Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall see Truth in fragment and from different angles of vision.
No police officer could compel a satyagrahi to give evidence against a person who has confessed to him. A satyagrahi would never be guilty of a betrayal of trust.
A person who has truly realized the principle of nonviolence has the God given strength for his weapon, and the world has not yet known anything that can match it.
Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
In a democratic scheme, money invested in the promotion of learning gives a tenfold return to the people even as a seed sown in good soil returns a luxuriant crop.
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.
I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability which is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.
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.
I do not seek redemption from the consequences of my sin. I seek to be redeemed from sin itself. Until I have attained that end, I shall be content to be restless.
There are a lot of ways to become a failure, but never taking a chance is the most successful. As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.
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.
True ahimsa should wear a smile even on a deathbed brought about by an assailant. It is only with that ahimsa that we can befriend our opponents and win their love.
A clean confession combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance.
The word 'defeat' is not to be found in my dictionary, and everyone who is selected as a recruit in my army may be certain that there is no defeat for a satyagrahi.
This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost.
Ahimsa magnifies one's own defects, and minimizes those of the opponent. It regards the mole in one's own eye as a beam and the beam in the opponent's eye as a mole.
Is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater courage? Without her, man would not be. If nonviolence is to be the law of our being, the future is with women.
I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.
The nation's non-co-operation is an invitation to the Government to co-operate with it on its own terms, as is every nation's right and every good government's duty.
It is necessary to correct the error that vegetarianism has made us weak in mind, or passive or inert in action. I do not regard flesh-food as necessary at any stage
The greatest lessons in life, if we would but stoop and humble ourselves, we would learn not from the grown-up learned men, but from the so-called ignorant children.
Give the villagers village arithmetic, village geography, village history and the literary knowledge that they must use daily, i.e. reading and writing letters, etc.
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.
A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
Only this much I knew - that under ideal conditions, true education could be imparted only by the parents, and that then there should be the minimum of outside help.
As a rule, the mind, residing in a body that has become weakened by pampering, is also weak, and where there is no strength of mind there can be no strength of soul.
The commerce between India and Africa will be of ideas and services, not of the manufactured goods against raw materials after the fashion of the Western exploiters.
Real power does not consist in the ability to inflict capital punishment upon the subjects, but in the will and the ability to protect the subjects against the world.
My religion teaches me that I should, by my personal conduct, instill into the minds of those who might hold different views the conviction that cow killing is a sin.
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.
Our struggle consists in showing that our nonviolence is neither a cloak to hide our violence or hatred, nor a preparation for violence in the near or distant future.
Hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
Buddha emphasized and re-declared the eternal and unalterable existence of the moral government of this universe. He unhesitatingly said that the law was God Himself.
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.
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.
I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically expedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution.
I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
If what passed as nonviolence does not enable people to protect the honour of women, or if it does not enable women to protect their own honour, it is not nonviolence.
I am, and have been for years, a confirmed anti-vaccinationist...I have not the least doubt in my mind that vaccination is a filthy process that is harmful in the end.
Individual liberty is allowed to man only to a certain extent. He cannot forget that he is a social being and his individual liberty has to be curtailed at every step.
Even the most despotic government cannot stand except for the consent of the governed.... Immediately the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, his power is gone.
Good travels at a snail's pace. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time.
All of us with one voice call one God differently as Parmatma, Ishwara, Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Allah, Khuda, Dada-Hormuzda, Jehova, God and an infinite variety of names.
The essence of a vow does not consist in the difficulty of its performance but in the determination behind it unflinchingly to stick to it in the teeth of difficulties.
God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.
A vow is fixed and unalterable determination to do a thing, when such a determination is related to something noble which can only uplift the man who makes the resolve.
The fragrance of nonviolence was never sweeter than it was today amidst the stink of violence of the most cowardly type that was being displayed in the cities of India.
Mr. Gandhi, you have been working fifteen hours a day for fifty years. Don't you think you should take a vacation?" Gandhi smiled and replied, "I am always on vacation.