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Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi


Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
– Mahatma Gandhi

You can't change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.
– Mahatma Gandhi

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help. Therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and a snare.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit thesin again, when offered before one who has the right to receiveit, is the purest type of repentance.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A dissolute character is more dissolute in thought than in deed. And the same is true of violence. Our violence in word and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging violence of thought in us.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
– Mahatma Gandhi
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Action expresses priorities.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Ahimas is the attribute of the soul, and therefore, to be practiced by everybody in all affairs of life. If it cannot be practiced in all departments, it has no practical value.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
– Mahatma Gandhi
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his principles as we would expect others to have for ours. Non-violence demands that we should seek every opportunity to win over opponents.
– Mahatma Gandhi
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
– Mahatma Gandhi
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.
– Mahatma Gandhi
As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance,cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Be the change that you want to see in the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Between husband and wife there should be no secrets from one another. I have a very high opinion of the marriage tie. I hold that husband and wife merge in each other. They are one in two or two in one.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Consciously or unconsciously, everyone of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and it will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Courage has never been known to be a matter of muscle; it is a matter of the heart. The toughest muscle has been known to tremble before an imaginary fear. It was the heart that set the muscle atrembling.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Democracy must in essence, therefore, mean the art and science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all the various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Destruction is not the law of humans. Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another is a crime against humanity.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Don't listen to friends when the Friend inside you says 'Do this.'
– Mahatma Gandhi
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Each one prays to God according to his own light.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Everyone has faith in God though everyone does not know it. For everyone has faith in himself and that multiplied to the nth degree is God. The sum total of all that lives is God. We may not be God, but we are of God, even as a little drop of water is of the ocean.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Evil is, good or truth misplaced.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
– Mahatma Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Mahatma Gandhi
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living ?
– Mahatma Gandhi
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is notworth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west... keeping the world in chains. If our nation took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God tries his votaries through and through but never beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through the ordeal he prescribes for them.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man theniron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Hatred ever kills, love never dies such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Have I not gazed at the marvellous mystery of the starry vault, hardly ever tiring of the great panorama?
– Mahatma Gandhi
He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa. He who is angry is guilty of Himsa.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Human kind has to get out of violence only through nonviolence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Humility cannot be an observance by itself. For, it does not lend itself to being deliberately practised. It is, however, an indispensable test of 'Ahimsa.' For one who has 'Ahimsa' in him it becomes part of his very nature.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically inexpedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience, which is God.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people's houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi