“The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of themselves by doing them a great kindness.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“[T]he devotion required by the Gita is no soft-hearted effusiveness. It certainly is not blind faith. The devotion of the Gita has the least to do with the externals. A devotee may use, if he likes, rosaries, forehead marks, make offerings, but these things are no test of his devotion. He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments.
We thus see that to be a real devotee is to realize oneself.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act which deprived a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw to myself cranks, faddists, and madmen.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“With my meagre knowledge of my own religion i do not want to belong to any religious body”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“I wanted to know the best of the life of one (Muhammad) who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind. I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“I feel moved to express what I feel more strongly than anything else, and what in my opinion is of immense importance, namely, what we call the renunciation of all opposition by force, which really simply means the doctrine of the law of love unperverted by sophistries.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“My regard for jurisprudence increased, I discovered in it religion. I understood the Gita teaching of non-possession to mean that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“You will incur no sin by killing your kinsmen’ — this is said repeatedly in the Gita. If a person remains unconcerned with defeat or victory, knowing that they are a part of life, he commits no sin in fighting. But we should also say that he earns no merit. If we seek merit, we shall also incur sin. Even the best thing has an element of evil in it. Nothing in the world is wholly good or wholly evil. Where there is action there is some evil. If a person learns to make no distinction between gain and loss, pleasure and pain, he would rarely be tempted to commit a sin.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
