Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

To a pure heart all hearts are pure.

Good government is no substitute for self-government.

Satan's snares are mostly subtly laid and are the most tempting when the dividing line between right and wrong is so thin as to be imperceptible.

My religion forbids me to belittle or disregard other cultures, as it insists, under pain of civil suicide, upon imbibing and living my own.

Nonviolence is an attribute of the Almighty whose ways of fulfilling Himself are inscrutable.

The Law of Love, call it attraction, affinity, cohesion if you like, governs the world.

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.

In a nonviolent army, the general and the officers are elected, or are as if elected, when their authority is moral and rests solely on the willing obedience of the rank and file.

Unless you go on discovering new applications of the law of nonviolence, you do not profit by it.

Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open.

This mad rush for wealth must cease and the labourer must be assured not only of a living wage but, also a daily task that is not mere drudgery.

When I don't understand something, I reach up and hold God's hand. And we walk together in silence.

Swaraj, without any qualifying clause, includes that which is better than the best one can conceive or have today.

A votary of ahimsa cannot subscribe to the utilitarian formula (of the greatest good of the greatest number). He will strive for the greatest good of all and die in the attempt to realize that ideal.

Intolerance, discourtesy and harshness..... are taboo in all good society and are surely contrary to the spirit of democracy.

When there is no desire for fruit, there is also no temptation for untruth or himsa.

Hinduism is a relentless pursuit of Truth. "Truth is God" and if today it has become moribund, inactive, irresponsive to growth, it is because we are fatigued; and as soon as the fatigue is over, Hinduism will burst upon the world with a brilliance perhaps unknown before.

My conception of dominion status implies present ability to severe the British connection if I wish to.

My motto is "Unite now, today if you can; fight if you must. But in every case avoid British intervention."

One has to speak out and stand up for one's convictions. Inaction at a time of conflagration is inexcusable.

Truthful movements spontaneously attract to themselves all manner of pure and disinterested help.

Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practices untruth or injustice. Only then can love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one party disregards the obligation of friendship.

Children inherit the qualities of the parents, no less than their physical features. Environment does play an important part, but the original capital on which a child starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.

Active nonviolence is necessary for those who will offer civil disobedience but the will and proper training are enough for the people to co-operate with those who are chosen for civil disobedience.

If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek.

Enter with me into the sufferings, not only of the people of India but of the whole world. Nonviolence is a more active and real fight against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. It is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest.

Surely conversion is a matter between man and his Maker who alone knows his creatures' hearts. A conversion without a clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of God and Religion. Conversion without cleanliness of heart can only be a matter of sorrow, not joy, to a godly person.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.

Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.

Satyagraha is itself an unmistakable mute prayer of an agonized soul.

No human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption.

If you worry about yesterday's failures, then today's successes will be few. The future depends on what we do in the present

I do not like the word tolerance, but could not think of a better one. Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of other faiths to one

Satyagraha can rid society of all evils, political, economic and moral.

I hold it a blasphemy to say that the Creator resides in a temple from which a particular class of His devotees sharing faith in it are excluded.

Individual liberty and interdependence are both essential for life in society.

The collectors of revenue and the policeman are the only symbols by which millions in India's villages know British rule.

The future depends on what we do in the present.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.

Freedom battles are not fought without paying heavy prices.

All my experiments in Ahimsa have taught me that nonviolence in practice means common labour with the body.

The function of violence is to obtain reform by external means, the function of passive resistance, that is, soul-force, is to obtain it by growth from within, which, in its turn, is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification.

To my mind, Swaraj based on nonviolence is the fulfillment of the constructive programme.

If you do what you enjoy doing you'll never have to work hard.

Is not education the art of drawing out full manhood of the children under training?

Man cannot be transformed from bad to good overnight.

With me the connection between the cosmic phenomena and human behaviour is a living faith that draws me nearer to God, humbles me and makes me readier for facing Him.

Outward appearance is nothing to Him if it is not an expression of the inner.