Gandhi Civil Disobedience Quotes & Sayings

Individual civil disobedience was everybody's inherent right, like the right of self-defence in normal life. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

Before civil disobedience can be practised on a vast scale, people must learn the art of civil or voluntary obedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open. — Mahatma Gandhi

That we should obey laws whether good or bad is a new-fangled notion. There was no such thing in former days. The people disregarded those laws they did not like and suffered the penalties for their breach. — Mahatma Gandhi

My links with [Mahatma] Gandhi now are very political links because I do not believe there is any other politics available to us in the late twentieth century, a period of a totalitarianism linked with the market. There is really no other way you can do politics and create freedom for people without the kinds of instruments he revived. Civil disobedience is a way to create permanent democracy, perennial democracy, a direct democracy. — Vandana Shiva

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke. — Mahatma Gandhi

Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering. — Mahatma Gandhi

Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent. — Mahatma Gandhi

Non-co-operation and civil disobedience are but different branches of the same tree called satyagraha. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience can only lead to strength and purity. — Mahatma Gandhi

King became the movement's voice and launched a new phase of mass protest.
He was a disciple of the teachings of Gandhi and Thoreau, as well as of Jesus. He
emphasized nonviolent civil disobedience. The civil rights struggle was not against
whites, but against injustice; its most important weapons were not anger and hate
but love and forgiveness, King declared.
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On — Anthony R. Fellow

There is no "playing with truth" in the Charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience and excitement and intoxication go ill together. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen. — Mahatma Gandhi

The Charkha, which is the embodiment of willing obedience and calm persistence, must therefore succeed before there is civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience does not admit of any violence or countenancing of violence directly or indirectly. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience can never be in general terms, such as for independence. — Mahatma Gandhi

Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful rebellion, a refusal to obey every single state-made law. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is a stimulation for the fighters and a challenge to the opponent, in the present instance, authority. — Mahatma Gandhi

Unless nonviolence of the strong is really developed among us, there should be no thought of civil disobedience for Swaraj, whether within the states or in British India. — Mahatma Gandhi

Without proper, careful organisation of the spinning wheel and khaddar, there is absolutely no civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies. — Mahatma Gandhi

The basis of Gandhi's nonviolence is to appeal to the good in others and evoke sympathy to one's cause through self-suffering. — Arun Gandhi

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is alarming ... to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience. — Winston Churchill

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King. — Marvin Ammori

If they are truly nonviolent, they must also realize that civil disobedience is an impossibility till the preliminary work of construction is done. — Mahatma Gandhi

In placing civil disobedience before constructive work I was wrong and I did not profit by the Himalayan blunder that I had committed. — Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi said that only people with a high regard for the law were qualified for civil disobedience. — Mark Shepard

Mass civil disobedience was for the attainment of independence. — Mahatma Gandhi

Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. [February 23, 1931] — Winston S. Churchill

Aggressive civil disobedience should be confined to a vindication of the right of free speech and free association. — Mahatma Gandhi

I believe that Gandhi was correct. Non-violent civil disobedience is the only way to bring about change that allows people to enjoy the change and not get killed in the process. — Edward James Olmos

Mass civil disobedience is like an earthquake, a sort of general upheaval on the political plane. — Mahatma Gandhi

Disobedience, to be civil, implies discipline, thought, care, attention. — Mahatma Gandhi

Active nonviolence is necessary for those who will offer civil disobedience but the will and proper training are enough for the people to co-operate with those who are chosen for civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering, without the intoxicating excitement of killing. — Mahatma Gandhi