Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

The truest test of a democracy is in the ability of anyone to act as he likes, so long as he does not injure the life or property of anyone else.

I trust men only because I trust God.

Love and exclusive possession can never go together.

The very first step in nonviolence is that we cultivate in our daily life, as between ourselves, truthfulness, humility, tolerance, loving kindness.

All religions enjoined worship of the One God who is all-pervasive. He is present even in a drop of water or in a tiny speck of dust.

If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior

If the village worker is not a decent man or woman, conducting a decent home, he or she had better not aspire after the high privilege and honour of becoming a village worker.

It is not given to man to know the whole Truth. His duty lies in living up to the truth as he sees it, and in doing so, to resort to the purest means, i.e., to non-violence. God alone knows absolute truth. Therefore, I have often said, Truth is God. It follows that man, a finite being, cannot know absolute truth. Nobody in this world possesses absolute truth. This is God's attribute alone. Relative truth is all we know. Therefore, we can only follow the truth as we see it. Such pursuit of truth cannot lead anyone astray.

An unjust law in itself is an act of violence.

I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.

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

Morality is contraband in war.

Violent nationalism, otherwise known as imperialism, is a curse.

I retain the opinion that council entry is inconsistent with non-co-operation as I conceive it.

Cow-slaughter and man-slaughter are in my opinion two sides of the same coin.

Every person, as every institution, and, above all, every religion is to be judged not by the amount of atrocities or the wrong committed but by the right conduct.

Our non-co-operation is with the system the English have established in India, with the material civilization and its attendant greed and exploitation of the weak.

A society or a nation constructed nonviolently must be able to withstand attack upon its structure from without or within.

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

No agreement between the British and Muslims can affect me. An agreement between Hindus and Muslims alone will affect me.

Nonviolence is a plant of slow growth, it grows imperceptibly but surely.

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

Renunciation is everyone's prerogative.

If love wasn't the law of life, life would not have persisted in the midst of death.

I do not want to live at the cost of the life even of a snake. I should let him bite me to death rather than kill him.

Half-a-dozen or twenty cities of India alone working together cannot bring Swaraj.

In this day of wonders no one will say that a thing or an idea is worthless because it is new. To say it is impossible because it is difficult is again not in consonance with the spirit of the age. Things undreamt of are daily being seen, the impossible is ever becoming possible.

Swadeshism is not a cult of hatred. It is a doctrine of selfless service that has its roots in the purest ahimsa, i.e. love.

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.

Real education consists in drawing the best out of yourself.

God has enabled man to distinguish between his sister, his mother, his daughter and his wife.

Fear is not a disease of the body; fear kills the soul.

The satyagrahi should not have any hatred in his heart against the opponent.

Temple going is for the purification of the soul.

I have made the world's faith in God my own and as my faith is effaceable, I regard that faith as amounting to experience.

I am the only one, whom you may find it hard to get rid of, for I have always counted myself as a woman.

Ahimsa is no mere theory with me, but it is a fact of life based on extensive experience.

We are aware that the business of Swaraj will thrive only if the boycott of foreign cloth is successful.

God will cease to be God, if he brought into being a single person with the hall-mark of inferiority.

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

A teacher who establishes rapport with the taught, becomes one with them, learns more from them than he teaches them. He who learns nothing from his disciples is, in my opinion, worthless. Whenever I talk with someone I learn from him. I take from him more than I give him.

The soul of India lives in its villages.

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.

If I did not have a sense of humor, I would have long ago killed myself.

Contraceptive methods are like putting a premium on vice. It makes men and women reckless... As it is, man has sufficiently degraded woman for his lust, and [contraception] , no matter how well meaning the advocates may be, will still further degrade her.

The only true resistance to this Government... [is] to cease to co-operate with it.

God never occurs to you in person but always in action.

Though I cannot claim to be a Christian in the sectarian sense, the example of Jesus suffering is a factor in the composition of my undying faith in non-violence which rules all my actions, worldly and temporal.