When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.
The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.
Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.
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 than the one derived from fear of punishment.
There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
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.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.
I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.
Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.
If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them-a desire, a dream, a vison.
True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.
I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.
Truth resides in every human heart,and one has to search for it there,and to be guided by truth as one sees it.But no one has a right to coerce othersto act according to his own view of truth.
Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
In fact, it is more correct to say that Truth is God, than to say that God is Truth.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it. 1924-1926)
Truth should be the very breath of our life. When once this state in the pilgrim’s progress is reached, all other rules of correct living will come without any effort, and obedience to them will be instinctive.
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
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.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.
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.
Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
To believe that what has not occurred in history will not occur at all, is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of humankind.
All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.
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.
I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.
Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.
A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
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 in the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act which deprived a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.
If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.
The only difference between man and man all the world over is one of degree, and not of kind, even as there is between trees of the same species.Where in is the cause for anger, envy or discrimination?
If a single man achieves the highest kind of love, it will be sufficient to neutralize the hate of millions.
An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.
Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals.
I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.
(When asked what he thought of Western civilization): ‘I think it would be a good idea.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
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.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
You don’t know who is important to you until you actually lose them.
I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect.
Stoning prophets and erecting churches to their memory afterwards has been the way of the world through the ages. Today we worship Christ, but the Christ in the flesh we crucified.
The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
Ask the poor. They’ll tell you who the christians are.
Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. And since then, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little or no effect on me.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
Three-fourths of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand their standpoint.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown of my feet by any.
I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown of my feet by any
Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.
True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.
Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.
I can retain neither respect nor affection for government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend its immorality
My politics is my religion, my religion is my politics.
Homeopathy cures a larger percentage of cases than any other form of treatment and is beyond doubt safer and more economical.
Good travels at a snail’s pace. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time.
Truthis like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it
A true Brahmachari will not even dream of satisfying the fleshly appetite
Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.
Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momen
Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence … I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor…
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
Intolerance is a species of violence and therefore against our creed.
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.
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.
I have always felt that the true text-book for the pupil is his teacher
To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect and their oneness, and should insist upon choosing as their representatives only such persons as are good and true.
It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.
There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
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.
Every home is a university and the parents are the teachers.
In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.
I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.
There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.
Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is shaming by his manners.
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Truth is like a vast tree which yields more and more fruit the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mind of truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there.
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid.
My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.
One should not think of embracing another religion before one had fully understand his own.
Distinguish between real needs and artificial wants and control the latter.
I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption.
They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.
Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.
I am not built for academic writings. Action is my domain.
If I had no sense of humor I should long ago have committed suicide.
Faith is not something to grasp it is a state to grow into.
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent conquer him with love.
Happiness is when what you think what you say and what you do are in harmony.
Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.
Monotony is the law of nature. Look at the monotonous manner in which the sun rises. The monotony of necessary occupations is exhilarating and life-giving.
Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied it is the most potent instrument of action.
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.
I consider myself a Hindu Christian Moslem Jew Buddhist and Confucian.
It is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour his religion his soul and lay the foundation for that empire’s fall or its regeneration.
There are limits to self-indulgence none to self-restraint.
It is better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.
You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.
What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
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.
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.
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love it is the prerogative of the brave.
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
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.
Man can never be a woman’s equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?
When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.
It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
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.
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
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.
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians – you are not like him.
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
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.
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.
My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.
Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles but today it means getting along with people.
Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands.
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
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.
I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
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.
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.
Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
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.
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.
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.
God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
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.
Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles but today it means getting along with people.
Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
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.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.
I am a humble but very earnest seeker after truth.
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
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.
Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies.
But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
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.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
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.
The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
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.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?
Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.