Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

What I want to achieve, what I have been striving and pining for these thirty years, is self-realization, that is, to see God face to face.

A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb.

Sorrow and suffering make for character if they are voluntarily borne, but not if they are imposed.

India must learn to live before she can aspire to die for humanity.

Non-co-operation and civil disobedience in terms of Swaraj are not to be thought of without substantial constructive effort.

A little of true nonviolence acts in a silent, subtle, unseen way and leavens the whole society.

It is a tragedy of the first magnitude that millions of people have ceased to use their hands as hands. Nature has bestowed upon us this great gift which is our hands. If the craze for machinery method continues, it is highly likely that a time will come when we shall be so incapacitated and weak that we shall begin to curse ourselves for having forgotten the use of the living machines given to us by God.

I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.

The final goal of all religions is to realise the essential oneness.

God alone is immortal, imperishable.

It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is shaming by his manners.

There is a power now slumbering within us, which is awakened would do to evil what light does to darkness.

The greatest help you can give me is to banish fear from your hearts.

Whoever is victor, there should be, after the war, a commonwealth of all nations.

My nonviolence demands universal love, and you are not a small part of it.

Every truth is self-acting and possesses inherent strength.

Truth triumphs, even if there be no public support.

All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.

Learning takes us through many states of life, but it fails utterly in the hour of danger and temptation. Then faith alone saves.

I once Experimented with marijuna, next thing I know I'm waking up with blood on my hands.......and not my own blood.

I call myself a labourer because I take pride in calling myself a spinner, weaver, farmer and scavenger.

No man could be actively nonviolent and not rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred.

The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members

I believe that it is impossible to end hatred with hatred.

Life is an aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection, which is self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or imperfections.

I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it.

A correct diagnosis is three-fourths the remedy.

A heart-felt prayer is not recitation with the lips. It is a yearning from within which expresses itself in every word, every act, nay every thought of people.

The Gita is not an aphoristic work, it is a great religious poem.

Can a general fight on the strength of soldiers, who, he knows, have no faith in him?

Widowhood imposed by religion or custom is an unbearable yoke and defiles the home by secret vice and degrades religion.

I love Christianity, Islam and many other faiths - through Hinduism.

I believe it to be perfectly possible for an individual to adopt the way of life of the future. . . without having to wait for others to do so.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.

Prosecution of the constructive programme means constructing the structure of Swaraj.

If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.

God's laws are eternal and unalterable and not separable from God Himself.

I know that I can never be alone as God is there with me.

A great man may not do great things but they do ordinary things greatly.

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.

The only way by which you and I can wean orthodox Hindus from their bigotry is by patient argument and correct conduct.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

Unless the charkha adds to your ahimsa and makes you stronger every day, your Gandhism is of little avail.

Close the day with prayer so that you may have a peaceful night free from dreams and nightmares.

My doctrine means that I must identify myself with life, with everything that lives, that I must share the majesty of life in the presence of God. The sum-total of this life is God. .. Man is not at peace with himself until he has become like unto God. The endeavor to reach this state is the supreme, the only ambition worth having. And this is self-realisation. This self-realisation is the subject of the Gita, as it is of all scriptures... to be a real devotee is to realise oneself. Self-realisation is not something apart.

In the very act of my non-co-operation, I am seeking their co-operation in my campaign.

We are the makers of our own state and...individuals who realize the fact need not, ought not, to wait for collective action.