“Je n'ai connu aucune distinction entre parents et inconnus, entre compatriotes et étrangers, entre blancs et hommes de couleur, entre hindous et Indiens appartenant à d'autres confessions, qu'ils soient musulmans, Parsis, chrétiens ou juifs. Je peux dire que mon coeur a été incapable défaire de telles distinctions”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Our contribution to the progress of the world must, therefore, consist in setting our own house in order.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“But I could not for the life of me find out a new name, and therefore offered a nominal prize through Indian Opinion to the reader who made the best suggestion on the subject. As a result Maganlal Gandhi coined the word Sadagraha (Sat: truth, Agraha: firmness) and won the prize. But in order to make it clearer I changed the word to Satyagraha which has since become current in Gujarati as a designation for the struggle.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“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.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Sympathy is what you have for someone after they die, pity you have for someone when they don't have a date to the biggest dance of the year. Empathy is what I do to you when you judge me. Envy is having pity on yourself. Can you discern the rest for yourself?”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Je dois dire qu'en dehors des cas où elle m'exposa au ridicule, cette timidité insurmontable n'a jamais tourné à mon désavantage. Bien au contraire, j'ai mis ce handicap à profit en apprenant à devenir concis.
Jadis je cherchais mes mots. Aujourd'hui je prends plaisir à en réduire le nombre.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“He who banishes all bad desires arising in his mind may be described as a sthita-prajna — one who is situated in perfect knowledge, one who is steadfast in action. Though, of course, ultimately we all should arrive at a stage when we should banish all desires, even the desire to see God; to a person in that stage all action becomes spontaneous. After one has seen God face to face, how can the desire to see Him still remain? When you have already jumped into the river, the desire to do so will no longer be there. Our desire to see God ceases when we are lost in Him, have become one with Him.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“The common belief is that religion is always opposed to material good. ‘One cannot act religiously in mercantile and such other matters. There is no place for religion in such pursuits; religion is only for attainment of salvation,’ we hear many worldly-wise people say. In my opinion the author of the Gita has dispelled this delusion. He has drawn no line of demarcation between salvation and worldly pursuits. On the contrary he has shown that religion must rule even our worldly pursuits. I have felt that the Gita teaches us that what cannot be followed in day-today practice cannot be called religion. Thus, according to the Gita, all acts that are incapable of being performed without attachment are taboo. This golden rule saves mankind from many a pitfall. According to this interpretation murder, lying, dissoluteness and the like must be regarded as sinful and therefore taboo. Man’s life then becomes simple, and from that simpleness springs peace.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I believed then, and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's meals. It is my humble opinion that, far from taking away from one's capacity for work, it adds to it.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“This is the centre round which the Gita is woven. This renunciation is the central sun, round which devotion, knowledge and the rest revolve like planets. The body has been likened to a prison. There must be action where there is body. Not one embodied being is exempted from labour. And yet all religions proclaim that it is possible for man, by treating the body as the temple of God, to attain freedom. Every action is tainted, be it ever so trivial. How can the body be made the temple of God? In other words how can one be free from action, i.e. from the taint of sin? The Gita has answered the question in decisive language: ‘By desireless action; by renouncing fruits of action; by dedicating all activities to God, i.e., by surrendering oneself to Him body and soul.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“The story of the creation and similar things in it did not impress me very much, but on the contrary made me incline somewhat towards atheism.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
