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Quotations by Gandhi, Mohandas
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me.
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.
I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.
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.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
We must become the change we want to see.
Human life is a series of compromises and it is not always easy to achieve in practice what one has found to be true in theory.
My non-violence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice. I can no more preach non-violence to a coward than I can tempt a blind man to enjoy healthy scenes. … Nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence. But the message of nonviolence is for those who know how to die, not for those who are afraid of death. If one has not that courage, I want him to cultivate the art of killing and being killed, rather than in a cowardly manner to flee from danger.
No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
A “no” uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a “yes” merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
You must watch my life, how I live, eat, sit, talk, behave in general. The sum total of all those in me is my religion.
I have only three enemies. My favorite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire. My second enemy, the Indian people, is far more difficult. But my most formidable opponent is a man named Mohandas K. Gandhi. With him I seem to have very little influence.
The best politics is right action.
You should be pioneers in presenting a living faith to the world, and not the dry bones of a traditional faith which the world will not grasp.
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior.
Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
He who would be friends with God must remain alone or make the whole world his friend.
Civility does not here mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Autobiography : The Story of My Experiments with Truth>, ch. 24 (1927)
(Source)
True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding out the true path for ourselves and fearlessly following it.
We are all children of one and the same God and, therefore, absolutely equal.
Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
If I could persuade myself that I should find Him in a Himalayan cave, I would proceed there immediately. But I know that I cannot find Him apart from humanity.
I love those who never preach but live the life according to their lights. Their lives are silent, yet most effective, testimonies. Therefore I cannot say what to preach, but I can say that a life of service and uttermost simplicity is the best preaching. A rose does not need to preach. It simply spreads its fragrance. The fragrance is its own sermon. If it had human understanding and if it could engage a number of preachers, the preachers would not be able to sell more rose than the fragrance itself could do. The fragrance of religious and spiritual life is much finer and subtler than that of the rose.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Harijan (29 Mar 1935)
Full text.
Rights that do not flow directly from duty well performed are not worth having.
I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.
All progress is gained through mistakes and their rectification. No good comes fully fashoned, out of God’s hand, but has to be carved out through repeated experiments and repeated failures by ourselves. This is the law of individual growth. The same law controls social and political evolution also. The right to err, which means the freedom to try experiments, is the universal condition of all progress.
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Non-Violence in Peace and War, Vol. 2 (1949)
(Source)
It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.
He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by non-violently facing death, may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden.
Faith does not admit of telling. It has to be lived and then it becomes self-propagating.
The golden rule of conduct, therefore, is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall see Truth in fragment and from different angles of vision. Conscience is not the same thing for all. Whilst, therefore, it is a good guide for individual conduct, imposition of that conduct upon all will be an insufferable interference with everybody’s freedom of conscience.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Young India (23 Sep 1926)
Full text.
The still small voice within you must always be the final arbiter when there is a conflict of duty.
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion —- human religion -— but any number of faiths.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Young India (Bulletin) (2 Oct 1930)
Some versions omit "-- human religion --". Full text.
First, they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
As in law so in war, the longest purse finally wins.
There can be no rule of God in the present state of iniquitous inequalities in which a few roll in riches and the masses do not get enough to eat.
The essence of true religious teaching is that one should serve and befriend all. … It is easy enough to be friendly with 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.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
At the time of writing I never think of what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me [at the] given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.
If one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircle 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.
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.
As the means, so the end.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
In Young India (17 Jul 1924)
Compare to this.
Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid. The valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone.
Terrorism set up by reformers may be just as bad as Government terrorism and it is often worse because it draws a certain amount of false sympathy.
Intolerance betrays a want of faith in one’s own cause.
Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong but of the weak.
No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together.
No human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption.
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.
Do not undertake anything beyond your capacity and at the same time do not harbor the wish to do less than you can. One who takes up tasks beyond his powers is proud and attached. On the other hand, one who does less than he can is a thief.
I have become disconsolate. In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at teh end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I break in the attempt.
Do not worry about what others are doing! Each of us should turn the searchlight inward and purify his or her own heart as much as possible.
I am very imperfect. Before you are gone you will have discovered a hundred of my faults, and if you don’t, I will help you to see them.
A civilization is to be judged by its treatment of minorities.
All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.