Quotes & Sayings About Satyagraha

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

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

To be equitable, economic growth has to be sustainable. To be sustainable, economic growth has in turn to be all-inclusive. All-inclusive is no longer the greatest good of the greatest number. It is actually Sarvodaya or the rise of all. This Mahatma Gandhi saw as essential to Satyagraha itself. — Sonia Gandhi

Satyagraha is a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and in the end makes itself irresistible. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha as conceived by me is a science in the making. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is itself an unmistakable mute prayer of an agonized soul. — Mahatma Gandhi

Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong. — Mahatma Gandhi

For satyagraha and its offshoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is the pursuit of truth. My grandfather believed that truth should be the cornerstone of everybody's life and that we must dedicate our lives to pursuing truth, to finding out the truth in our lives. And so his entire philosophy was the philosophy of life. It was not just a philosophy for conflict resolution, but something that we have to imbibe in our life and live it all the time so that we can improve and become better human beings. — Arun Manilal Gandhi

A satyagrahi has no other stay but God, and he who has any other stay or depends on any other help cannot offer satyagraha. — Mahatma Gandhi

All satyagraha and fasting is a species of tyaga. It depends for its effects upon an expression of wholesome public opinion shorn of all bitterness. — Mahatma Gandhi

I have even seen the writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India's expense. I can only answer that Satyagraha is made of sterner stuff. There is nothing reserved and nothing secret in it. — Mahatma Gandhi

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. — Mahatma Gandhi

Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within. — Mahatma Gandhi

For a satyagrahi brigade only those are eligible who believe in ahimsa and satya. — Mahatma Gandhi

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self. — Mahatma Gandhi

Force that the performance of duty naturally generates is the non-violent and invincible force that satyagraha brings into being. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is search for Truth, and God is Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

But I could not for the life of me find out a new name, and therefore offered a nominal prize through Indian Opinion to the reader who made the best suggestion on the subject. As a result Maganlal Gandhi coined the word Sadagraha (Sat: truth, Agraha: firmness) and won the prize. But in order to make it clearer I changed the word to Satyagraha which has since become current in Gujarati as a designation for the struggle. — Mahatma Gandhi

In the dictionary of satyagraha, there is no enemy. — Mahatma Gandhi

Without satyagraha carried out in the proper spirit, there is no victory, no Swaraj. — Mahatma Gandhi

But as the word satyagraha implies, Gandhi's passivity was not weakness at all. It meant focusing on an ultimate goal and refusing to divert energy to unnecessary skirmishes along the way. Restraint, Gandhi believed, was one of his greatest assets. And it was born of his shyness: I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth. — Susan Cain

Satyagraha, of which civil resistance is but a part, is to me the universal law of life. — Mahatma Gandhi

My satyagrahi spirit tells me that I may not retaliate. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

In the code of the satyagrahi, there is no such thing as surrender to brute force. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is a force that has come to stay. No force in the world can kill it. — Mahatma Gandhi

They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

There must be power in the word of a satyagraha general, not the power that the possession of limitless arms gives, but the power that purifies life which strict vigilance and a ceaseless application produce. — Mahatma Gandhi

As a young man in South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, Gandhi developed satyagraha, a mode of political activism based upon moral persuasion, while mobilizing South Africa's small Indian minority against racial discrimination. — Pankaj Mishra

Not those who shout 'satyagraha', 'satyagraha' will do satyagraha, but those who will work for it. — Mahatma Gandhi

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha does not depend on outside help, it derives all its strength from within. — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi would neither retaliate nor would he submit to the criminal, but seek to cure him by curing himself. — Mahatma Gandhi

In satyagraha, a courted imprisonment carries its own praise. — Mahatma Gandhi

Violence only makes a situation worse. It cannot help but provoke a violent response. Strictly speaking, satyagraha is not "nonviolence." It is a means, a method. The word we translate as "nonviolence" is a Sanskrit word central in Buddhism as well: ahimsa, the complete absence of violence in word and even thought as well as action. This sounds negative, just as "nonviolence" sounds passive. But like the English word "flawless," ahimsa denotes perfection. Ahimsa is unconditional love; satyagraha is love in action. Gandhi's message — Eknath Easwaran

It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war. — Mahatma Gandhi

I regard the constituent assembly as the substitute ofsatyagraha. It is constructive satyagraha. — Mahatma Gandhi

Undoubtedly, prayer requires a living faith in God. Successful satyagraha is inconceivable without that faith. — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi exhausts all other means before he resorts to satyagraha. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is a purely spiritual weapon. — Mahatma Gandhi

A genuine satyagraha should never excite contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard or respect. — Mahatma Gandhi

Since satyagraha is a method of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest coercion. — Mahatma Gandhi

The fight of satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid. Satyagraha teaches us the art of living as well as dying. — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal wrong. — Mahatma Gandhi

My purpose is to describe experiments in the science ofsatyagraha and not at all to describe how good I am. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

The satyagrahi general has to obey his inner voice, for over and above the situation outside he examines himself constantly and listens to the dictates of the inner self. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

Jail-going is only the beginning, not the end of satyagraha. The acme of satyagraha for us would be to lay down our lives for the defence of India's just cause. — Mahatma Gandhi

To die without killing is the badge of a satyagrahi. — Mahatma Gandhi

There is no time limit for a satyagrahi nor is there a limit to his capacity for suffering. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha is a law for universal application. Beginning with the family, its use can be extended to every other circle. — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi has always his minimum and it is this minimum that is wanted in connection with this struggle. — Mahatma Gandhi

For us, not cooperating in the monopoly regimes of intellectual property rights and patents and biodiversity - saying "no" to patents on life, and developing intellectual ideas of resistance - is very much a continuation of Gandhian satyagraha. It is, for me, keeping life free in its diversity. — Vandana Shiva

A satyagrahi, whilst he is ever ready to fight, must be equally eager for peace. — Mahatma Gandhi

Even as satyagraha is a weapon unique of its kind and not one of the ordinary weapons used by people, so is Khadi, a unique article of commerce which will not, cannot, succeed on terms common to other articles. — Mahatma Gandhi

It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us. — B.R. Ambedkar

The method of satyagraha requires that the satyagrahi should never lose hope, so long as there is the slightest ground left for it. — Mahatma Gandhi

The insistence on truthfulness does not disturb the freedom of the individual. The social obligation implied in Satyagraha turns the freedom of the individual into moral freedom. An atheist is free to say or to do what he likes, provided he does what he says and says what he does. So, in the context of social relations, the freedom of the individual is moral freedom. — Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence. — Mahatma Gandhi

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary.
(Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13, 3 May 1919) — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi is dead to his body even before the enemy attempts to kill him. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha can rid society of all evils, political, economic and moral. — Mahatma Gandhi

What I call the law of satyagraha is to be deduced from an appreciation of duties and rights flowing therefrom. — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi is nothing if not instinctively law-abiding. — Mahatma Gandhi

A satyagrahi lays down his life, but never gives up. That is the meaning of the 'do or die' slogan. — Mahatma Gandhi

Final Satyagraha is inconceivable without an honorable peace between the several communities composing the Indian nation. — Mahatma Gandhi

The two came to differ on many, if not most, issues. But the man who would single-handedly defy Hitler in 1940 against all odds bears a striking resemblance to the man who organized the first satyagraha campaign in South Africa. — Arthur Herman

A satyagrahi loves his so-called enemy even as he loves his friend. He has no enemy. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha means insistence on what one knows to be the truth. The insistence implies the exercise of free will as the need of social obligation. If one is content to know the truth himself, he does not become a votary of Satyagraha. A Satyagrahi should not only know the truth but should insist upon it in social relations. So Satyagraha is activation of truthfulness. — Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

The word satyagraha implies, Gandhi's passivity was not weakness at all. It meant focusing on an ultimate goal and refusing to divert energy to unnecessary skirmishes along the way. — Susan Cain

A satyagrahi has infinite patience, abundant faith in others, and ample hope. — Mahatma Gandhi

There is a vital connection between satyagraha and charkha, and the more I find that belief challenged, the more I am confirmed in it. — Mahatma Gandhi

I have repeatedly stated that satyagraha never fails and that one perfect satyagrahi is enough to vindicate Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

In a gentle way, you can shake the world. — Mahatma Gandhi

Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha. — 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

The mantra of independence was Satyagraha. And the warriors were Satyagrahis. The mantra of New Age India must be Swachhagrah. And the warriors will be Swachhagrahis. — Narendra Modi

A clear victory of satyagraha is impossible so long as there is ill will. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the repressor is tired of it and the object of satyagraha is gained. — Mahatma Gandhi