Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi
(Page 4 of 8)

The real love is to love them that hate you, to love your neighbor even though you distrust him.

Do not concentrate on showing the misdeeds of the government, for we have to convert and befriend those who run it.

Languages proclaim that woman is half of man, and by parity of reasoning, man is half of woman.

If you want to play your part in the world's affairs, you must refuse to deck yourselves for pleasing man.

A genuine fast cleanses the body, mind and soul. It crucifies the flesh and to that extent sets the soul free.

Useful manual labour, intelligently performed, is the means par excellence for developing the intellect.

This belief in the necessity of English training has enslaved us. It has unfitted us for true national service.

God has a thousand names, or rather He is Nameless.

If you think the world is all wrong, remember that it contains people like you.

The first principal of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.

When you practice a life of non-violence you no longer need seek the truth, the truth finds you.

That which looks for mercy from an opponent is not non-violence.

Non-violence ... is the only thing that the atom bomb cannot destroy.

We must treat arrest as the normal condition of the life of a non-co-operator.

What is a man if he is not a thief who openly charges as much as he can for the goods he sells?

History has no record of a nation having adopted nonviolent resistance.

Prayer is the only means of bringing about orderliness and peace and repose in our daily acts.

If you approached people with trust and affection you would have ten-fold trust and thousand-fold.

Salvation of the Gita is perfect peace.

A prayerful study and experience are essential for a correct interpretation of the scriptures.

Religion is entirely a personal matter. Each one could approach his Creator as he liked.

Power is of two kinds: one is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.

The knowledge of the omnipresence of God also means respect for the lives even of those who may be called opponents.

Prayer is an impossibility without a living faith in the presence of God within.

Violence will prevail over violence, only when someone can prove to me that darkness can be dispelled by darkness.

Rama, Allah and God are to me convertible terms.

Hinduism would not have been much of a religion if Rama had not steeled his heart against every temptation.

For me, Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity.

Rama was not only on the lips of Hanuman. He was enthroned in his heart. He gave Hanuman exhaustless strength.

Nobody in this world possesses absolute truth.

Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth.

Like the watch, the heart needs the winding of purity, or the Dweller ceases to speak.

Temple going is for the purification of the soul.

Purification is never for the selfishly idle, it accrues only to the selflessly industrious.

Civil disobedience can only lead to strength and purity.

Pure motives can never justify impure or violent action.

To a pure heart all hearts are pure.

The practice of truth and nonviolence melted religious differences, and we learnt to see beauty in each religion.

I believe that religious education must be the sole concern of religious associations.

Religious truth, or for that matter any truth, requires a calm and meditative atmosphere for its percolation.

Nonviolent defence presupposes recklessness about one's life and property.

The best politics is right action.

Hand-spinning is designed to put millions of rupees in the hands of the poor villagers.

The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.

A genuine satyagraha should never excite contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard or respect.

Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.

Since satyagraha is a method of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest coercion.

A satyagrahi has infinite patience, abundant faith in others, and ample hope.

Undoubtedly, prayer requires a living faith in God. Successful satyagraha is inconceivable without that faith.

Satyagraha is a purely spiritual weapon.

A satyagrahi, whilst he is ever ready to fight, must be equally eager for peace.

A satyagrahi exhausts all other means before he resorts to satyagraha.

Satyagraha as conceived by me is a science in the making.

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.

Fasting is futile unless it is accompanied by an incessant longing for self-restraint.

Birth-control through self-restraint is the most desirable, sensible and totally harmless method.

Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth.

Satyagraha is search for Truth, and God is Truth.

Non-co-operators will make a serious mistake if they seek to convert people to their creed by violence.

Freedom and slavery are mental states.

Love is the law of life.

Free, open love I have looked upon as dog's love. Secret love is, besides, cowardly.

Anything that exists is possible.

What senseless violence does is to prolong the lease of life of the British or foreign rule.

Education in the understanding of citizenship is a short-term affair if we are honest and earnest.

A fearless woman who knows that her purity is her best shield can never be dishonoured.

God is the shield of the nonviolent.

The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there.

It was not easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it.

Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it.

It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.

Religion is a thing to be lived. It is not merely sophistry.

Soul-force comes only through God's grace and never descends upon a man who is a slave to lust.

Nonviolence is an active force of the highest order. It is soul force or the power of the godhead within us.

Why should I need an artist to explain a work of art to me? Why should it not speak out to me itself?

Selfless action is a source of strength.

Never has man reached his destination by persistence in deviation from the straight path.

Where there is no strength of mind there can be no strength of soul.

Celibacy is a great help, inasmuch as it enables one to lead a life of full surrender to God.

Dignity of human nature requires that we must face the storms of life.

The renunciation of the Gita is the acid test of faith.

When a man wants to make up with his Maker, he does not consult a third party.

There's no God higher than truth.

There is no god higher than truth.

All good thoughts and ideas mean nothing without action.

Only the toad under the harrow knows where it pinches him.

When two nations are fighting, the duty of a votary of ahimsa is to stop the war.

To know music is to transfer it to life.

Non-co-operation is the nation's notice that it is no longer satisfied to be in tutelage.

Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves, there is one religion but any number of faiths.

God of Truth and Justice can never create distinctions of high and low among His own children.

Conquer the heart of the enemy with truth and love, not by violence.

The finite human being shall never know in its fullness Truth and Love which is itself infinite.

Untouchability is a blot on Hinduism. It is a canker eating into its vitals.

If untouchability is an integral part of Hinduism, the latter is a spent bullet.

Men like me feel that untouchability is no integral part of Hinduism, it is an excrescence.

Hinduism has sinned in giving sanction to untouchability.

Untouchability, I hold, is a sin, if Bhagavadgita is one of our Divine Books.

Diversity there certainly is in the world, but it means neither inequality nor untouchability.

The attack on untouchability is an attack on this high-and low-ness.