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If I Were Asked To Define The Hindu Creed, I Should Simply Say: Search After Truth Through Non-violent Means. Hinduism Is A Relentless Pursuit After Truth.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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If I Were Asked

Mahatma Gandhi

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If I Were Asked To Define The Hindu Creed, I Should Simply Say: Search After Truth Through Non-violent Means. Hinduism Is A Relentless Pursuit After Truth.

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If We Have The Khadi Spirit In Us, Then We Should Surround Ourselves With Simplicity In Every Walk Of Life.

A Life Without Vows Is Like A Ship Without An Anchor Or Like An Edifice That Is Built On Sand Instead Of A Solid Rock.

We Are Merely 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.

The Way To Truth Lies Through Ahimsa (nonviolence).

Return To The Villages Means A Definite, Voluntary Recognition Of The Duty Of Bread Labour And All Its Connotes.

Machinery Is The Chief Symbol Of Modern Civilization; It Represents A Great Sin.

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

Nonviolence Is An Intensely Active Force When Properly Understood And Used.

If Your Heart Acquires Strength, You Will Be Able To Remove Blemishes From Others Without Thinking Evil Of Them.

Every Worthwhile Accomplishment, Big Or Little, Has Its Stages Of Drudgery And Triumph: A Beginning, A Struggle, And A Victory.

The Law Of Love, Call It Attraction, Affinity, Cohesion If You Like, Governs 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.

Let The Gita Be To You A Mine Of Diamonds, As It Has Been To Me; Let It Be Your Constant Guide And Friend On Life's Way.

For Me, Rama And Rahim Are One And The Same Deity. I Acknowledge No Other God But The One God Of Truth And Righteousness.

Nonviolent Action Means Mobilization Of World Opinion In Our Favour.

God Took And Needed No Personal Service. He Served His Creatures Without Demanding Any Service For Himself In Return.

I Do Not Seek Redemption From The Consequences Of My Sin. I Seek To Be Redeemed From Sin Itself. Until I Have Attained That End, I Shall Be Content To Be Restless.

My Own Opinion Is That Just As Fundamentally Man And Woman Are One, Their Problems Must Be One In Essence.

The Finite Human Being Shall Never Know In Its Fullness Truth And Love Which Is Itself Infinite.

Any Imposition From Without Means Compulsion. Such Compulsion Is Repugnant To Religion.

Men Are Good. But They Are Poor Victims Making Themselves Miserable Under The False Belief That They Are Doing Good.

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 Realise That They Need Not Fear Brute Force, If They But Know The Soul Within.

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

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.

Truth And Nonviolence Are Perhaps The Activest Forces You Have In The World.

Lady Is The Buddy Of Man, Skilled With Equivalent Mental Limit.

Dharma Is One And One Only. Ahimsa Means Moksha, And Moksha Is The Realization Of Truth.

In Order To Get Meat, We Have To Kill. And We Are Certainly Not Entitled To Any Other Milk Except The Mother's Milk In Our Infancy.

If Gandhism Means Simply Mechanically Turning The Spinning Wheel, It Deserves To Be Destroyed.

When Anything Assumes The Strength Of A Creed, It Becomes Self-sustained And Derives The Needed Support From Within.

The Most Heinous And The Most Cruel Crimes Of Which History Has Record Have Been Committed Under The Cover Of Religion Or Equally Noble Motives.

The Secret Of A Happy Life Lies In Renunciation. Renunciation Is Life.

A Clear Victory Of Satyagraha Is Impossible So Long As There Is Ill Will.

I Hold Too That Whatever May Be True Of Other Countries, A Bloody Revolution Will Not Succeed In India.

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.

A Satyagrahi Has No Other Stay But God, And He Who Has Any Other Stay Or Depends On Any Other Help Cannot Offer Satyagraha.

You Christians Look After A Document Containing Enough Dynamite To Blow All Civilisation To Pieces, Turn The World Upside Down And Bring Peace To A Battle-torn Planet. But You Treat It As Though It Is Nothing More Than A Piece Of Literature.

My Fast Is A Matter Between God And Myself.

To See Farther, You Must Climb Higher.

My Religion And My Patriotism Derived From My Religion, Embrace All Life.

So Far As I Can See, The Atomic Bomb Has Deadened The Finest Feeling That Has Sustained For Ages. There Used To Be So-called Laws Of War, Which Made It Tolerable. Now We Know The Truth. War Knows No Law Except That Of Might. The Atomic Bomb Brought An Empty Victory But It Resulted For The Time Being In Destroying The Soul Of Japan. What Has Happened To The Soul Of The Destroying Nation Is Yet Too Early To See.

Go For The Throat. If You Cant, Go For The Nads.

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

[i]t Seems To Me As Clear As Daylight That Abortion Would Be A Crime.

Self-sacrifice Of One Innocent Man Is A Million Times More Potent Than The Sacrifice Of A Million Men Who Die In The Act Of Killing Others.

I Am, And Have Been For Years, A Confirmed Anti-vaccinationist...i Have Not The Least Doubt In My Mind That Vaccination Is A Filthy Process That Is Harmful In The End.

Democracy Demands Patient Instruction On It Before Legislation.

More Caution And Perhaps More Restraint Are Necessary In Breaking A Fast Than In Keeping It.

Let Us Remember That We Are All Indians Eating Indian Grain And Salt, And Living On The Dumb Indian Masses.

God's Laws Are Eternal And Unalterable And Not Separable From God Himself.

God Of Truth And Justice Can Never Create Distinctions Of High And Low Among His Own Children.

Permanent Good Can Never Be The Outcome Of Untruth And Violence

How Can I Make Difference So That I May Bring Peace To This World That I Love And Cherish So Much? A Name Flickers Instantly In My Mind.

Real Power Does Not Consist In The Ability To Inflict Capital Punishment Upon The Subjects, But In The Will And The Ability To Protect The Subjects Against The World.

A Devotee Of Rama May Be Said To Be The Same As The Steadfast One (sthitaprajnya) Of The Gita.

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.

Power Is Of Two Kinds: One Is Obtained By The Fear Of Punishment And The Other By Acts Of Love.

The Law Of Sacrifice Is Uniform Throughout The World. To Be Effective It Demands The Sacrifice Of The Bravest And The Most Spotless.

Truth Is The Right Designation Of God.

It Is Claimed For Satyagraha That It Is A Complete Substitute For Violence Or War.

Violent Means Will Give Violent Swaraj. That Would Be A Menace To The World And To India Herself.

It Is A Travesty Of True Religion To Consider One's Own Religion As Superior And Other's As Inferior.

I Am A Hindu By Birth. And Yet I Do Not Know Much Of Hinduism, And I Know Less Of Other Religions. In Fact I Do Not Know Where I Am, And What Is And What Should Be My Belief. I Intend To Make A Careful Study Of My Own Religion And, As Far As I Can, Of Others.

Close The Day With Prayer So That You May Have A Peaceful Night Free From Dreams And Nightmares.

The Satyagrahi Strives To Reach Reason Through The Heart. The Method Of Reaching The Heart Is To Awaken Public Opinion.

That Which Makes Man The Mere Plaything Of Fate Is God.

As The Means, So The End.

Literacy In Itself Is No Education.

The Story Of Ramakrishna Is A Story Of Religion In Practice. His Life Enables Us To See God Face To Face.... In This Age Of Skepticism Ramakrishna Presents An Example Of A Bright And Living Faith Which Gives Solace To Thousands Of Men And Women Who Would Otherwise Have Remained Without Spiritual Light.

Nonviolent Non-co-operation, I Am Convinced, Is A Sacred Duty At Times.

A True And Nonviolent Combination Of Labour Would Act Like A Magnet Attracting To It All The Needed Capital.

God Makes Crooked Straight For Us And Sets Things Right When They Seem To Go Dead Wrong.

The Charkha Is The Symbol Of Nonviolence On Which All Life, If It Is To Be Real Life, Must Be Based.

I Am A Christian And A Hindu And A Muslim And A Jew.

In The Gita Continuous Concentration On God Is The King Of Sacrifices.

I Would Like To Bury Myself In An Indian Village, Preferably In A Frontier Village.

God Has No Religion.

A Pacifism Which Can See The Cruelties Only Of Occasional Military Warfare And Is Blind To The Continuous Cruelties Of Our Social System Is Worthless.

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.

It Is No Easy Task To Do Away With A Thing That Is Established. We, Therefore, Say That The Non-beginning Of A Thing Is Supreme Wisdom.

Justice Does Not Help Those Who Slumber But Helps Only Those Who Are Vigilant.

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

Only My Death Will Determine Whether I Am 'mohamed Gandhi', Jinnah's Slave, Destroyer Of The Hindu Religion Or Its Servant And Protector.

I Do Feel That Spiritual Progress Does Demand At Some Stage That We Should Cease To Kill Our Fellow Creatures For The Satisfaction Of Our Bodily Wants.

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.

The Woman Who Knows And Fulfils Her Duty Realizes Her Dignified Status.

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

If We Have Listening Ears, God Speaks To Us In Our Own Language, Whatever That Language Be

Bravery Is Not A Quality Of The Body. It Is Of The Soul.

For Me Popular Violence Is As Much An Obstruction In Our Path As The Government Violence.

To Conceal Ignorance Is To Increase It. An Honest Confession Of It, However, Gives Ground For The Hope That It Will Diminish Some Day Or The Other.

God's Time Never Stops.

The Greatness Of A Person Lies In His Heart, Not In His Head; That Is Intellect.

Few Men Are Wantonly Wicked.

The Man Who Eats To Live, Who Is Friends With The Five Powers - Earth, Water, Ether, Sun And Air - Who Is A Servant Of God, The Creator Of All These, Ought Not To Fall Ill.

God Is The Vital Force Or Spirit Which Is All-pervading, All-embracing And, Therefore, Beyond Human Ken.

The Instruments For The Quest For Truth Are As Simple As They Are Difficult.

There Is No Need Of A Teacher For Those Who Know How To Think.

An Awakened People Who Rely Upon Their Nonviolent Strength Are Independent In The Face Of Any Conceivable Combination Of The Armed Powers.

I Should Love To Satisfy All, If I Possibly Can; But In Trying To Satisfy All, I May Be Able To Satisfy None. I Have, Therefore, Arrived At The Conclusion That The Best Course Is To Satisfy One’s Own Conscience And Leave The World To Form Its Own Judgment, Favorable Or Otherwise.

Where Love Is, There God Is Also.

Man Alone Is Made In The Image Of God.

The Human Body Is Meant Solely For Service, Never For Indulgence.

India's Freedom Will Not Be Won By Violence But Only By The Purest Suffering Without Retaliation.

Obedience To The Law Of Bread Labour Will Bring About A Silent Revolution In The Structure Of Society.

Christianity In India Is Inextricably Mixed Up For The Last Hundred And Fifty Years With The British Rule.

He Who Is Ever Brooding Over Result Often Loses Nerve In The Performance Of His Duty.

Meditation Is Waiting On God.

Nonviolence To Be A Creed Has To Be All-pervasive.

I Would Rather Have India Reduced To A State Of Pauperism Than Have Thousands Of Drunkards In Our Midst.

I Think It Is Wrong To Expect Certainties In This World, Where All Else But God That Is Truth Is An Uncertainty. All That Appears And Happens About And Around Us Is Uncertain, Transient. But There Is A Supreme Being Hidden Therein As A Certainty, And One Would Be Blessed If One Could Catch A Glimpse Of That Certainty And Hitch One's Waggon To It. The Quest For That Truth Is The Summum Bonum Of Life.

Nobody In This World Possesses Absolute Truth.

A Man Of Truth Must Also Be A Man Of Care.

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.

A Satyagrahi Turns The Searchlight Inward Relentlessly To Weed Out All The Defects That May Be Lying Hidden There Still.

Nobody In This World Possesses Absolute Truth. This Is God's Attribute Alone. Relative Truth Is All We Know. Therefore, We Can Only Follow The Truth As We See It. Such Pursuit Of Truth Cannot Lead Anyone Astray.

Strictly Speaking, No Activity And No Industry Is Possible Without A Certain Amount Of Violence, No Matter How Little. Even The Very Process Of Living Is Impossible Without A Certain Amount Of Violence. What We Have To Do Is To Minimize It To The Greatest Extent Possible.

The Weak Can Never Forgive.

Faith Is A Function Of The Heart. It Must Be Enforced By Reason. The Two Are Not Antagonistic As Some Think. The More Intense One's Faith Is, The More It Whets One's Reason. When Faith Becomes Blind It Dies.

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.

You Can Chain Me, You Can Torture Me, You Can Even Destroy This Body, But You Will Never Imprison My Mind.

Nonviolence And Cowardice Go Ill Together. True Nonviolence Is An Impossibility Without The Possession Of Unadulterated Fearlessness.

Apparently, I've Acted Like A Terrorist. But I'm Not A Terrorist.

There Is No Such Thing As 'gandhism', And I Do Not Want To Leave Any Sect After Me.

History Is A Record Of Perpetual Wars, But We Are Now Trying To Make New History.

It Is The Duty Of Every Cultured Man Or Woman To Read Sympathetically The Scriptures Of The World. If We Are To Respect Others' Religions As We Would Have Them Respect Our Own, A Friendly Study Of The World's Religions Is A Sacred Duty.

Contraceptives Are An Insult To Womanhood.

Satyagraha As Conceived By Me Is A Science In The Making.

Prayer Needs No Speech. It Is In Itself Independent Of Any Sensuous Effort. But It Must Be Combined With The Utmost Humility.

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

Swaraj Is Our Birthright. No One Can Deprive Us Of It Unless We Forfeit It Ourselves.

There Is A Sufficiency In The World For Man's Need But Not For Man's Greed.

Religion Is Entirely A Personal Matter. Each One Could Approach His Creator As He Liked.

In Our Progress Towards The Goal, We Ever See More And More Enchanting Scenery.

The Charkha Is The Symbol Of Sacrifice, And Sacrifice Is Essential For The Establishment Of The Image Of The Deity.

I Own No Enemy On Earth. That Is My Creed.

A Man Who Throws Himself On God Ceases To Fear Man

A Man Cannot Serve God And Mammon, Nor Be "temperate And Furious" At The Same Time.

Disorder And Violence Are, In Fact, Things That Might Check The Pace Of India's Progress.

The Strength Of The Soul Can Defy A Whole World In Arms Against It.

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

Swaraj For Me Means Freedom For The Meanest Of Countrymen.

The Renunciation Of The Gita Is The Acid Test Of Faith.

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

Man Is Neither Mere Intellect Not The Gross Animal Body, Nor The Heart Or Soul Alone.

My Dharma Teaches Me To Give My Life For The Sake Of Others Without Even Attempting To Kill.

The Collectors Of Revenue And The Policeman Are The Only Symbols By Which Millions In India's Villages Know British Rule.

India Must Learn To Live Before She Can Aspire To Die For Humanity.

I Think It Would Be An Excellent Idea.

Will Great Britain Have An Unwilling India Dragged Into War Or A Willing Ally Co-operating With Her In The Prosecution Of A Defence Of True Democracy?

Newspapers Should Be Read For The Study Of Facts. They Should Not Be Allowed To Kill The Habit Of Independent Thinking.

Hinduism Is Not A Codified Religion.

Be The Change You Are Trying To Create.

Always Aim At Complete Harmony Of Thought And Word And Deed. Always Aim At Purifying Your Thoughts And Everything Will Be Well. There Is Nothing More Potent Than Thought. Deed Follows Word And Word Follows Thought. The Word Is The Result Of A Mighty Thought, And Where The Thought Is Mighty And Pure The Result Is Always Mighty And Pure.

What Senseless Violence Does Is To Prolong The Lease Of Life Of The British Or Foreign Rule.

Woman, I Hold, Is The Personification Of Self-sacrifice, But Unfortunately Today She Does Not Realise What A Tremendous Advantage She Has Over Man.

What You Feel And How You React To Something Is Always Up To You. There May Be A "normal" Or A Common Way To React To Different Things. But That's Mostly Just All It Is.

The Method Of Satyagraha Requires That The Satyagrahi Should Never Lose Hope, So Long As There Is The Slightest Ground Left For It.

Never Lose Hope

Let Hundreds Like Me Perish, But Let Truth Triumph.

One Thing We Have Endeavoured To Observe Most Scrupulously, Namely, Never To Depart From The Strictest Facts And, In Dealing With The Difficult Questions That Have Arisen During The Year, We Hope That We Have Used The Utmost Moderation Possible Under The Circumstances.

Difficult Questions

If We Could All Give Our Own Definitions Of God, There Would Be As Many Definitions As There Are Men And Women.

The Test Of Friendship Is Assistance In Adversity, And That, Too, Unconditional Assistance.

If A Man Were So Placed Or Could So Place Himself As To Be Absolutely Above All Dependence On His Fellow-beings He Would Become So Proud And Arrogant As To Be A Veritable Burden And Nuisance To The World.

Ahimsa Is One Of The World's Great Principles, Which No Power On Earth Can Wipe Out.

Modern Civilization Has Taught Us To Convert Night Into Day And Golden Silence Into Brazen Din And Noise.

Truth Should So Humble That Even Dust Could Crush It.

The Best Way To Find Yourself Is To Lose Yourself In The Service Of Others.

It Is Not That I Do Not Get Angry. I Don't Give Vent To My Anger. I Cultivate The Quality Of Patience As Angerlessness, And Generally Speaking, I Succeed. But I Only Control My Anger When It Comes. How I Find It Possible To Control It Would Be A Useless Question, For It Is A Habit That Everyone Must Cultivate And Must Succeed In Forming By Constant Practice.

It Will Be Hard To Find A Parallel In History In Which Unarmed People Have Represented The Urge For Freedom, Turning Their Armlessness Into The Central Means For Deliverance.

The State Represents Violence In A Concentrated And Organize Form.

Our Non-co-operation Is With The System The English Have Established In India, With The Material Civilization And Its Attendant Greed And Exploitation Of The Weak.

Cow-slaughter Can Never Be Stopped By Law.

Religion Is No Test Of Nationality, But A Personal Matter Between Man And His God.

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

No Matter What The Cause Was And Wherever It Was, Indian Governments Must Never Requisition The Services Of British Soldiers To Deal With Civil Disturbances.

British Soldiers

All Society Is Held Together By Nonviolence Even As The Earth Is Held In Her Position By Gravitation.

God, As Truth, Has Been For Me A Treasure Beyond Price. May He Be So To Every One Of Us.

You Don't Know Who Is Important To You Until You Actually Lose Them.

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.

The British Government In India Constitutes A Struggle Between Modern Civilization, Which Is The Kingdom Of Satan, And The Ancient Civilization, Which Is The Kingdom Of God.

In Swaraj, Based On Ahimsa, People Need Not Know Their Rights, But It Is Also Necessary For Them To Know Their Duties.

The Aim Of University Education Should Be To Turn Out True Servants Of The People Who Will Live And Die For The Country's Freedom.

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.

We Often Confuse Spiritual Knowledge With Spiritual Attainment. Spirituality Is Not A Matter Of Knowing Scriptures And Engaging In Philosophical Discussions. It Is A Matter Of Heart Culture, Of Unmeasurable Strength.

Since Satyagraha Is A Method Of Conversion And Conviction, It Seeks Never To Use The Slightest Coercion.

Freedom Is Never Dear At Any Price. It Is The Breath Of Life. What Would A Man Not Pay For Living?

I Believe In What Max Muller Said Years Ago, Namely, That Truth Needed To Be Repeated As Long As There Were Men Who Disbelieved It.

As The Elephant Is Powerless To Think In The Terms Of The Ant, In Spite Of The Best Intentions In The World, Even So Is The Englishman Powerless To Think In The Terms Of, Or Legislate For, The Indian.

Seeing God Face To Face Is To Feel That He Is Enthroned In Our Hearts Even As A Child Feels A Mother's Affection Without Needing Any Demonstration.

Civil Disobedience Is A Stimulation For The Fighters And A Challenge To The Opponent, In The Present Instance, Authority.

Just As There Are Signs By Which You Can Recognize Violence With The Naked Eye, So Is The Spinning Wheel To Me A Decisive Sign Of Nonviolence.

My Fight Against Untouchability Is A Fight Against The Impure In Humanity.

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

India Has An Unbroken Tradition Of Nonviolence From Times Immemorial.

It Is The Reformer Who Is Anxious For The Reform, And Not Society, From Which He Should Expect Nothing Better Than Opposition, Abhorrence And Even Mortal Persecution.

The Chains Of A Slave Are Broken The Moment He Considers Himself A Free Man.

Every Moment Of Your Life Is Infinitely Creative And The Universe Is Endlessly Bountiful. Just Put Forth A Clear Enough Request, And Everything Your Heart Desires Must Come To You.

Hesitating To Act Because The Whole Vision Might Not Be Achieved, Or Because Others Do Not Yet Share It, Is An Attitude That Only Hinders Progress.

A Rose Will Smell As Sweet By Any Other Name, But It Must Be The Rose Of Liberty That I Want And Not The Artificial Product.

A Man Who Was Completely Innocent, Offered Himself As A Sacrifice For The Good Of Others, Including His Enemies, And Became The Ransom Of The World. It Was A Perfect Act.

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