Gandhiji’s Quotes – Wit & Wisdom

This page is compiled from mahatma.org.in and published in my personal website in 2000. Just thought of sharing these quotes with teck.in subscribers and readers, as these are very relevant always for a better living.

1. Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate in the minutest details in the activities of man, and she has an equal right of freedom and liberty with him.
2. Hatred ever kills, love never dies such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.
3. Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
4. There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.
5. Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practises untruth or injustice. Only then can love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one party disregards the obligation of friendship.
6. The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that too, unconditional assistance. Co-operation which needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which does not bind.
7. It may be long before the law of love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
8. A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.
9. Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.
10. Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realize that they need not fear brute force, if they would but know the soul within.
11. Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy.
12. To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.
13. The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
14. Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
15. I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter’s divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me.
16. An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it.
17. Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.
18. As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance,cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
19. Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
20. Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lie not in hatred but in justice, if not in love.
21. I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.
22. Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.
23. I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God’s creation, woman, the object of our lust.
24. The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the rock of ages. If we would seek his aid, we must approach Him with a humble and contrite heart.
25. Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it.
26. There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
27. Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will remain.
28. Intolerance is itself a from of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
29. This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost.
30. God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
31. I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
32. The only virtue I want to claim is truth and non-violence. I lay no claim to superhuman powers. I want none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that the weakest of my fellow beings wears, and am therefore as liable to err as any. My services have many limitations, but God has upto now blessed them in spite of the imperfections.
33. The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
34. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.
35. When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
36. Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
37. Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
38. In nature there is fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity.
39. However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.
40. Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other.
41. For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
42. Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth & violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion.
43. 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.
44. Indeed one’s faith in one’s plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
45. It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
46. My trust is solely in god. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species.
47. One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.
48. My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
49. It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.
50. Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle.
51. Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
52. Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle.
53. Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.
54. Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
55. I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but the pain of it is a positive pleasure to me. Each step upwards makes me feel stronger and fit for the next.
56. Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
57. Self-respect knows no considerations.
58. 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 then the one derived from fear of punishment.
59. A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
60. There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.
61. No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is ‘making sacred’. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice.
62. That service is the nobelest which is rendered for its own sake.
63. Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
64. God tries his votaries through and through but never beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through the ordeal he prescribes for them.
65. Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.
66. I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
67. Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
68. Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.
69. Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower then the brute.
70. Anger is the enemy of Ahimsa(Non-violence) and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
71. A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
72. It is easy enough to say, ‘I do not believe in God.’ For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment.
73. He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa. He who is angry is guilty of Himsa.
74. Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality.
75. 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.
76. Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
77. I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time, where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man’s plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better then anticipated.
78. A ‘no’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
79. Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is notworth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.
80. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit thesin again, when offered before one who has the right to receiveit, is the purest type of repentance.
81. Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.
82. Perfection is the exclusive attribute of God, and it is indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is possible for human beings to become perfect. It is necessary for all of us to aspire after that perfection but when that blessed state is attained, it becomes indescribable, indefinable.
83. What is true of the individual will be to-morrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
84. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
85. It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
86. The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
87. It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself, for we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being, is to slight those divine powers and thus to harm not only that Being, but with Him, the whole world.
88. Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
89. A True soldier does not argue as he marches, how success is going to be ultimately achieved. But he is confident that if he only plays his humble part well, somehow or other the battle will be won. It is in that spirit that every one of us should act. It is not given to us to know the future. But it is given to everyone of us to know how to do our own part well.
90. If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
91. Of all the animal creation of God, man is the only animal who has been created in order that he may know his Maker. Man’s aim in life is not therefore to add from day to day to his material prospects and to his material possessions, but his predominant calling is, from day to day to come nearer to his own Maker.
92. Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.
93. Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation, and a wicked deed dis-approbation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
94. All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
95. Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
96. Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way to find oneself.
97. I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience, which is God.
98. Real suffering, bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha.
99. But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
100. There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.
101. The first condition of humaneness is a little humility and a little diffidence about the correctness of one’s conduct and a little receptiveness.
102. Where love is, there God is also.
103. We are merely the instruments of the Almighty’s will and therefore ignorant of what helps us forward and what acts as an impediment. We must thus rest satisfied with the knowledge only of the means and if these are pure, we can fearlessly leave the end to take care of itself.
104. There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity
105. Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort.
106. Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
107. I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically inexpedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
108. When anything assumes the strength of a creed, it becomes self-sustained and derives the needed support from within.
109. I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that change a living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power or spirit is God. And since nothing else I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is.
110. Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising, cowardice always is.
111. Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
112. It is man’s social nature which distinguishes him from the brute creation. If it is his privilege to be independent, it is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an arrogant man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be self-contained.
113. Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
114. Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or lordliness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds, not in words.
115. Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.
116. Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man theniron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.
117. It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out.
118. Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth.
119. Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.
120. I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
121. Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
122. Each one prays to God according to his own light.
123. The world is touched by sacrifice. It does not then discriminate about the merits of a cause. Not so God – He is all seeing. He insists on the purity of the cause and on adequate sacrifice thereof.
124. Breach of promise is no less an act of insolvency than a refusal to pay one’s debt.
125. 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.
126. The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.
127. Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
128. We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
129. There should be truth in thought, truth in speech, and truth in action. To the man who has realised this truth in perfection, nothing else remains to be known because all knowledge is necessarily included in it.
130. I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.
131. I saw that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the Cross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself.
132. An ounce of practice is worth more then tons of preaching.
133. Courage has never been known to be a matter of muscle; it is a matter of the heart. The toughest muscle has been known to tremble before an imaginary fear. It was the heart that set the muscle atrembling.
134. To me art in order to be truly great must, like the beauty of Nature, be universal in its appeal. It must be simple in its presentation and direct in its expression, like the language of Nature.
135. God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.
136. When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
137. Suffering has its well-defined limits. Suffering can be both wise and unwise, and when the limit is reached, to prolong it would be not unwise but the height of folly.
138. Have I not gazed at the marvellous mystery of the starry vault, hardly ever tiring of the great panorama?
139. I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.
140. Proved right should be capable of being vindicated by right means as against the rude i.e. sanguinary means. Man may and should shed his own blood for establishing what he considers to be his right. He may not shed the blood of his opponent who disputes his ‘right’.
141. I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.
142. Woman has a compassionate heart which melts at the sight of suffering.
143. Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.
144. I have been a willing slave to this most exacting Master fr more then half a century. His voice has been increasingly audible as years have rolled by. He has never forsaken me even in my darkest hour. He has saved me often against myself and left me not a vestige of independence. The greater the surrender to Him, the greater has been my joy.
145. A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help. Therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and a snare.
146. Evil is, good or truth misplaced.
147. There is no human institution but has its dangers. The greater the institution, the greater the chances of abuse. Democracy is a great institution and therefore it is liable to be greatly abused. The remedy therefore is not avoidance of democracy but reduction of the possibility of abuse to a minimum.
148. Man can never be a woman’s equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
149. I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
150. My life is one indivisible whole, and all my activities run intoone another, and they all have their rise in my insatiable love of mankind.
151. I need no inspiration other then Nature’s. She has never failed me yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into ecstasies. Besides God’s handiwork, does not man’s fade into insignificance?
152. The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.
153. To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul the dweller in the body.
154. Humility cannot be an observance by itself. For, it does not lend itself to being deliberately practised. It is, however, an indispensable test of ‘Ahimsa.’ For one who has ‘Ahimsa’ in him it becomes part of his very nature.
155. God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
156. Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
157. Destruction is not the law of humans. Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another is a crime against humanity.
158. 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.
159. Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
160. Manliness consists in making circumstances subserve to ourselves.
161. Those who will not heed themselves perish. To understand this principle is not to be impatient, not to reproach fate, not to blame others. He who understands the doctrine of self-help blames himself for failure.
162. Surely conversion is a matter between man and his Maker who alone knows his creatures’ hearts. A conversion without a clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of God and Religion. Conversion without cleanliness of heart can only be a matter of sorrow, not joy, to a godly person.
163. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith. Work without faith is like an attempt to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit.
164. Ill-digested principles are, if anything, worse than ill-digested food, for the latter harms the body and there is cure for it, whereas the former ruins the soul and there is no cure for it.
165. The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
166. Restraint never ruins one’s health. What ruins it,is not restraint but outward suppression. A really self-restrained person grows every day from strength to strength and from peace to more peace. The very first step in self-restraint is the restraint of thoughts.
167. We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
168. True religion is not a narrow dogma. It is not external observance. It is faith in God and living in the presence of God. It means faith in a future life, in truth and Ahimsa. There prevails today a sort of apathy towards these things of the Spirit.
169. Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.
170. A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
171. I may live without air and water, but not without Him. You may pluck out my eyes, but that cannot kill me. You may chop off my nose but that will not kill me. But blast my belief in God, and I am dead.
172. 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.
173. Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living ?
174. I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.
175. Everyone has faith in God though everyone does not know it. For everyone has faith in himself and that multiplied to the nth degree is God. The sum total of all that lives is God. We may not be God, but we are of God, even as a little drop of water is of the ocean.
176. There is no one without faults, not even men of God. They are men of God not because they are faultless, but because they know their own faults, they strive against them, they do not hide them, and are ever ready to correct themselves.
177. Non-violence and cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true non-violence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.
178. Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.
179. The hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of non- violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of non-violence to generate heat.
180. Rights accrue automatically to him who duly performs his duties. In fact the right to perform one’s duties is the only right that is worth living for and dying for. It covers all legitimate rights. All the rest is grab under one guise or another and contains in it seed of Himsa.
181. 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.
182. Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment.
183. A dissolute character is more dissolute in thought than in deed. And the same is true of violence. Our violence in word and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging violence of thought in us.
184. Democracy must in essence, therefore, mean the art and science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all the various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all.
185. A principle is a principle. and in no case can it be watered down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious, deliberate and hard.
186. A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of itspeople.
187. Who am I? I have no strength save what God gives me. I have no authority over my countrymen save the pure moral. If He holds me to be a pure instrument for the spread of non-violence in place of the awful violence now ruling the earth, He will give me the strength and show me the way. My greatest weapon is mute prayer. The cause of peace is therefore, in God’s good hands.
188. I want to see India free in my life-time. But God may not consider me fit enough to see the dream of my life fulfilled. Then I shall quarrel, not with Him but with myself.
189. All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.
190. Between husband and wife there should be no secrets from one another. I have a very high opinion of the marriage tie. I hold that husband and wife merge in each other. They are one in two or two in one.
191. It is foolish to think that by fleeing one can trick the dread god of death. Let us treat him as a beneficent angel rather than a dread god. We must face and welcome him whenever he comes.
192. It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, ruled us we should have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence.
193. The badge of the violent is his weapon, spear, sword or rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent.
194. 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.
195. It is through truth non-violence that I can have some glimpseof God. Truth non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.
196. Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
197. Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.
198. An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his principles as we would expect others to have for ours. Non-violence demands that we should seek every opportunity to win over opponents.
199. Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.
200. Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
201. No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of merit.
202. How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse to do the master’s bidding. He may torture me, break my bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to do what he wanted done.
203. Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
204. Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.
205. Power invariably elects to go into the hands of the strong. That strength may be physical or of the heart or, if we do not fight shy of the word, of the spirit. Strength of the heart connotes soul-force. Let it be remembered that physical force is transitory, even as the body is transitory. But the power of the spirit is permanent even as the spirit is everlasting.
206. Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.
207. My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family, that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty, and that this defence prevails, though the world be against the individual resister.
208. Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.
209. I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the sacrifice demanded my very life, I hope I may be prepared to give it.
210. We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.