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I Learnt The Lesson On Nonviolence From My Wife, When I Tried To Bend Her To My Will. Her Determined Resistance To My Will On The One Hand, And Her Quiet Submission To The Suffering My Stupidity Involved On The Other, Ultimately Made Me Ashamed Of Myself And Cured Me Of My Stupidity In Thinking That I Was Born To Rule Over Her.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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I Learnt The Lesson

Mahatma Gandhi

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I Learnt The Lesson On Nonviolence From My Wife, When I Tried To Bend Her To My Will. Her Determined Resistance To My Will On The One Hand, And Her Quiet Submission To The Suffering My Stupidity Involved On The Other, Ultimately Made Me Ashamed Of Myself And Cured Me Of My Stupidity In Thinking That I Was Born To Rule Over Her.

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Democracy, Disciplined And Enlightened, Is The Finest Thing In The World.

History Is Replete With Instances Of Men, Who, By Dying With Courage And Compassion On Their Lips Converted The Hearts Of Their Violent Opponents.

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God Answers Prayer In His Own Way, Not Ours.

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British Rule In India

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A Smattering Of English Is Worse Than Useless; It Is An Unnecessary Tax On Our Women.

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Charkha Is An Instrument Of Service.

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Honest Disagreement Is Often A Good Sign Of Progress.

It Is Swaraj When We Learn To Rule Ourselves.

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Economic Equality Is The Master-key To Nonviolent Independence.

When A Tiger Changes His Nature, Englishmen Will Change Theirs.

Nonviolence Is The Rock On Which The Whole Structure Of Non-co-operation Is Built.

I Considered Becoming A Christian... Until I Met One.

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Truth, Which Is Permanent, Eludes The Historian Of Events. Truth Transcends History.

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.

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I Suppose Leadership At One Time Meant Muscles; But Today It Means Getting Along With People.

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Devotion Required By The Gita Is No Soft-hearted Effusiveness.

It Does Not Require Money To Be Neat, Clean And Dignified.

My Nonviolence Demands Universal Love, And You Are Not A Small Part Of It.

Languages Proclaim That Woman Is Half Of Man, And By Parity Of Reasoning, Man Is Half Of Woman.

A Civilization Based On Nonviolence Must Be Different From That Organized For Violence.

The Future Depends On What We Do In The Present.

No Labour Is Too Mean For One Who Wants To Earn An Honest Penny.

Yajna Having Come To Us With Our Birth, We Are Debtors All Our Lives, And Thus For Ever Bound To Serve The Universe.

If Untouchability Is An Integral Part Of Hinduism, The Latter Is A Spent Bullet.

If Hand-spinning Is An Effective Method Of Making India Self-supporting, It Must Be Made Part Of The Franchise.

Silence Becomes Cowardice When Occasion Demands Speaking Out The Whole Truth And Acting Accordingly.

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Hitler Is A Scourge Sent By God To Punish Men For Their Iniquities.

It Is Beyond My Power To Induce In You A Belief In God. There Are Certain Things Which Are Self Proved And Certain Which Are Not Proved At All.

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Prayer From The Heart Can Achieve What Nothing Else Can In The World.

If Every Component Part Of The Nation Claims The Right Of Self-determination For Itself, There Is No One Nation And There Is No Independence.

Non-co-operation Is The Quickest Method Of Creating Public Opinion.

And He Who Would Be Friends With God Must Remain Alone, Or Make The Whole World His Friend

The Spinning Wheel Is The One Thing To Which All Must Turn To In The Indian Clime For The Transition Stage At Any Rate And The Vast Majority Must For All Time.

Everyone Holds A Piece Of The Truth.

No One Can Ride On The Back Of A Man Unless It Is Bent.

Reason Has To Be Strengthened By Suffering, And Suffering Opens The Eyes Of Understanding.

Truth Is What The Voice Within Tells You.

Swaraj Is A Hardy Tree Of Patient Growth.

Satyagraha Has Been Designed As An Effective Substitute For Violence.

Seek Ye First The Charkha And Its Concomitants And Everything Else Will Be Added Unto You.

I Would Bend The Knee Before The Poorest Scavenger, The Poorest Untouchable In India For Having Participated In Crushing Him For Centuries; I Would Even Take The Dust Off His Feet.

Indeed One's Faith In One's Plans And Methods Is Truly Tested When The Horizon Before One Is The Blackest.

The Real Seat Of Taste Was Not The Tongue But The Mind

We Must Treat Arrest As The Normal Condition Of The Life Of A Non-co-operator.

Man Cannot Breathe With Borrowed Lungs.

The Golden Rule Is To Act Fearlessly Upon What One Believes To Be Right.

Truth Is Not Truth Merely Because It Is Ancient. Nor Is Truth Necessarily To Be Regarded With Suspicion Because It Is Ancient.

A Nonviolent Warrior Knows No Leaving The Battle. He Rushes Into The Mouth Of Himsa, Never Even Once Harbouring An Evil Thought.

I Must Dissent Emphatically From Any Proposal To Spend Any Money On Preparing A Statue Of Me, More Especially At A Time When People Do Not Have Enough Food And Clothing.

Purification Is Never For The Selfishly Idle, It Accrues Only To The Selflessly Industrious.

Human Nature Will Find Itself Only When It Fully Realizes That To Be Human It Has To Cease To Be Beastly Or Brutal.

The Man Who Coerces Another Not To Eat Fish Commits More Violence Than He Who Eats It.

The Real Ornament Of Woman Is Her Character, Her Purity.

Work Without Faith Is Like An Attempt To Reach The Bottom Of A Bottomless Pit.

Every Person, As Every Institution, And, Above All, Every Religion Is To Be Judged Not By The Amount Of Atrocities Or The Wrong Committed But By The Right Conduct.

Keep Your Thoughts Positive Because Your Thoughts Become Your Words. Keep Your Words Positive Because Your Words Become Your Behavior. Keep Your Behavior Positive Because Your Behavior Becomes Your Habits. Keep Your Habits Positive Because Your Habits Become Your Values. Keep Your Values Positive Because Your Values Become Your Destiny.

For Me The Voice Of God, Of Conscience, Of Truth Or The Inner Voice Or The Still Small Voice Mean One And The Same Thing.

A Man Of Prayer Regards What Are Known As Physical Calamities As Divine Chastisement.

Swaraj Does Not Depend On Jail Going. If It Did, There Are Thousands Of Prisoners In Jail Today. It Depends On Everyone Doing His Or Her Own Task.

The Eternal Duel Between Ormuzd And Ahriman, God And Satan, Is Raging In My Breast, Which Is One Among Their Billion Battlefields.

When You Are Right,you Have No Need To Be Angry. When You Are Wrong, You Have No Right To Be Angry.

Disease Increases In Proportion To The Increase In The Number Of Doctors In A Place.

Truth Alone Will Endure, All The Rest Will Be Swept Away Before The Tide Of Time. I Must Continue To Bear Testimony To Truth Even If I Am Forsaken By All. Mine May Today Be A Voice In The Wilderness, But It Will Be Heard When All Other Voices Are Silenced, If It Is The Voice Of Truth.

A Satyagrahi Would Neither Retaliate Nor Would He Submit To The Criminal, But Seek To Cure Him By Curing Himself.

I'm A Lover Of My Own Liberty, And So I Would Do Nothing To Restrict Yours.

The Press Is Called The Fourth Estate. It Is Definitely A Power, But, To Misuse That Power Is Criminal.

A General Belief Seems To Prevail In The Colony That The Indians Are Little Better, If At All, Than The Savages Or Natives Of Africa. Even The Children Are Taught To Believe In That Manner, With The Result That The Indian Is Being Dragged Down To The Position Of A Raw Kaffir.

A Clean Confession Combined With A Promise Never To Commit The Sin Again, When Offered Before One Who Has The Right To Receive It, Is The Purest Type Of Repentance.

Civil Disobedience Can Never Be In General Terms, Such As For Independence.

When Every Hope Is Gone, 'when Helpers Fail And Comforts Flee,' I Find That Help Arrives Somehow, From I Know Not Where. Supplication, Worship, Prayer Are No Superstition; They Are Acts More Real Than The Acts Of Eating, Drinking, Sitting Or Walking. It Is No Exaggeration To Say That They Alone Are Real, All Else Is Unreal.

There Are Two Days In The Year That We Can Not Do Anything, Yesterday And Tomorrow

If God Holds Me To Be A Pure Instrument For The Spread Of Nonviolence In Place Of The Awful Violence Now Ruling The Earth, He Will Give Me The Strength And Show Me The Way.

Religion Taught Us To Return Good For Evil.

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.

We Cry For Cow Protection In The Name Of Religion, But We Refuse Protection To The Human Cow In The Shape Of The Girl-widow.

The Law Is God. Anything Attributed To Him Is Not A Mere Attribute. He Is Truth, Love, Law And A Million Things That Human Ingenuity Can Name.

Suffering Cheerfully Endured, Ceases To Be Suffering And Is Transmuted Into An Ineffable Joy.

Insistence On Truth Can Come Into Play When One Party Practices 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.

Absolute Calm Is Not The Law Of Ocean. And It Is The Same With The Ocean Of Life.

Moral Authority Is Never Retained By Any Attempt To Hold On To It. It Comes Without Seeking And Is Retained Without Effort.

My Swaraj Will Be Not Be A Result Of Murder Of Others But A Voluntary Act Of Continuous Self-sacrifice.

One Cannot Reach Truth By Untruthfulness. Truthful Conduct Alone Can Reach Truth.

I Was A Co-operator Too In The Sense That I Non-co-operated For Co-operation, And Even Then I Said That If I Could Carry The Country Forward By Co-operation I Should Co-operate.

We Are All Very Imperfect And Weak Things, And If We Are To Destroy All Whose Ways We Do Not Like, There Will Be Not A Man Left Alive.

Every Species, Human And Subhuman, Has Some Distinguishing Mark, So That You Can Tell A Man From A Beast, Or A Dog From A Cow.

The Path Is The Goal.

Concentrate On Your Task.

What Is Imprisonment To The Man Who Is Fearless Of Death Itself?

You Never Know Where Your Actions Will Lead To. But If You Don't Do Anything They Will Lead You Nowhere.

There Would Be Nothing To Frighten You If You Refused To Be Afraid.

God Will Not Be God, If He Allowed Himself To Be The Object Of Proof By His Creatures.

At The Centre Of Nonviolence Is A Force Which Is Self-acting.

Faith Is Not Something To Grasp, It Is A State To Grow Into.

What Is Wanted Is A Deliberate Giving Up Of Violence Out Of Strength.

True Democracy Is Not Inconsistent With A Few Persons Representing The Spirit, The Hope And The Aspirations Of Those Whom They Claim To Represent.

Drink Is Not A Fashion In India, As It Is In The West.

Breach Of Promise Is A Base Surrender Of Truth.

Keeping Promises

Equality Of Sexes Does Not Mean Equality Of Occupations.

The Indian Struggle Is Not Anti-british, It Is Anti-exploitation, Anti-foreign Rule, Not Anti-foreigners.

Experience Gained In Two Schools Under My Control Has Taught Me That Punishment Does Not Purify, If Anything, It Hardens Children.

The Votaries Of Nonviolence Cannot Harbour Violence Even In Thought, Let Alone The Question Of Doing It.

Well, India Is A Country Of Nonsense

You Can Only Have Lasting Peace Based On Justice.

What Is A War Criminal? Was Not War Itself A Crime Against God And Humanity, And, Therefore, Were Not All Those Who Sanctioned, Engineered, And Conducted Wars, War Criminals? War Criminals Are Not Confined To The Axis Powers Alone. Roosevelt And Churchill Are No Less War Criminals Than Hitler And Mussolini. England, America And Russia Have All Of Them Got Their Hands Dyed More Or Less Red - Not Merely Germany And Japan.

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I Do Not Wish Disaster To British Arms.

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