20 quotes
Much in his career remains unexplained if we forget his insistence that religion and politics were bound inextricably in the common search for Truth.
Mohandas Gandhi (1971)
Anarchism is a manifestation of natural human urges … it is the tendency to create authoritarian institutions which is the transient aberration.
With an extraordinary persistence he made and kept himself one of the few free men of our time.
Mohandas Gandhi (1971)
Gandhi was a completely unofficial man. He recognized the gulf that lay between the enjoyment of freedom and the exercise of authority.
Mohandas Gandhi (1971)
In the same book he became the first man willingly to claim the title of anarchist.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
Unorthodox though he might be, Gandhi fitted into the traditional pattern of the sanyassi who practices non‑attachment in the search for Truth; he was the karma yogin, the man who perfects and purifies himself through action.
Mohandas Gandhi (1971)
Anarchism, nihilism, and terrorism are often mistakenly equated, and in most dictionaries will be found at least two definitions of the anarchist.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
Anarchism is a creed inspired and ridden by paradox, and thus, while its advocates theoretically reject tradition, they are nevertheless very much concerned with the ancestry of their doctrine.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
When I die
let the black rag fly
raven falling
from the sky.
For out of black
soul's night have stirred
dawn's cold gleam,
morning's singing bird. Let black day die,
let black flag fall,
let raven call,
let new day dawn
of black reborn.
Orwell can only be understood as an essentially quixotic man. … He defended, passionately and as a matter of principle, unpopular causes.
The Crystal Spirit : A Study of George Orwell (1966)
Truth conceived as God is of course the Absolute. Truth perceived by man must always be relative, changing according to human contacts developing as men understand better each other, their circumstances and themselves.
Mohandas Gandhi (1971)
His was the isolation of every man who seeks the truth diligently, no matter how unpleasant its implications may be to others or even to himself.
The Crystal Spirit : A Study of George Orwell (1966)
"Whoever denies authority and fights against it is an anarchist," said Sebastien Faure. The definition is tempting in its simplicity, but simplicity is the first thing to guard against in writing a history of anarchism.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
Proudhon goes on to suggest that the real laws by which society functions have nothing to do with authority; they are not imposed from above, but stem from the nature of society itself. He sees the free emergence of such laws as the goal of social endeavour.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
Gandhi on many occasions declared himself an anarchist — of his own kind — and he created, partly from his readings of Tolstoy and Kropotkin and partly on the basis of Indian communitarian traditions, the plan of a decentralized society based on autonomous village communes.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
There is an obvious discrepancy between the stereotype anarchist and the anarchist as we most often see him in reality; that division is due partly to semantic confusions and partly to historical misunderstandings.
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, that stormy, argumentative individualist who prided himself on being a man of paradox and a provoker of contradiction … became the first man willingly to claim the title of anarchist.
Orwell can only be understood as an essentially quixotic man. … His was the isolation of every man who seeks the truth diligently, no matter how unpleasant its implications may be to others or even to himself.
Gandhi never set out to develop a fixed and final doctrine, but emphasized that his practice of ahimsa, or nonviolence, was always experimental, that his political struggle like his personal life was part of a continuing quest for Truth as manifested existentially, a quest that could never end because human understanding was incapable of comprehending the Absolute.
Mohandas Gandhi (1971)