not words.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Better than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A No uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a Yes merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head than to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Anger is the enemy of Ahimsa [non-violence] and pride is a monster swallows it up.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is unwise to be too sure one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world — that is the myth of the atomic age — as in being able to remake ourselves.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but the pain of it is a positive pleasure to me. Each step upwards makes me feel stronger and fit for the next.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty and that this defence prevails though the world be against the individual resister.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A principle is the expression of perfection and as imperfect beings like us cannot practice perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state, to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Don’t listen to friends when the Friend inside you says Do this.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Never has man reached his destination by persistence in deviation from the straight path.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Self-respect known no considerations.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be read must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I do not want to forsee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The destructive Seven Blunders of the World that cause violence:~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
- Wealth without work.
- Pleasure without conscience.
- Knowledge without character.
- Commerce without morality.
- Science without humanity.
- Religion without sacrifice.
- Politics without principle.
I have always thought that having wealth flow to you without doing something of equal value in return was a form of theft. Most Americans hold a quite different view. They believe that people like Romney to whom money flows effortlessly like a supermagnet, who provide no goods or services to those who give them the money, who then spend that wealth as wastefully and conspicuously as possible, represent the very goal of existence. Nearly everyone who gets rich does it by short-changing, or even actively harming, their fellows, hardly admirable behaviour.
Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed dis-approbation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand is rarely practised and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A man who broods on evil is as bad a man who does evil, if he is no worse.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower than the brute.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Woman in the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate in the minutest details in the activities of man and she has equal right to liberty of freedom and liberty with him.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Commonsense is a realised sense of proportion.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, rules us we would have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilised men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Hatred ever kills, Love never dies, such is the vast difference between the two. What is ordained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality, for it increases hatred.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Where there is love there is life.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It may be long before the law of love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that much be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The only way love punishes in by suffering.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Justice that love gives is a surrender; justice that law gives is a punishment.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
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 than the one derived from fear of punishment.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents, never revenges itself.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Where love is, there God is also.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The test of friendship is assistance in adversity and that too, unconditional assistance, Co-operation which needs consideration is as a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which does not bind.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Friendship that insists on agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however, sharp they be.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west… keeping the world in chains. If [our nation] took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man that iron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest… No country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak… Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism… True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78) My Experiments With Truth
Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however, noble and great the latter my be.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
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?
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered and conducted wars, war criminals? War criminals are not confined to the Axis Powers alone. Roosevelt and Churchill are no less war criminals than Hitler and Mussolini. England, America and Russia have all of them got their hands dyed more or less red — not merely Germany and Japan.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Nations are born out of travail and suffering
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfillment.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires a change of heart.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow men.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his principles as we would expect others to have for ours. Non-violence demands that we should see every opportunity to win over opponents.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Indeed one’s faith in one’s plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realise that they need not fear brute force, if they but know the soul within.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will remain.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lies not in hatred but in justice if not in love.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practices untruth or injustice. Only then can love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one party disregards the obligation of friendship.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold onto it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself, for we are all tarred with the same brush and are children of one and the same Creator and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being, is to slight those divine powers and thus to harm not only that Being, but with Him, the whole world.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically expedient and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse to do the master’s bidding. He may torture me, break my bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to do what he wanted done.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The only virtue I want to claim is truth and non-violence. I lay no claim to super-human powers. I want none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that the weakest of my fellow beings wears and am therefore as liable to err as any. My services have many limitations, but God has up to now blessed them in spite of the imperfections.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The first condition of humaneness is a little humility and a little diffidence about the correctness of one’s conduct and a little receptiveness.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is man’s social nature which distinguishes him from the brute creation. If it is his privilege to be independent, it is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an arrogant man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be self-contained.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plain living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
As a rule, the mind, residing in a body that has become weakened by pampering, is also weak and where there is no strength of mind there can be no strength of soul.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I am a Puritan myself, but I am catholic toward others.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I would rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God’s creation, woman, the object of our lust.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is making sacred. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Literary education is of no value, if it is not able to build up a sound character.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the sacrifice demanded by very life, I hope I may be prepared to give it.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Power invariably elects to go into the hands of the strong. That strength may be physical or of the heart or, if we do not fight shy of the word, of the spirit. Strength of the heart connotes soul-force. Let it be remembered that physical force is transitory, even as the body is transitory. But the power of spirit is permanent even as the spirit is everlasting.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The badge of the violent is his weapon, spear, sword or rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth, will be the test of merit.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts, but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is through truth & non-violence that I can have some glimpse of God. Truth & non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request and everything your heart desires must come to you.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter’s divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the rock of ages. If we would seek his aid, we must approach Him with a humble and contrite heart.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man, even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
In nature there is a fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I believe in absolute oneness of God and therefore also of humanity.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
My trust is solely in God. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
God tries his votaries through and through but never beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through the ordeal he prescribes for them.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
It is easy enough to say, I do not believe in God. For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. he looks at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it, not its vindictive, but it purifying, compelling punishment.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Human society is a ceaseless growth and unfoldment in terms of spirituality.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be upset by God, but, at the same time, where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, on matter how a man’s plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better than anticipated.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
A clean confession combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Perfection is the exclusive attribute of God and it is indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is possible for human beings to become perfect, even as God is perfect. It is necessary for all of us to aspire after that perfection but when that blessed state is attained, it become indescribable, indefinable.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Of all the animal creations of God, main is the only animal who has been created in order that he may know his Maker. Man’s aim is life is not therefore to add from day to day to his material prospects and to his material possessions, but his predominant calling is, from day to day to come nearer to his own Maker.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way to find oneself.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am 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.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
We are merely instruments of the Almighty’s will and therefore ignorant of what helps us forward and what acts as an impediment. We must thus rest satisfied with the knowledge only of the means and if these are pure, we can fearlessly leave the end to take care of itself.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
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.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
When anything assumes the strength of a creed, it becomes self-sustained and derives the needed support from within.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that change a living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power or spirit is God. And since nothing else I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
The world is touched by sacrifice. It does not then discriminate about the merits of a cause. No so God — He is all seeing. He insists on the purity of the cause and on adequate sacrifice thereof.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
There is nothing that wastes the body like worry and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness… It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Each one prays to God according to his own light.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)
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