Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

When large numbers of wholly innocent men are in jail, we may take it that Swaraj is at hand.

Prosecution of the constructive programme means constructing the structure of Swaraj.

Truth should so humble that even dust could crush it.

Devotion to Truth is the sole justification for our existence.

If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to a zero.

Not violence, nor untruth but non-violence and Truth are the laws of our being.

Truth to me is infinitely dearer than the 'mahatmaship' which is purely a burden.

What has appealed to me most in Tolstoy's life is that he practiced what he preached and reckoned no cost too great in his pursuit of truth.

Tolstoy's so-called inconsistencies were a sign of his development and his passionate regard for truth.

Buddha renounced every worldly happiness because he wanted to share with the whole world his happiness which was to be had by men who sacrificed and suffered in the search for truth.

Death is at any time blessed but it is twice blessed for a warrior who dies for his cause, that is, truth.

If the village worker is not a decent man or woman, conducting a decent home, he or she had better not aspire after the high privilege and honour of becoming a village worker.

If we want to impart education best suited to the needs of the villagers, we should take the vidyapith to the villages.

My opposition to the socialist and the other consists in attacking violence as a means of effecting any lasting reform.

For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence.

To kill these (rabid) dogs, in my opinion, amount to himsa, but I believe it to be inevitable if we are to escape much greater himsa.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

The dry knowledge of the three R's is not even now, it can never be, a permanent part of the villagers' life.

Without devotion, action and knowledge are cold and dry and many even become shackles.

Knowledge of the tallest scientist or the greatest spiritualist is like a particle of dust.

Liberty is a dearly bought commodity and prisons are factories where it is manufactured.

No power on earth can resist the lovers of liberty who are ready not to kill opponents, but be killed by them.

Individual liberty is allowed to man only to a certain extent. He cannot forget that he is a social being and his individual liberty has to be curtailed at every step.

Peace is unattained by part performance of conditions, even as a chemical combination is impossible without complete fulfillment of the conditions of attainment thereof.

Not to believe in the possibility of permanent peace is to disbelieve in the Godliness of human nature.

Even the dog is described by the poet to have received justice under Ramarajya.

My Hinduism teaches me to respect all religions. In this lies the secret of Ramarajya.

Renunciation is everyone's prerogative.

Renunciation means absence of hankering after fruit.

Renunciation which is natural does not herald its coming by the blowing of trumpets. It comes in imperceptibly without letting anyone notice it.

Renunciation made for the sake of service is an ineffable joy of which none can deprive anyone, because that nectar springs from within and sustains life.

He who gives up action falls. He who gives up the reward rises. But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result.

Desirelessness or renunciation does not come for the mere talking about it.

Rights of true citizenship accrue only to those who serve the State to which they belong.

If all simply insist on rights and no duties, there will be utter confusion and chaos.

The safest rule of conduct is to claim kinship when we want to do service and not to insist on kinship when we want to assert a right.

The only things that separates us from the brute, with which we have so much in common, is the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong.

The State is the sum total of the sacrifice, on its behalf, of its members.

Since one Satan is one too many for me, I would not multiply him.

A fast to be true must be accompanied by a readiness to receive pure thoughts and determination to resist all Satan's temptations.

Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be really no better than Satan's workshops.

Service is not possible unless it is rooted in love orahimsa.

The time is fast coming when politicians will cease to fear the religion of humanity and humanitarians will find entrance into political life indispensable for full service.

Cent percent swadeshi gives sufficient scope for the most insatiable ambition for service and a satisfaction of every kind of talent.

No one chains a slave without chaining himself.

History supplied numerous instances to prove that brute force is as nothing before soul-force.

Great causes cannot be served by intellectual equipment alone, they call for spiritual effort of soul-force.

The strength of the soul can defy a whole world in arms against it.

The force of the spirit is ever progressive and endless. Its full expression makes it unconquerable in the world.

Spiritual force is like any other force at the service of man.