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Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter's divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time, where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better then anticipated.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I may live without air and water, but not without Him. You may pluck out my eyes, but that cannot kill me. You may chop off my nose but that will not kill me. But blast my belief in God, and I am dead.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I need no inspiration other then Nature's. She has never failed me yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into ecstasies. Besides God's handiwork, does not man's fade into insignificance?
– Mahatma Gandhi
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I saw that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the Cross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I want to see India free in my life-time. But God may not consider me fit enough to see the dream of my life fulfilled. Then I shall quarrel, not with Him but with myself.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the sacrifice demanded my very life, I hope I may be prepared to give it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.
– Mahatma Gandhi
If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
– Mahatma Gandhi
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
– Mahatma Gandhi
If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake.
– Mahatma Gandhi
If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
– Mahatma Gandhi
If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.
– Mahatma Gandhi
If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Ill-digested principles are, if anything, worse than ill-digested food, for the latter harms the body and there is cure for it, whereas the former ruins the soul and there is no cure for it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
– Mahatma Gandhi
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
– Mahatma Gandhi
In nature there is fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity.
– Mahatma Gandhi
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Indeed one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practises 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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is easy enough to say, 'I do not believe in God.' For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is foolish to think that by fleeing one can trick the dread god of death. Let us treat him as a beneficent angel rather than a dread god. We must face and welcome him whenever he comes.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may. We are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is man's social nature which distinguishes him from the brute creation. If it is his privilege to be independent, it is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an arrogant man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be self-contained.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, ruled us we should have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is through truth non-violence that I can have some glimpseof God. Truth non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It may be long before the law of love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Let no one say that he is a follower of Gandhi. It is enough that I should be my own follower. I know what an inadequate follower I am of myself, for I cannot live up to the convictions I stand for. You are no followers but fellow students, fellow pilgrims, fellow seekers, fellow workers.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
– Mahatma Gandhi
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.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way to find oneself.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Manliness consists in making circumstances subserve to ourselves.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or lordliness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds, not in words.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Must I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
– Mahatma Gandhi
My life is my message.
– Mahatma Gandhi
My life is one indivisible whole, and all my activities run intoone another, and they all have their rise in my insatiable love of mankind.
– Mahatma Gandhi
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
– Mahatma Gandhi
My trust is solely in god. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species.
– Mahatma Gandhi
My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family, that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty, and that this defence prevails, though the world be against the individual resister.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
– Mahatma Gandhi
No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of merit.
– Mahatma Gandhi
No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is 'making sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realize that they need not fear brute force, if they would but know the soul within.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will remain.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lie not in hatred but in justice, if not in love.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence and cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true non-violence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence is the article of faith.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
– Mahatma Gandhi
One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Peace is its own reward.
– Mahatma Gandhi