Quotes & Sayings About Gandhi By Others

Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

I invite even the school of violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a trial. — Mahatma Gandhi

Peace is neither taken nor given, only recognized within. — Mahatma Gandhi

If there is any substance in what I have said, will not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a deep debt of gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising while continuing their philanthropic work? — Mahatma Gandhi

My modesty has prevented me from declaring from the house top that the message of non-co-operation, nonviolence and swadeshi is a message to the world. — Mahatma Gandhi

Nonviolence succeeds only when we have a real living faith in God. — Mahatma Gandhi

Complete independence through truth and non-violence means the independence of every unit, be it the humblest of the nation, without distinction of race, colour or creed. — Mahatma Gandhi

Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals. - MAHATMA GANDHI — Pema Chodron

Friendship that insists upon agreement on all things isn't worth the name. — Mahatma Gandhi

The weak can never forgive. — Mahatma Gandhi

The Charkha is an outward symbol of truth and nonviolence. — Mahatma Gandhi

A leader becomes great by inspiring others to do great things. — Debasish Mridha

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal; For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal; For a simple penny pay thou back with gold; If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold. Thus the words and actions of the wise regard; Every little service tenfold they reward. But the truly noble know all men as one, And return with gladness good for evil done. — Mahatma Gandhi

I am a Hindu by birth. And yet I do not know much of Hinduism, and I know less of other religions. In fact I do not know where I am, and what is and what should be my belief. I intend to make a careful study of my own religion and, as far as I can, of others. — Mahatma Gandhi

Detachment is not indifference. it is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachments to our opinions. We want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others needs and understand how to serve them. — Mahatma Gandhi

In 1951 Dec 20th, Nehru, while campaigning for the first democratic elections in India, took a short break to address a UNESCO symposium in Delhi. Although he believed democracy was the best form of governance, while speaking at the symposium he wondered loud...
the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda....He[the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either a dictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din.
-Quoted from India After Gandhi, page 157. — Ramachandra Guha

When we over consume the Earth's resources, we create an economic imbalance in societies and in the world. Affluent people and affluent societies can afford to buy everything in large quantities. They have an abundance of wealth and think they have the license to waste. They use a great deal and leave others with very little. It is this imbalance between rich and poor that gives rise to crime, violence, prejudice, and other negative attitudes.

When some people cannot get what they need through honest hard work, and see others wasting what is so precious, they feel justified in taking it by force. The Earth can only produce enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed. Our greed and wasteful habits perpetuate poverty, which is violence against humanity. — Arun Gandhi

In matters concerning religion, I consider myself not a child but an adult with 35 years of experience. — Mahatma Gandhi

If a person's mind is controlled by forces of revenge and jealousy, it cannot express love & sympathy. And even if they show love and sympathy to others it will yield no good result. The thought will not be reflected in love but in hate. — Virchand Gandhi

If a single man achieves the highest kind of love, it will be sufficient to neutralize the hate of millions. — Mahatma Gandhi

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul. — Mahatma Gandhi

We labor under the fatal delusion that no disease can be cured without medicine. This has been responsible for more mischief to mankind than any other evil ... Disease increases in proportion to the increase to the number of doctors in a place. — Mahatma Gandhi

To benefit by others' killing and to delude oneself into the belief that one is being very religions and nonviolent is sheer self-deception. — Mahatma Gandhi

The debacle of European pacifism has at least one clear lesson to teach us: pacifists, if they are to be effective in the modern world, must be as wholehearted and as brave as Gandhi. — Freeman Dyson

Gandhi's ideas were rooted in a wide experience of a freshly globalized world. — Pankaj Mishra

With a stranglehold of authority it banned the statement for its reproduction or publication in part or in full. The motive on the part of the Government was obvious. It did not want Gandhi to be exposed to the public. The — Anup SarDesai

A leader whose speech is prepared by others is not a leader; he is just an empty and stupid bottle! Use your own ideas and your own brain; write your own speech, just like Gandhi, Churchill or Nehru! That is indeed a good ethics and a good honour! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

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

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 others
to act according to his own view of truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

In our generation, the role models were Gandhi and Nehru. We revered them. They were venerated personalities. I read almost every speech of Nehru. — Pranab Mukherjee

Indeed the very word, nonviolence, a negative word, means that it is an effort to abandon the violence that is inevitable in life. — Mahatma Gandhi

When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others. — Bernie Siegel

If you make someone suffer today, without any doubt, you will be punished by your conscience. Don't hurt anyone in anyway or form. — Debasish Mridha

the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda . . . He [the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either adictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din.

Guha, Ramachandra (2011-02-10). India After Gandhi (Kindle Locations 3272-3276). Pan Books. Kindle Edition. — Ramachandra Guha

We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day by the mass of people acting in harmony as if by instinct. If they were instinctively violent, the world would end in no time. — Mahatma Gandhi

Shame That Destroys Employing shame to control people, however, is a misuse of power. When Gandhi was asked how so few British could control the enormous numbers of Indian citizens, he replied, "They humiliate us to control us." So it is with anyone who intentionally, or out of deep and unexamined old learning controls another by means of humiliation. Sharp anger, a searing jibe at someone's very essence, name-calling, setting someone apart as unacceptable, rejection, all of these behaviors and many more render others helpless. This is the aberration of shame from which so many of us must work to release ourselves. — Jean Illsley Clarke

Love can never express itself by imposing sufferings on others. It can only express itself by self-suffering, by self-purification. — Mahatma Gandhi

Find yourself by losing yourself for others. — Mahatma Gandhi

Who have our fighters been?" Calvin asked. "Oh, you must know them, dear," Mrs Whatsit said. Mrs Who's spectacles shone out at them triumphantly, "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." "Jesus!" Charles Wallace said. "Why, of course, Jesus!" "Of course!" Mrs Whatsit said. "Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. They've been lights for us to see by." "Leonardo da Vinci?" Calvin suggested tentatively. "And Michelangelo?" "And Shakespeare," Charles Wallace called out, "and Bach! And Pasteur and Madame Curie and Einstein!" Now Calvin's voice rang with confidence. "And Schweitzer and Gandhi and Buddha and Beethoven and Rembrandt and St. Francis! — Madeleine L'Engle

The third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread justification is, at bottom, the age-old religious one just a little altered: that in public life the suppression of some for the protection of the majority cannot be avoided - so that coercion is unavoidable however desirable reliance on love alone might be in human intercourse. The only difference in this justification by pseudo-science consists in the fact that, to the question why such and such people and not others have the right to decide against whom violence may and must be used, pseudo-science now gives a different reply to that given by religion - which declared that the right to decide was valid because it was pronounced by persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says that these decisions represent the will of the people, which under a constitutional form of government is supposed to find expression in all the decisions and actions of those who are at the helm at the moment. — Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness, the goal to which we all are striving is reached by endeavoring to make the lives of others happy, and if by renouncing the luxuries of life we can lighten the burdens of others ... surely the simplification of our wants is a thing greatly to be desired! And so, if instead of supposing that we must become hermits and dwellers in caves in order to practice simplicity, we set about simplifying our affairs, each according to his own convictions and opportunity, much good will result and the simple life will at once be established. — Mahatma Gandhi

Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? — Mahatma Gandhi

A Swaraj government means a government established by the free joint will of Hindus, Mussalmans and others. — Mahatma Gandhi

I am a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. — Abdurrahman Wahid

No human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say. — Mahatma Gandhi

God in his wisdom circumscribed man's vision, and rightly too, for otherwise man's conceit would know no bounds. — Mahatma Gandhi

Women are special custodians of all that is pure and religious in life. — Mahatma Gandhi

We keep waiting for another Mahatma to make a difference in our society and nation. Well it is time to stop waiting. The mantra is "I change to change India". Which means each of us is the Mahatma and has the power to change this nation. Failing which we shall never change for the better. — Jeroninio Almeida

If you are left with only one piece of homespun,wear it with dignity — Mahatma Gandhi

Bravery on the battlefield is impossible for us. Bravery of the soul still remains open to us. — Mahatma Gandhi

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service. — Mahatma Gandhi

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion. — Mahatma Gandhi

I'm not suffering Trisha, I've never suffered all these years, someone long back taught me by example that its very easy to be content with one's solitude. I've enjoyed mine all these years. — Dixy Gandhi

Just as there are signs by which you can recognize violence with the naked eye, so is the spinning wheel to me a decisive sign of nonviolence. — Mahatma Gandhi

A person who believes in nonviolence believes in a living God. He cannot accept defeat. — Mahatma Gandhi

The woman has circumvented man in a variety of ways in her unconsciously subtle ways, as the man has vainly and equally consciously struggled to thwart the woman in gaining ascendancy over him. — Mahatma Gandhi

I love you every day as if it is Valentine's day. — Debasish Mridha

Nonviolence is not a cloistered virtue, confined only to the rishi and the cave-dweller. — Mahatma Gandhi

Be simple; it is beautiful. Never forget to be kind; it is essential. — Debasish Mridha

Everywhere we turn, we see violence and hate and prejudice and anger and all of these negative emotions that are destroying humanity. And we have to wake up and take note of this and try to change our course, so that we can create a world of peace and harmony where future generations can live happily together. — Arun Manilal Gandhi

To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages. — Mahatma Gandhi

Kindness is the ability to love someone in such a way that she will remember your kindness for the rest of her life. — Debasish Mridha

Yajna is duty to be performed, or service to be rendered, all twenty-four hours of the day. — Mahatma Gandhi

Your right is to work, and not to expect the fruit. The slave-owner tells the slave: 'Mind your work, but beware lest you pluck a fruit from the garden. Yours is to take what I give.' God has put us under restriction in the same manner. He tells us that we may work if we wish, but that the reward of work is entirely for Him to give. Our duty is to pray to Him, and the best way in which we can do this is to work with the pick-axe, to remove scum from the river and to sweep and clean our yards. This, certainly, is a difficult lesson to learn. — Mahatma Gandhi

Punishment is God's. He alone is the infallible Judge. — Mahatma Gandhi

Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height. — 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

God alone is the judge of true greatness because He knows men's hearts. — Mahatma Gandhi

The only real and reliable guarantee for khadi would be honesty, truthfulness and sincerity of khadi workers. — Mahatma Gandhi