Famous phrases by Mahatma Gandhi, aphorisms and famous quotes from this Indian politician and philosopher, founder of nonviolence and father of Indian independence.
Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi
- As long as you carry a dream in your heart, you will never lose the meaning of life.
- Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
- True beauty after all lies in purity of heart.
- A wise parent allows children to make mistakes. It is good that once in a while your fingers get burned.
- Fear has its utility, cowardice has none.
- I love and respect Jesus, but I'm not a Christian. I would become so if only I saw a Christian behave like him.
- The life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I find that the more defenseless a creature is, the more it has the right to be protected from man by the cruelty of other men.
- It is unworthy of man to lose his individuality and become a mere wheel in the gear.
- Not wanting to think about what tomorrow will bring me, I feel free as a bird.
- A better planet is a dream that begins to come true when each of us decides to improve himself.
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- What is impossible for man is child's play for God.
- Serenity is when what you say, what you think, what you do, are in perfect harmony.
- Non-violence is the first article of my faith: also the last article of my belief.
- You Westerners, you have the time but you never have the time.
- Greatness and moral progress of a nation can be judged by the way it treats animals.
- A man can kill a flower, two flowers, three ... But it cannot contain spring.
- Just loving those who love us is not nonviolence. Only loving those who hate us is nonviolence. I know how difficult it is to follow this great Law of Love. But isn't that always the case, with all the great and good things? Loving those who hate us is the most difficult thing of all. But, with the grace of God, even realizing this very difficult thing will become easy, if we wish.
- If you scream everyone hears you, if you only whisper who is nearby, but if you are silent, only those who love you listen to you.
- Man is destroyed with politics without principles, with pleasure without conscience, with wealth without work, with knowledge without character, with business without morals, with science without humanity, with faith without sacrifices.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you. Then win.
- Since we will never think the same way and see the truth in fragments and from different angles of view, the rule of our conduct is mutual tolerance. Conscience is not the same for everyone. So while it represents a good guide for individual conduct, the imposition of this conduct on everyone would be an unbearable interference in everyone's freedom of conscience.
- Mankind can only get rid of violence by resorting to non-violence. Hate can only be defeated with love. Responding to hatred with hatred does nothing but increase the greatness and depth of the hatred itself.
- Absolute non-violence is absolute absence from damaging every living being. Non-violence, in its active form, is a good disposition for all that lives. It is perfect love.
- If we could erase "I" and "Mine" from religion, politics, economics, etc., we would soon be free and bring heaven to earth.
- This world is held together by bonds of love and dedication. History does not record the daily episodes of love and dedication. Record only those of conflict and war. In reality, however, the acts of love and generosity in this world are much more frequent than conflicts and disputes.
- You and I are but one. I can't hurt you without hurting myself.
- It is the reformer who hopes for reform, not society, from which he must expect nothing but opposition, hatred and even deadly persecutions.
- Be the change you would like to see happen in the world.
- The absence of fear does not mean arrogance or aggression. The latter is in itself a sign of fear. The absence of fear presupposes calm and peace of mind.For it it is necessary to have a living faith in God.
Aphorisms of Mahatma Gandhi
- Find out who you are and don't be afraid to be.
- In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no value.
- Not to possess and not to steal are allies.
- What is the truth? Difficult question, but I have decided for myself that it is what your inner voice tells you.
There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
- Supplication, adoration, prayer are not superstitions, they are more real acts than eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real and that everything else is unreal.
- If everyone worked for their own bread and nothing more, there would be enough food and free time for everyone ... our needs would be reduced to a minimum, our food would be simplified. Then we would eat to live, rather than live to eat.
- Nothing consumes the body as much as anxiety and anyone who has faith in God should be ashamed of being worried about anything.
- Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Anyone who thinks that religion should have nothing to do with politics has understood nothing about religion or politics.
- Nobody can hurt you more than you do to yourself.
- Just like a tree has a million leaves, similarly, even if God is one, as many religions have arisen as men and women, even if all rooted in the same one God.
- It is better to confess your mistakes: you find yourself stronger.
- My experience has led me to find that the best way to get justice is to treat others with justice.
- Every person you meet is better than you in something; in that thing learn.
- Man is a schoolboy and pain is his teacher.
- When measure and kindness add to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
- If there is a non-violent man, why can't a non-violent family exist? And why not a village? a city, a country, a non-violent world?
- Strength does not come from physical ability. It comes from an indomitable will.
- The duties towards ourselves, the family, the country and the world are not independent of each other. The country cannot be served by doing wrong to oneself or to the family. Similarly, the country cannot be served by doing wrong to the world at large.
- The weak cannot forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
- If a man reaches the heart of his religion, he has also reached the heart of the others.
- God never forgets us; it is we who forget Him.
- The real source of rights is duty. If we fulfill our duties, we won't have to go far to look for rights.
- Animals who live a simple and free life do not starve, they are not rich and poor among them, those who eat many times a day and those who do not have to feed themselves; these differences exist only among men. And yet we continue to believe ourselves superior to animals.
- You must oppose the whole world even at the cost of being alone. You have to look the world in the eyes, even if it can happen that the world looks at you with bloodshot eyes. Do not fear. Believe in that little thing inside you that resides in the heart and says: abandon friends, wife, everything; but testify to what you lived for and die for.
- A burning passion combined with absolute detachment is the key to any success.
- Courage is the first requirement of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.
- A no pronounced with conviction is much better than a yes pronounced solely to please or, even worse, to avoid problems.
Phrases of Mahatma Gandhi
- The voice of no man can ever reach where the subtle, silent voice of consciousness reaches.
- The wealthy have an unnecessary amount of things they don't need, and therefore are neglected and worn out, while millions of people starve to death for lack of sustenance. If everyone possessed only what he needed, nobody would be in need and everyone would live satisfied. As things stand, the rich are no less dissatisfied than the poor. The poor man would like to become a millionaire, and the multimillionaire millionaire.
- I don't want my house to be surrounded by walls and that my windows are sealed. I want the cultures of all countries to be able to blow for my home with the utmost freedom. But I refuse to be chased away by anyone.
- Search in vain for those who want the branch and forget the root.
- The path of nonviolence requires much more courage than that of violence.
- Man's true happiness lies in being satisfied. Those who are dissatisfied, however much they possess, become slaves to their desires.
- I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and nonviolence are as old as the mountains.
- An eye for an eye means that you end up having the whole blind world.
- What is true is that honesty is incompatible with the accumulation of a big fortune.
- Nonviolence is the greatest force available to humanity. It is more powerful than the most powerful weapon of destruction that human ingenuity has ever come up with. Destruction is not the law of humans.
- I don't like the word tolerance at all, but I haven't found better ones.
- The only tyrant I accept in this world is the silent voice within me.
- In the world there is enough for man's needs, but not for his greed.
- It is the quality of our work that will please God and not the quantity.
- Anyone who has something they don't use is a thief.
- It is better, when praying, to have a heart without words rather than words without a heart.
- Man is where his heart is, not where his body is.
- Wherever there is truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.
- 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.
- You could get my eyes out, but that couldn't kill me. You could cut my nose, but that wouldn't kill me either. Instead, destroy my faith in God, and I will be dead.
- It has always been a mystery to me why men feel honored when they impose humiliations on their fellow men.
- Piety is the root of religion, while love of the body is the root of selfishness.
- Believing in something and not living it, is dishonesty.
- Love the sinner but hate the sin.
- The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would be enough to solve many of the world's problems.
- No man is useless if he relieves someone else's weight.
- Happiness and peace of heart arise from the awareness of doing what we believe is right and right, not from doing what others say and do.
- Non-violence is the soul force or the energy of divinity within us. We become like God to the extent that we realize nonviolence.
