Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

True paurusha, true bravery, consists in driving out the brute in us.

The path of bhakti, karma and love as expounded in the Gita leaves no room for the despising of man by man.

Man the law-giver will have to pay a dreadful penalty for the degradation he has imposed upon the so called weaker sex.

Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.

The instruments for the quest for Truth are as simple as they are difficult.

God has given us only a limited sphere of action and a limited vision.

I claim to be no more than an average man with below average capabilities.

There can be no nonviolence offered by the militarily strong.

I would bend the knee before the poorest scavenger, the poorest untouchable in India for having participated in crushing him for centuries; I would even take the dust off his feet.

No country can become a nation by producing a race of imitators.

I want India to come into her own and that state cannot be better defined by any single word than Swaraj.

Dharma is one and one only. Ahimsa means moksha, and moksha is the realization of Truth.

A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.

God demands nothing less than self - surrender as the price for the only real freedom that is worth having.

I claim to represent all the cultures, for my religion, whatever it may be called, demands the fulfillment of all the cultures.

What, however, left a deep impression on me was the reading of the Ramayana before my father. During part of his illness my father was in Porbandar. There every evening he used to listen to the Ramayana.

Democracy demands patient instruction on it before legislation.

Great causes cannot be served by intellectual equipment alone, they call for spiritual effort of soul-force.

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

Prayer has not been a part of my life in the sense that truth has been.

He who has a living faith in God will not do evil deeds with name of God on his lips.

I do regard Islam to be a religion of peace in the same sense as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are.

God has enabled me to affect the life of the country since 1920 without the necessity of office.

God alone knows absolute Truth.

Non-cooperation with tyrants is a duty.

Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man that iron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.

Nonviolence is a quality not of the body but of the soul.

There is goodness as well as greatness in simplicity, not in wealth.

God is not a person. God is an eternal principle.

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

My national service is part of my training for freeing my soul from the bondage of the flesh.

Where there is truth, there also is knowledge which is true.

Democracy is a great institution and, therefore, it is liable to be greatly abused.

I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress.

For me the present is merged in eternity. I may not sacrifice the latter for the present.

To put up with. . . distortions and to stick to one's guns come what may - this is the. . . gift of leadership.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

That prince is acceptable to me who becomes a prince among his people's servants.

Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic

If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!

Exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires, but by removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to non-cooperate with their exploiters.

We have no evidence whatsoever that the soul perishes with the body.

The weak can never forgive.

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

All truths, not merely ideas, but truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs, are highly beautiful.

Just as one must learn the art of killing in the training for violence, so one must learn the art of dying in the training for non-violence. Violence does not mean the emancipation from fear, but discovering the means of combating the cause of fear. Nonviolence, on the other hand, has no cause for fear. The votary of nonviolence has to cultivate the capacity for sacrifice of the highest type in order to be free from fear. He recks not if he should lose his land, his wealth, his life.

Let us give today first the vital things of life and all the grace and ornaments of life will follow.