Gandhi Quotes

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

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

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

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

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

Where there is love there is life.

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.

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 Seven Social Sins are: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle. From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.

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.

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

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

God has no religion.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.

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.

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.

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

The future depends on what you do today.

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

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

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

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

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?

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

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.

The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: - I shall not fear anyone on Earth. - I shall fear only God. - I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. - I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. - I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, 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.

Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.

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

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.

Action expresses priorities.

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.

My Life is My Message

You don't know who is important to you until you actually lose them.

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

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

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

You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.

Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.

The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

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.

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

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.

They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.

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

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.

There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.

I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.

I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon but i want to STAY ALIVE.

There is no 'way to peace,' there is only 'peace.

Truth is one, paths are many.

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

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

Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.

My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.

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

To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?" [To the Women of India (Young India, Oct. 4, 1930)]

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

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

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.

There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.

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.

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

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.

If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.

(When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.

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

What barrier is there that love cannot break?

The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.

Live simply so that others may simply live.

Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.

The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home

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.

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.

When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.

I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian.

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through. Tell me what the word home means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name just by the way you describe your bedroom when you were eight. See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate, and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms or would leave your snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name, and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind. Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel. Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school. If you were walking by a chemical plant where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would you whisper “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy!” Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me — how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? See, I wanna know if you believe in any god or if you believe in many gods or better yet what gods believe in you. And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you asked come true? And if they didn’t, did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass. If you ever reach enlightenment will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? Would you think less of me if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key? And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence. Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence? And if you do — I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar. See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving, and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes from other people’s wounds, and if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon — that if you wanted to, you could pop, but you never would ‘cause you’d never want it to stop. If a tree fell in the forest and you were the only one there to hear — if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist, or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness? And lastly, let me ask you this: If you and I went for a walk and the entire walk, we didn’t talk — do you think eventually, we’d… kiss? No, wait. That’s asking too much — after all, this is only our first date.