Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

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

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

- Mahatma Gandhi

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

- Mahatma Gandhi

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Man is supposed to be the maker of his destiny. It is only partly true. He can make his destiny, only in so far as he is allowed by the Great Power.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

- Mahatma Gandhi

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Action expresses priorities.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.

- Mahatma Gandhi

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

- Mahatma Gandhi

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.

- Mahatma Gandhi

All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The good man is the friend of all living things.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

- Mahatma Gandhi

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

- Mahatma Gandhi

But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.

- 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

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I did once seriously think of embracing the Christian faith. The gentle figure of Christ, so full of forgiveness that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck, but to turn the other cheek - I thought it was a beautiful example of the perfect man.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

- Mahatma Gandhi

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.

- Mahatma Gandhi

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I am a humble but very earnest seeker after truth.

- Mahatma Gandhi

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

- Mahatma Gandhi

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

- Mahatma Gandhi

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

- Mahatma Gandhi

He is lost who is possessed by carnal desire.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence is the article of faith.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

- 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

Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.

- Mahatma Gandhi

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.

- Mahatma Gandhi

If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

- Mahatma Gandhi

My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

- Mahatma Gandhi

If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Where love is, there God is also.

- Mahatma Gandhi

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

- Mahatma Gandhi

God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.

- Mahatma Gandhi

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.

- Mahatma Gandhi

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.

- Mahatma Gandhi

To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.

- Mahatma Gandhi

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

- Mahatma Gandhi

We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?

- Mahatma Gandhi

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.

- Mahatma Gandhi

God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.

- Mahatma Gandhi

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

- Mahatma Gandhi

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

- Mahatma Gandhi

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

- Mahatma Gandhi

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.

- Mahatma Gandhi

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

- Mahatma Gandhi

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I am in the world feeling my way to light 'amid the encircling gloom.'

- Mahatma Gandhi

There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.

- Mahatma Gandhi

There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.

- Mahatma Gandhi

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

- Mahatma Gandhi

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

- Mahatma Gandhi

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

- Mahatma Gandhi

A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Self-respect knows no considerations.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

- Mahatma Gandhi

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

- Mahatma Gandhi

One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.

- Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

- Mahatma Gandhi

My life is my message.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.

- Mahatma Gandhi

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

- Mahatma Gandhi

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Each one prays to God according to his own light.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him.

- Mahatma Gandhi

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.

- Mahatma Gandhi

God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.

- Mahatma Gandhi

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.

- Mahatma Gandhi

It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?

- Mahatma Gandhi

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.

- Mahatma Gandhi

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

- Mahatma Gandhi

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Morality is contraband in war.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Peace is its own reward.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Where there is love there is life.

- Mahatma Gandhi