“I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question. How was one to treat alike insulting, insolent and corrupt officials, co-workers of yesterday raising meaningless opposition, and men who had always been good to one? How was one to divest oneself of all possessions? Was not the body itself possession enough? Were not wife and children possessions? Was I to destroy all the cupboards of books I had? Was I to give up all I had and follow Him? Straight came the answer: I could not follow Him unless I gave up all I had.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Distinguish between real needs and artificial wants and control the latter.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Vivre simplement, pour que simplement d'autres puissent vivre.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from Him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them. But I must close. I can only take up the actual story in the next chapter. M.K. Gandhi The Ashram, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad 26th November, 1925”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Hence, we should not be attached even to a good cause. Only then will our means remain pure and our actions too.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.”
―
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
“I hold that it is the duty of every cultured man or woman to read
sympathetically the scriptures of the world. If we are to respect others'
religions as we would have them to respect our own, a friendly study of the
world's religions is a sacred duty.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence—as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual. Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Civil Disobedience, mass or individual, is an aid to Constructive effort and is a full substitute for armed revolt. Training is necessary as well for Civil Disobedience as for armed revolt. Only the ways are different.… Training for military revolt means learning the use of arms, ending perhaps in the atomic bomb. For Civil Disobedience it means the Constructive Program.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream. God can never be realised by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one’s surroundings.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
