Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

There being no absolute and universal standard of right, terrorism must be held to be wrong in every case.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

But I never again went through this street. There would be other men coming in this man's place and, ignorant of the incident, they would behave likewise. Why should I unnecessarily court another kick? I therefore selected a different walk.

Silence is a great help to a seeker after truth like myself.

That which impels man to do the right thing is God.

Political power means the capacity to regulate national life through national representatives.

My religion is a matter solely between my Maker and myself.

Bullies are always to be found where there are cowards.

One's everyday life is never capable of being separated from his spiritual being.

The Law and the Lawgiver are one.

Restraint never ruins one's health. What ruins it,is not restraint but outward suppression. A really self-restrained person grows every day from strength to strength and from peace to more peace. The very first step in self-restraint is the restraint of thoughts.

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

Swaraj means even under dominion status a capacity to declare independence at will.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

The most violent weapon on earth is the table fork.

It is not a mistake to commit a mistake, for no one commits a mistake knowing it to be one. But it is a mistake not to correct the mistake after knowing it to be one. If you are afraid of committing a mistake, you are afraid of doing anything at all. You will correct your mistakes whenever you find them.

What the Sermon describes in a graphic manner, the Bhagavadgita reduces to a scientific formula.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

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

Love has more force than a besieging army.

As long as the superstition that people should obey unjust laws exists, so long will slavery exist

Find yourself by losing yourself for others.

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

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest... no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak... Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism... true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.

If we know how much passive violence we perpetrate against one another, we will understand why there is so much physical violence plaguing societies and the world.

Armed conspiracies against something satanic is like matching Satans against Satan.

Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realise that they need not fear brute force, if they but know the soul within.

My trust is solely in God. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species.

How do you know if the next act you are about to do is the right one or the wrong one? Consider the face of the poorest and most vulnerable human being that you have ever chanced upon, and ask yourself if the act that you contemplate will be of benefit to that person; and if it will be, it's the right thing to do, and if not, rethink it.

But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.

Violence is the fear to other's ideals.

The art that is in the machine-made article, appeals only to the eye; the art in Khadi appeals first to the heart and then to the eye.

We must widen the circle of our love till it embraces the whole village; the village in its turn must take into its fold the district, the district the province, and so on until the scope of our love becomes co-terminous with the world.

If I was to be their real teacher and guardian, I must touch their hearts, I must share their joys and sorrows, I must help them to solve the problems that faced them, and I must take along the right channel the surging aspirations of their youth.

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

My mother would tell me that the shortest cut to purification after the unholy touch was to cancel the touch by touching any Mussalman passing by.

When a slave begins to take pride in his fetters and hugs them like precious ornaments, the triumph of the slave-owner is complete.

Nonviolence is the law of the human race and is infinitely greater than, and superior to, brute force.

The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that, too, unconditional assistance.

What has appealed to me most in Tolstoy's life is that he practiced what he preached and reckoned no cost too great in his pursuit of truth.

Since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is.

Those who have their hands dyed deep in blood cannot build a nonviolent order for the world.

But the fact that I had learnt to be tolerant to other religions did not mean that I had any living faith in God.

The concepts of truth may differ. But all admit and respect truth. That truth I call God. For sometime I was saying, "God is Truth," but that did not satisfy me. So now I say, "Truth is God."

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

The first condition of nonviolence is justice all round, in every department of life.

If a single man demanded as much as a man with a wife and four children, then that would be a violation of the concept of economic equality.

It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.