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If Any Englishman Dedicated His Life To Securing The Freedom Of India, Resisting Tyranny And Serving The Land, I Should Welcome That Englishman As An Indian.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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If Any Englishman Dedicated

Mahatma Gandhi

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If Any Englishman Dedicated His Life To Securing The Freedom Of India, Resisting Tyranny And Serving The Land, I Should Welcome That Englishman As An Indian.

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I Would Rather Have India Resort To Arms In Order To Defend Her Honour Than That She Should, In A Cowardly Manner, Become Or Remain A Helpless Witness To Her Own Dishonor.

Self-realization Is The Object Of The Gita, As It Is Of All Scriptures.

If She [woman] Is Weak In Striking, She Is Strong In Suffering.

What Crimes, For Which We Condemn The Government As Satanic, Have Not We Been Guilty Of Towards Our Own Untouchable Brethren?

Hatred Can Be Overcome Only By Love.

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.

All Religions Were, At Bottom, One, Though They Differed In Detail And Outward Form Like The Leaves On A Tree.

If Light Can Come Out Of Darkness, Then Alone Can Love Emerge From Hatred.

...service Can Have No Meaning Unless One Takes Pleasure In It. When It Is Done For Show Or For Fear Of Public Opinion, It Stunts The Man And Crushes His Spirit. Service Which Is Rendered Without Joy Helps Neither The Servant Nor The Served.

The Swaraj Of My Dream Is The Poor Man's Swaraj.

Any Young Man, Who Makes Dowry A Condition To Marriage, Discredits His Education And His Country And Dishonours Womanhood.

The Spirit Of Democracy... Requires Change Of The Heart... Requires The Inculcation Of The Spirit Of Brotherhood.

Man Is The Maker Of His Own Destiny, And I Therefore Ask You To Become Makers Of Your Own Destiny.

Life Is An Aspiration. Its Mission Is To Strive After Perfection, Which Is Self-realization. The Ideal Must Not Be Lowered Because Of Our Weaknesses Or Imperfections.

Peace Is Its Own Reward.

The Singular Secret Of Khaddar Lies In Its Saleability In The Place Of Its Production And Use By The Manufacturers Themselves.

No Empire Intoxicated With The Red Wine Of Power And The Plunder Of Weaker Races Has Yet Lived Long In This World.

Personally I Like To Believe That All Become Honest, The Millennium Is Round The Corner!

My Religion Teaches Me To Love All Equally.

If We Are To Create Peace In Our World, We Must Begin With Our Children.

If I Arrogate To Myself The Exclusive Title Of Being In The Right, I Usurp The Function Of The Deity.

Civil Disobedience And Excitement And Intoxication Go Ill Together.

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

You Will Find That God Is Always By The Side Of The Fearless.

Whenever You Take A Step Forward, You Are Bound To Disturb Something. You Disturb The Air As You Go Forward, You Disturb The Dust, The Ground. You Trample Upon Things. When A Whole Society Moves Forward, This Trampling Is On A Much Bigger Scale; And Each Thing That You Disturb, Each Vested Interest Which You Want To Remove, Stands As An Obstacle.

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.

Man Must Choose Either Of The Two Courses, The Upward Or The Downward; But As He Has The Brute In Him, He Will More Easily Choose The Downward Course Than The Upward, Especially When The Downward Course Is Presented To Him In A Beautiful Garb. Man Easily Capitulates When Sin Is Presented In The Garb Of Virtue.

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

If We Were To Drive Out The English With The Weapons With Which They Enslaved Us, Our Slavery Would Still Be With Us Even When They Have Gone.

Indolence Is A Delightful But Distressing State; We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy.

Nonviolence Succeeds Only When We Have A Real Living Faith In God.

I Have Made The World's Faith In God My Own And As My Faith Is Effaceable, I Regard That Faith As Amounting To Experience.

When I Admire The Wonders Of A Sunset Or The Beauty Of The Moon, My Soul Expands In The Worship Of The Creator.

Poverty Is The Worst Form Of Violence.

Hunger And Poverty

I Recall Having Read, At The Brothers' Instance, Madame Blavatsky's Key To Theosophy. This Book Stimulated In Me The Desire To Read Books On Hinduism, And Disabused Me Of The Notion Fostered By The Missionaries That Hinduism Was Rife With Superstition.

That Economics Is Untrue Which Ignores Or Disregards Moral Values.

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.

The Bravery Of The Nonviolent Is Vastly Superior To That Of The Violent.

I Have Described Swaraj As Ramarajya And Ramarajya Is An Impossibility Unless We Have Thousands Of Sitas.

The Truth Is That Cowardice Itself Is Violence Of A Subtle Type And Therefore Dangerous And Far More Difficult To Eradicate Than The Habit Of Physical Violence.

The Gita Has Become For Me The Key To The Scriptures Of The World.

Unless We Learn The Lesson Of Nonviolence Fully, We Shall Never Do Away With The Deadly Feuds Which Have Been The Curse Of The Frontier People.

To Say That A Single Human Being, Because Of His Birth, Becomes An Untouchable, Unapproachable Or Invisible Is To Deny God.

Anger, Lust And Such Other Evil Passions Raging In The Heart Are The Real Untouchables.

I Learned From My Illiterate But Wise Mother That All Rights To Be Deserved And Preserved Came From Duty Well Done. Thus The Very Right To Live Accrues To Us Only When We Do The Duty Of Citizenship Of The World. From This One Fundamental Statement, Perhaps It Is Easy Enough To Define The Duties Of Man And Woman And Correlate Every Right To Some Corresponding Duty To Be First Performed. Every Other Right Can Be Shown To Be A Usurpation Hardly Worth Fighting For.

The True Measure Of Any Society Can Be Found In How It Treats Its Most Vulnerable Members

Untouchability Of Foreign Cloth Is As Much A Virtue With All Of Us As Untouchability Of The Suppressed Classes Must Be A Sin With Every Devout Hindu.

Service Is Not Possible Unless It Is Rooted In Love Orahimsa.

The More I Study Hindu Scriptures, And The More I Discuss Them With Brahmins, The More I Feel Convinced That Untouchability Is The Greatest Blot Upon Hinduism.

For Me The Only Certain Means Of Knowing God Is Nonviolence, Ahimsa, Love.

Our Nonviolence Vis-а-vis The British Government Has Been The Nonviolence Of The Weak.

I Must Refuse To Believe That The Germans Contemplate With Equanimity The Evacuation Of Cities Like London For Fear Of Destruction To Be Wrought By Man's Inhuman Ingenuity.

A Friendship That Exacts Oneness Of Opinion And Conduct Is Not Worth Much.

As In Laws Or In War, The Longest Purse Finally Wins.

Violence Always Thrived On Counter Violence.

In Fact, It Is More Correct To Say That Truth Is God, Than To Say That God Is Truth.

Nonviolence, In Its Dynamic Condition Means Conscious Suffering.

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

Nonviolence Is The Greatest Force At The Disposal Of Mankind.

For Me There Is A Vital Connection Between The Bihar Calamity And The Untouchability Campaign.

A Full And Candid Admission Of One's Mistakes Should Make Proof Against Its Repetition.

If Love Or Non-violence Be Not The Law Of Our Being, The Whole Of My Argument Falls To Pieces.

All Religions Are Branches Of The Same Mighty Tree, But I Must Not Change Over From One Branch To Another For The Sake Of Expediency.

I Can Neither Serve God Nor Humanity If As An Indian I Do Not Serve India, And As A Hindu I Do Not Serve Indian Mussalmans.

We Cannot Be Speakers Who Do Not Listen. But Neither Can We Be Listeners Who Do Not Speak.

Nations Are Born Out Of Travail And Suffering

I Cannot Imagine Anything Nobler Or More National Than That For, Say, One Hour In The Day We Should All Do The Labor The Poor Must Do, And Thus Identify Ourselves With Them And Through Them, With All Mankind.

Hours In The Day

Prosecution Of The Constructive Programme Means Constructing The Structure Of Swaraj.

Satyagraha Is A Law For Universal Application. Beginning With The Family, Its Use Can Be Extended To Every Other Circle.

Seven Deadly Sins Wealth Without Work Pleasure Without Conscience Science Without Humanity Knowledge Without Character Politics Without Principle Commerce Without Morality Worship Without Sacrifice.

I Think It Would Be An Excellent Idea.

Rights That Do Not Flow From Duty Well Performed Are Not Worth Having.

I Still Believe That Man, Not Having Been Given The Power Of Creation, Does Not Posses The Right Of Destroying The Meanest Creature That Lives. The Perogative Of Destruction Belongs Solely To The Creator Of All That Lives.

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'.

Life Is But An Endless Series Of Experiments.

It Is Necessary First To Purify The Drunken And Dissolute Worshippers In Charge Of Some Of These Temples.

Every Person In A Well-ordered State Is Fully Conscious Of Both His Responsibilities And His Rights.

Purity Of Personal Life Is The One Indispensable Condition For Building Up A Sound Education.

Disobedience To Be Civil Has To Be Open And Nonviolent.

Civil Disobedience

Your Character Must Be Above Suspicion And You Must Be Truthful And Self-controlled.

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.

Harijan Service Is A Duty The Caste Hindus Owe To Themselves.

It Is Better To Be Violent, If There Is Violence In Our Hearts, Than To Put On The Cloak Of Nonviolence To Cover Impotence.

I Do Not Wish Disaster To British Arms.

If Euclid's Point, Though Incapable Of Being Drawn By Any Human Agency, Has An Imperishable Value, My Picture Has Its Own For Mankind To Live.

For Me Every Ruler Is Alien That Defies Public Opinion.

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.

Nonviolence In The Sense Of Mere Non-killing Does Not Appear To Me, Therefore, To Be Of Any Improvement On The Technique Of Violence.

It Is Difficult, But Not Impossible, To Conduct Strictly Honest Business.

... When All Violence Subsides In The Human Heart, The State Which Remains Is Love. It Is Not Something We Have To Acquire; It Is Always Present, And Needs Only To Be Uncovered. This Is Our Real Nature, Not Merely To Love One Person Here, Another There, But To Be Love Itself.

We Must Learn To Be Self-reliant And Independent Of Schools, Courts, Protection And Patronage Of A Government We Seek To End, If It Will Not Mend.

I Would Rather Have India Without Education, If That Is The Price To Be Paid For Making It Dry.

Vehement Writing, Even If It Is Charged With Truth, Is No Answer To Violent Action.

Nonviolence Being The Mightiest Force In The World And Also The Most Elusive In Its Working, Demands The Greatest Exercise Of Faith.

My Fast Is A Matter Between God And Myself.

For Me, Rama And Rahim Are One And The Same Deity.

Palestine Belongs To The Arabs In The Same Sense That England Belongs To The English Or France To The French. It Is Wrong And Inhuman To Impose The Jews On The Arabs... Surely It Would Be A Crime Against Humanity To Reduce The Proud Arabs So That Palestine Can Be Restored To The Jews Partly Or Wholly As Their National Home

Selfishness Is Blind.

Can A General Fight On The Strength Of Soldiers, Who, He Knows, Have No Faith In Him?

I Believe In God, Not As A Theory But As A Fact More Real Than Life Itself.

The Scriptures Of Christians, Mussalmans And Hindus Are All Replete With The Teaching Of Ahimsa.

The Force Of Love Is The Same As The Force Of The Soul Or Truth.

It Took Britain Half The Resources Of The Planet To Achieve Its Prosperity; How Many Planets Will A Country Like India Require?

Action Expresses Priorities.

No Agreement Between The British And Muslims Can Affect Me. An Agreement Between Hindus And Muslims Alone Will Affect Me.

Cow-protection Can Only Be Secured By Cultivating Universal Friendliness, I.e. Ahimsa.

Indian Nationalism Is Not Exclusive, Nor Aggressive, Nor Destructive.

All Of Us With One Voice Call One God Differently As Parmatma, Ishwara, Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Allah, Khuda, Dada-hormuzda, Jehova, God And An Infinite Variety Of Names.

I Cannot Give Active Support In The War Effort Without Denying A Life-time Of Practice.

Ahimsa Is The Strongest Force Known.

Ahimsa Is The Highest Duty. Even If We Cannot Practice It In Full, We Must Try To Understand Its Spirit And Refrain As Far As Is Humanly Possible From Violence.

Nonviolence Is An Unchangeable Creed.

A Man Of God Never Strives After Untruth And Therefore He Can Never Lose Hope.

There Is An Indefinable Mysterious Power That Pervades Everything.

The Idol In The Temple Is Not God. But Since God Resides In Every Atom, He Resides In That Idol Too.

Prayer Is A Confession Of One's Own Unworthiness And Weakness.

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

There Is Enough For The Need Of Everyone In This World, But Not For The Greed Of Everyone.

God Has Blessed Man With Seed That Has The Highest Potency And Woman With A Field Richer Than The Richest Earth To Be Found Anywhere On His Globe.

The Path Is The Goal.

Carefully Watch Your Thoughts, For They Become Your Words. Manage And Watch Your Words, For They Will Become Your Actions. Consider And Judge Your Actions, For They Have Become Your Habits. Acknowledge And Watch Your Habits, For They Shall Become Your Values. Understand And Embrace Your Values, For They Become Your Destiny.

A Poet Is One Who Can Call Forth The Good Latent In The Human Beast.

Hatred Is Never Overcome By Hatred But By Love.

God Is The Shield Of The Nonviolent.

We Hindus And Mohamedans Would Have To Blame Our Folly Rather Than The English, If We Allowed Them To Put Us Asunder.

Victory Attained By Violence Is Tantamount To A Defeat For It Is Momentary.

Victory And Defeat

I Offer You Peace. I Offer You Love. I Offer You Friendship. I See Your Beauty. I Hear Your Need. I Feel Your Feelings.

We Believe As Much In The Purity Of Races As We Think They (the Whites) Do...by Advocating The Purity Of All Races.

Personally I Crave Not For 'independence', Which I Do Not Understand, But I Long For Freedom From The English Yoke.

Between The Two, The Nationalist And The Imperialist, There Is No Meeting Ground.

There Is No God Greater Than Truth.

There Is No God

The Congress Fights Not With Violent But With Nonviolent Means, However Imperfect, However Crude The Nonviolence May Be.

A Selfish Basis Would Not Serve The Purpose Of Taking A Man Higher And Higher Along The Paths Of Evolution.

He Who Does Not See God In The Next Person He Meets Need Look No Further.

Find Purpose. The Means Will Follow.

It Is A Sad Thing That Our Schoolboys Look Upon Manual Labour With Disfavour, If Not Contempt.

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.

Even Ramanama Is By Itself Lifeless, But It Has Become A Living Symbol Of The Deity Because Millions Of People Have Consecrated It.

A Samagra Gramsevak Must Know Everybody Living In The Village And Render Them Such Service As He Possibly Can.

A Perfect Muslim Is He From Whose Tongue And Hands Mankind Is Safe.

Never Has Man Reached His Destination By Persistence In Deviation From The Straight Path.

I Would Far Rather That Hinduism Died Than That Untouchability Lived.

One Hour Spent In Spinning Should Be An Hour Of Self-development For The Spinner.

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

Begin Your Day With Prayer, And Make It So Soulful That It May Remain With You Until The Evening.

To Me The Mahabharata Is A Profoundly Religious Book, Largely Allegorical, In A Way Meant To Be A Historical Record.

Under My Plan, The State Will Be There To Carry Out The Will Of The People, Not To Dictate To Them Or To Force Them To Do Its Will.

I Worship God As Truth Only. I Have Not Yet Found Him, But I Am Seeking After Him.

No Nation Keeps Another In Subjection Without Herself Turning Into A Subject Nation.

Stoning Prophets And Erecting Churches To Their Memory Afterwards Has Been The Way Of The World Through The Ages. Today We Worship Christ, But The Christ In The Flesh We Crucified.

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.

God Has Made Of Man And Woman One Complete Whole. In The Scheme Of Nature, Both Of Them Are Equal.

A Man, Whilst He Is Dreaming, Believes In His Dream; He Is Undeceived Only When He Is Awakened From His Slumber.

You Never Realize What The Aftereffect Of Your Activities, However In The Event That You Don't Do Anything, Obviously There Will Be No Outcome.

God Is Light, Not Darkness. God Is Love, Not Hate. God Is Truth, Not Untruth. God Alone Is Great.

Reasoned And Willing Obedience To The Laws Of The State Is The First Lesson In Non-co-operation.

Be Congruent, Be Authentic, Be Your True Self.

The Mantram Becomes One's Staff Of Life And Carries One Through Every Ordeal. Each Repetition Has A New Meaning, Carrying You Nearer And Nearer To God.

My Personal Religion Enables Me To Serve My Countrymen Without Hurting The English Or, For That Matter, Anybody Else.

Civilization Is Not An Incurable Disease, But It Should Never Be Forgotten That The English People Are At Present Afflicted By It.

Each Night, When I Go To Sleep, I Die. And The Next Morning, When I Wake Up, I Am Reborn.

The Real Meaning Of Economic Equality Is "to Each According To His Need."

Your Beliefs Become Your Thoughts, Your Thoughts Become Your Words, Your Words Become Your Actions, Your Actions Become Your Habits, Your Habits Become Your Values, Your Values Become Your Destiny.

For Me Patriotism Is The Sme As Humanity. I Am Patriotic Because I Am Human And Humane. It Is Not Exclusive. I Will Not Hurt England Or Germany To Serve India . . . My Patriotism Is Inclusive And Admits Of No Enmity Or Ill-will.

Swaraj, Without Any Qualifying Clause, Includes That Which Is Better Than The Best One Can Conceive Or Have Today.

I Have Always Felt That The True Text-book For The Pupil Is His Teacher

If I Preach Against The Modern Artificial Life Of Sensual Enjoyment, And Ask Men And Women To Go Back To The Simple Life Epitomized In The Charkha, I Do So Because I Know That Without An Intelligent Return To Simplicity, There Is No Escape From Our D.

Earth And Heaven Are In Us

Civil Disobedience Can Only Lead To Strength And Purity.

Newspapers Have Become More Important To The Average Man Than The Scriptures.

We Must Always Seek To Ally Ourselves With That Part Of The Enemy That Knows What Is Right.

If We Take Care Of The Means, We Are Bound To Reach The End Sooner Or Later. When Once We Have Grasped This Point, Final Victory Is Beyond Question. Whatever Difficulties We Encounter, Whatever Apparent Reverses We Sustain, We May Not Give Up The Quest For Truth.

India Is One Vast Prison With High Walls Of Suppression Clothing Her Mind And Her Body.

What May Appear As Truth To One Person Will Often Appear As Untruth To Another Person. But That Need Not Worry The Seeker. When There Is Honest Effort, It Will Be Realised That What Appears To Be Different Truths Are Like Apparently Different Countless Leaves Of The Same Tree.

Truth Is Self-evident, Nonviolence Is Its Maturest Fruit. It Is Contained In Truth, But Is Not Self-evident.

It Is A First Class Human Tragedy That People Of The Earth Who Claim To Believe In The Message Of Jesus, Whom They Describe As The Prince Of Peace, Show Little Of That Belief In Actual Practice.

My Idea Of Village Swaraj Is That Is A Complete Republic, Independent Of Its Neighbors For Its Own Vital Wants, And Yet Interdependent For Many Others Which Dependence Is A Necessity.

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

No Matter How Insignificant The Thing You Have To Do, Do It As Well As You Can, Give It As Much Of Your Care And Attention As You Would Give To The Thing You Regard As Most Important. For It Will Be By Those Small Things That You Shall Be Judged.

Find Yourself By Losing Yourself For Others.

Finding Yourself

Losing Yourself

I Could Not Be Leading A Religious Life Unless I Identified Myself With The Whole Of Mankind, And That I Could Not Do Unless I Took Part In Politics.

The Weapon Of Nonviolence Does Not Need Supermen Or Superwomen To Wield It; Even Beings Of Common Clay Can Use It And Have Used It Before This With Success.

If You Want Something Really Important To Be Done You Must Not Merely Satisfy The Reason, You Must Move The Heart Also.

No Religion Taught Man To Kill Fellowmen Because He Held Different Opinions Or Was Of Another Religion.

Nonviolence Is Not Merely A Personal Virtue. It Is Also A Social Virtue To Be Cultivated Like Other Virtues.

The One Condition For Fighting For Peace And Liberty Is To Acquire Self-restraint.

Surely, Conversion Is A Matter Between Man And His Maker Who Alone Knows His Creatures' Hearts.

My Modesty Has Prevented Me From Declaring From The House Top That The Message Of Non-co-operation, Nonviolence And Swadeshi Is A Message To The World.

I Hold That The World Is Sick Of Armed Rebellions.

Solitude Is A Catalyst For Innovation

We, The English Educated Indians, Often Unconsciously Make The Terrible Mistake Of Thinking That The Microscopic Minority Of The English-speaking Indians Is The Whole Of India.

No Man Loses His Freedom Except Through His Own Weakness.

The Most Distinctive And Largest Contribution Of Hinduism To India's Culture Is The Doctrine Of Ahimsa.

I Believe In The Capacity Of India To Offer Nonviolent Battle To The English Rulers.

Social Service That Savours Of Patronage Is Not Service.

If I Have The Belief That I Can Do It, I Shall Surely Acquire The Capacity To Do It Even If I May Not Have It At The Beginning.

If I Am True To Myself, If I Am True To Mankind, If I Am True To Humanity, I Must Understand All The Faults That Human Flesh Is Heir To.

Nonviolence Is A Quality Not Of The Body But Of The Soul.

A Leader Is Useless When He Acts Against The Promptings Of His Own Conscience.

Our Children Should Not Be So Taught As To Despise Labour.

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