“I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“The question of vernaculars as media of instruction is of national importance; neglect of the vernaculars means national suicide.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Let it be granted, that according to the letter of the Gita it is possible to say that warfare is consistent with renunciation of fruit. But after forty years’ unremitting endeavour fully to enforce the teaching of the Gita in my own life, I have in all humility felt that perfect renunciation is impossible without perfect observance of ahimsa in every shape and form.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Then, too, the dissemination of the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign to it, and also opposed it by open violence. Thus the truth—that his life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis, which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man—this truth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also against deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting with the truth.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Why
should I, who have no need to work for food, spin? ' may be the question
asked. Because I am eating what does not belong to me. I am living on the
spoliation of my countrymen. Trace the source of every coin that finds its way
into your pocket, and you will realise the truth of what I write. Every one
must spin.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“He who is ever brooding over result often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action never remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is like a man given to objects of senses; he is ever distracted, he says goodbye to all scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul to attain his end.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“soulless soul-force and that its severe discipline has made it merely mechanical. I suppose both—the critics and I—are wrong. It is, at best, a humble attempt to place at the disposal of the nation a home where men and women may have scope for free and unfettered development of character, in keeping with the national genius, and, if its controllers do not take care, the discipline that is the foundation of character may frustrate the very end in view. I would venture, therefore, to warn enthusiasts in co-operation against entertaining false hopes. With Sir Daniel Hamilton it has become a religion. On the 13th January last, he addressed the students of the Scottish Churches College and, in order to point a moral, he instanced Scotland's poverty”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“understood more clearly in the light of the Gita teaching the implication of the word ‘trustee’.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Suffering cheerfully endured ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy. The man who flies from suffering is the victim of endless tribulation before it has come to him and is half dead when it does come. But one who is cheerfully ready for anything and everything that comes escapes all pain, his cheerfulness acts as an anaesthetic.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
