Mahatma Gandhi – 117 Quotes

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117 Quotes by 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

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

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

Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

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

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

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

– 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

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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence is the article of faith.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

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

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

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

– 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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

– 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

Where love is, there God is also.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Each one prays to God according to his own light.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

The good man is the friend of all living things.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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 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

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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

My life is my message.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Where there is love there is life.

– Mahatma Gandhi

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

– 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

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

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

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

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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

Peace is its own reward.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– Mahatma Gandhi

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

– 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

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

Morality is contraband in war.

– 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