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Mahatma Gandhi Quotes
1869–1948 India
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.
India Activists Journalists Lawyers Memoirists Also known as: Gandhi, Gandhi, Mahatma, Mahatma Ghandi, Mohandas Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Random Mahatma Gandhi quote
259 quotes
I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms.
To Every Briton (1940)
I hold the opinion firmly that Civil Disobedience is the purest type of constitutional agitation. Of course, it becomes degrading and despicable if its civil, i.e. non-violent character is a mere camouflage.
What the divine author of the Mahabharata said of his great creation is equally true of Hinduism. Whatever of substance is contained in any other religion is always to be found in Hinduism, and what is not contained in it is insubstantial or unnecessary.
I claim no perfection for my self. But I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but another name for God.
To Every Briton (1940)
"Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others… to do the work of defense for him."
By indulging in violent contempt of a community which has produced men like Ramdas, Tulsidas, Ranade, Tilak and others it is impossible that you can rise.
"You may never be able to come back to the place you have left, nor can you undo the wrongs that you have done. But you can always begin again. You can cleanse the heart, you can remake your life, you can rebuild character."
Conversion in the sense of self-purification, self-realization, is the crying need of the hour. That, however, is not what is meant by proselytising. To those who would convert India, might it not be said, ‘physician heal thyself’?
Posthumous publications (1950)
I must not refrain from a saying that India can gain more by waiving the right of punishment. We have better work to do, a better mission to deliver to the world.
The Doctrine Of The Sword (1920)
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.
By its very nature, non-violence cannot ‘seize’ power, nor can that be its goal. But non-violence can do more; it can effectively control and guide power without capturing the machinery of government. That is its beauty.
In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of final supremacy of brute force.
The Doctrine Of The Sword (1920)
Nonviolence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not means meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the putting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant.
The Doctrine Of The Sword (1920)
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Only I want to use India's and my strength for better purpose.
The Doctrine Of The Sword (1920)
Prayer is the key of the morning,
We both may be killed by the Muslims, and must put our purity to the ultimate test, so that we know that we are offering the purest of sacrifices, and we should now both start sleeping naked.
It will then be a state of enlightened anarchy in which each person will become his own ruler. He will conduct himself in such a way that his behaviour will not hamper the well-being of his neighbours.
One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances.
I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power.
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