Skip to content

Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength, and there is nothing automatic or intuitive about the resoluteness required for using non-violent methods in political struggle and the quest for Truth.

— Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr: The Power of Nonviolent Action (1999)

Another quote →

More quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country.

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."

The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

A good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty.

Posthumous publications (1950)

All Mahatma Gandhi quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mahatma Gandhi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.