Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Mahatma Gandhi Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: India
  • Born: Oct 2, 1869
  • Died: Jan 30, 1948

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma —applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa,—is now used worldwide. He is also called Bapu in India.

Born and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in coastal Gujarat, western India, and trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, but above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

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.

Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.

Where love is, there God is also.

Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles but today it means getting along with people.

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

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.

Each one prays to God according to his own light.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

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

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

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

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

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's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

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

Peace is its own reward.

Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others.

Non-violence is the article of faith.

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.

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

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

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

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

Where there is love there is life.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

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.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

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

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

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.

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

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

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.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

My life is my message.

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

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

God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.

Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.

The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.

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

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

Morality is contraband in war.

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.

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.

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

Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.

It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.

Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.

One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.

Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

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

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.

God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

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

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.