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Means To Be Means Must Always Be Within Our Reach, And So Ahimsa Is Our Supreme Duty.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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Means To Be Means

Mahatma Gandhi

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Means To Be Means Must Always Be Within Our Reach, And So Ahimsa Is Our Supreme Duty.

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If God Is Not A Personal Being For Me Like My Earthly Father, He Is Infinitely More.

God Never Occurs To You In Person But Always In Action.

To Ignore The Mussalman Grievance As If It Was Not Felt Is To Postpone Swaraj.

Assumption Of Superiority By Any Person Over Any Other Is A Sin Against God And Man.

Non-co-operators Will Make A Serious Mistake If They Seek To Convert People To Their Creed By Violence.

The Future Depends On What We Do In The Present.

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

Men Flocked To See It And Ascended It As It Was A Novelty And Of Unique Dimensions. It Was The Toy Of The Exhibition. So Long As We Are Children We Are Attracted By Toys, And The Tower Was A Good Demonstration Of The Fact That We Are All Children Attracted By Trinkets. That May Be Claimed To Be The Purpose Served By The Eiffel Tower.

There Is No God Higher Than Truth.

Ashram Means A Community Of Men Of Religion. I Feel That An Ashram Was A Necessity Of Life For Me.

Honesty Is Incompatible With Amassing A Large Fortune.

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

The Stability Of The State Depends Upon The Readiness Of Every Citizen To Subordinate His Rights To Those Of The Rest.

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

True Ahimsa Lay In Running Into The Mouth Of Himsa.

The Test Of Friendship Is Assistance In Adversity, And That Too, Unconditional Assistance, Co-operation Which Needs Consideration Is As A Commercial Contract And Not Friendship. Conditional Co-operation Is Like Adulterated Cement Which Does Not Bind.

My Fast Is, Among Other Things, Meant To Qualify Me For Achieving That Equal And Selfless Love.

I Know That I Can Never Be Alone As God Is There With Me.

Rama Was Not Only On The Lips Of Hanuman. He Was Enthroned In His Heart. He Gave Hanuman Exhaustless Strength.

Every Moment Of My Existence Is Dedicated To The Winning Of Swaraj By Means Of Truth And Nonviolence.

The Elephant Needs A Thousand Times More Food Than The Ant But That Is Not An Indication Of Inequality.

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

Ahimsa In Theory No One Knows. It Is As Indefinable As God.

True Beauty Consists Of Purity Of Heart.

Man In The Flesh Is Essentially Imperfect. He May Be Described As Being Made In The Image Of God But Is Far From Being God.

Jesus Never Uttered A Loftier Or A Grander Truth Than When He Said That Wisdom Cometh Out Of The Mouths Of Babes.

My Religion Enables Me, Obliges Me To Imbibe All That Is Good In All The Great Religions Of The Earth.

If One Takes Care Of The Means, The End Will Take Care Of Itself.

Non-cooperation Is A Measure Of Discipline And Sacrifice, And It Demands Respect For The Opposite Views.

Prayer Is An Impossibility Without A Living Faith In The Presence Of God Within.

Presence Of God

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 It Purifying, Compelling Punishment.

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

Time Is Wealth, And The Gita Says The Great Annihilator Annihilates Those Who Waste Time.

Honest Disagreement Is Often A Good Sign Of Progress.

Steam Becomes A Mighty Power Only When It Allows Itself To Be Imprisoned In A Strong Little Reservoir, Produces Tremendous Motion And Carries Huge Weights By Permitting Itself A Tiny And Measured Outlet.

Prayer Is Either Petitional Or, In Its Wider Sense, Inward Communion.

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

Islam Was Nothing If It Did Not Spell Complete Democracy.

Healthy And Nourishing Food Was The Only Alpha And Omega Of Rural Economy.

The Saving Of Labour Of The Individual Should Be The Object And Honest Humanitarian Considerations, And Not Greed, The Motive.

I May Not Unnerve Myself While I Can Struggle Against Evil.

Nonviolence Is The First Article Of My Faith. It Is Also The Last Article Of My Creed.

If One Does Not Practice Nonviolence In One's Own Personal Relations With Others And Hopes To Use It In Bigger Affairs, One Is Vastly Mistaken.

I See Neither Bravery Nor Sacrifice In Destroying Life Or Property, For Offense Or Defense.

You May Think Your Actions Are Meaningless And That They Won't Help, But That Is No Excuse, You Must Still Act.

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

Idolatry Is Permissible In Hinduism When It Sub Serves An Ideal.

To Double Your Successes, You Might Have To Double Your Failure Rate.

I Hold It A Blasphemy To Say That The Creator Resides In A Temple From Which A Particular Class Of His Devotees Sharing Faith In It Are Excluded.

We May Attack Systems. We Must Not Attack Men.

The Turning Of The Charkha In A Lifeless Way Will Be Like The Turning Of The Beads Of The Rosary With A Wandering Mind Turned Away From God.

To A Man With An Empty Stomach Food Is God

The Meticulous Care For The Rights Of The Least Among Us Is The Sin Qua Non Of Nonviolence.

I Can No More Preach Nonviolence To A Cowardly Man Than I Can Tempt A Blind Man To Enjoy Healthy Scenes.

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

All Sins Are Committed In Secrecy. The Moment We Realize That God Witnesses Even Our Thoughts, We Shall Be Free.

A Society Or A Nation Constructed Nonviolently Must Be Able To Withstand Attack Upon Its Structure From Without Or Within.

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

My Ahimsa Is My Own. I Am Not Able To Accept In Its Entirety The Doctrine Of Non-killing Of Animals.

My Non-violence Bids Me Dedicate Myself To The Service Of The Minorities.

Is Not Education The Art Of Drawing Out Full Manhood Of The Children Under Training?

Freedom Of The Press Is A Precious Privilege That No Country Can Forego.

Non-co-operation And Civil Disobedience Are But Different Branches Of The Same Tree Called Satyagraha.

The Human Voice Can Never Reach The Distance That Is Covered By The Still Small Voice Of Conscience.

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

If It Is Man's Privilege To Be Independent, It Is Equally His Duty To Be Inter - Dependent.

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.

I Believe That The Civilization India Evolved Is Not To Be Beaten In The World. Nothing Can Equal The Seeds Sown By Our Ancestors, Rome Went, Greece Shared The Same Fate; The Might Of The Pharaohs Was Broken; Japan Has Become Westernized; Of China Nothing Can Be Said; But India Is Still, Somehow Or Other, Sound At The Foundation.

For Me Every Ruler Is Alien That Defies Public Opinion.

The Truth Is To Be Found Nowhere Else Other Than Within Ourselves.

Untouchability Is An Error Of Long Standing.

All I Want To Say, With The Utmost Emphasis At My Command, Is That The Description Of India As A Military Country Is Wrong.

Where There Is Fear There Is No Religion.

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

The Purification Required Is Not Of Untouchables But Of The So-called Superior Castes.

A Mother Would Never By Choice Sleep In A Wet Bed But She Would Gladly Do So In Order To Spare The Dry Bed For Her Child.

The Wise Are Unaffected Either By Death Or Life. These Are But Faces Of The Same Coin.

When There Is War, The Poet Lays Down The Lyre, The Lawyer His Law Reports, The Schoolboy His Books.

My Nonviolence Does Recognize Different Species Of Violence, Defensive And Offensive.

Means To Be Means Must Always Be Within Our Reach, And So Ahimsa Is Our Supreme Duty.

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.

God Comes To The Hungry In The Form Of Food.

Woman Is The Companion Of Man, Gifted With Equal Mental Capacity...if By Strength Is Meant Moral Power, Then Woman Is Immeasurably Man's Superior...if Non-violence Is The Law Of Our Being, The Future Is With Women.

Khadi Mentality Means Decentralization Of The Production And Distribution Of The Necessaries Of Life.

Decentralization

All The Four Stages In A Man's Life Are Devised By The Seers In Hinduism For Imposing Discipline And Self-restraint.

If Co-operation Is A Duty, I Hold That Non-co-operation Also Under Certain Conditions Is Equally A Duty.

Renunciation Is The Central Sun, Round Which Devotion, Knowledge And The Rest Revolve Like Planets.

The Music Of Life Is In Danger Of Being Lost In The Music Of The Voice.

The Fullest Application Of Ahimsa Does Make Life Impossible.

Your Capacity To Keep Your Vow Will Depend On The Purity Of Your Life.

Religion All The World Over Offeres God As The Solace And Comfort For All In Agony.

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

Dining And Marriage Restrictions Stunt Hindu Society.

A Small Group Of Determined And Like-minded People Can Change The Course Of History.

The Goal Ever Recedes From Us. The Greater The Progress The Greater The Recognition Of Our Unworthiness. Satisfaction Lies In The Effort, Not In The Attainment. Full Effort Is Full Victory.

Whilst Power, Superimposed, Always Needs The Help Of The Police And The Military, Power Generated From Within Should Have Little Or No Use Of Them.

Good Government Is No Substitute For Self-government.

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

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

There Are No Good-byes, Where Ever You'll Be, You'll Be In My Heart.

Death Is No Fiend, He Is The Truest Of Friends. He Delivers Us From Agony.

I Cannot Think Of Permanent Enmity Between Man And Man, And Believing As I Do In The Theory Of Reincarnation, I Live In The Hope That If Not In This Birth, In Some Other Birth I Shall Be Able To Hug All Of Humanity In Friendly Embrace.

Sacrifice That Causes Pain Is No Sacrifice At All. True Sacrifice Is Joy-giving And Uplifting.

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.

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

The Khaddar Of My Conception Is That Handspun Cloth Entirely Takes The Place Of Mill Cloth In India.

By Patriotism I Mean The Welfare Of The Whole People, If I Secure It At The Hands Of My Opponent, I Should Bow Down My Head To Him.

In The Midst Of Death Life Persists.

Darkness To Light

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

Let Me Say That God Will Send Me The Plan When He Gives The Word As He Has Done Before Now.

Service Which Is Rendered Without Joy Helps Neither The Servant Nor The Served.

If India Is Not To Declare Spiritual Bankruptcy, Religious Instruction Of Its Youth Must Be Held To Be At Least As Necessary As Secular Instruction.

To Gain India's Freedom, The Capacity For Suffering Must Go Hand In Hand With The Capacity For Ceaseless Labour.

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

We Do Not Know The Laws Of God, Nor Their Working.

What Is Equality Of Rights Between A Giant And A Dwarf?

You Cannot Succeed In One Department Of Life While Cheating On Another, Life Is An Indivisible Whole.

I Want Co-operation Between Nations For The Salvaging Of Civilization, But Co-operation Presupposes Free Nations Worthy Of Co-operation.

Do Not Believe In Telling People Of One's Faith, Especially With A View To Conversion. Faith Must Be Lived, And When It Is, It Becomes Self-propagating

In This Instance Of The Fire-arms, The Asiatic Has Been Most Improperly Bracketed With The Native. The British Indian Does Not Need Any Such Restrictions As Are Imposed By The Bill On The Natives Regarding The Carrying Of Fire-arms. The Prominent Race Can Remain So By Preventing The Native From Arming Himself. Is There A Slightest Vestige Of Justification For So Preventing The British Indian?

My Shyness Has Been In Reality My Shield And Buckler. It Has Allowed Me To Grow. It Has Helped Me In My Discernment Of Truth.

An Error Does Not Become Truth By Reason Of Multiplied Propagation, Nor Does Truth Become Error Because Nobody Sees It.

Human Language Can But Imperfectly Describe God's Ways.

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.

Englishmen Must Learn To Be Brahmins, Not Banias.

English Language

Violence Is Bound Sooner Or Later To Exhaust Itself But Peace Cannot Issue Out Of Such Exhaustion.

Sooner Or Later

Complete Non-violence Is Complete Absence Of Ill-will Against All That Lives. It Therefore Embraces Even Sub-human Life, Not Excluding Noxious Insects And Beasts. They Have Not Been Created To Feed Our Destructive Propensities. If We Only Knew The Mind Of The Creator, We Should Find Their Proper Place In His Creation.

Nothing In The Shastras, Which Is Capable Of Being Reasoned, Can Stand If It Is In Conflict With Reason.

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

I Do Not Want India To Rise On The Ruin Of Other Nations.

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.

Mr. Gandhi, You Have Been Working Fifteen Hours A Day For Fifty Years. Don't You Think You Should Take A Vacation?" Gandhi Smiled And Replied, "i Am Always On Vacation.

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.

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.

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

True Paurusha, True Bravery, Consists In Driving Out The Brute In Us.

Prayer Has Been The Saviour Of My Life. Without It I Should Have Been A Lunatic Long Ago.

It Is The Law Of Love That Rules Mankind.

Why Should I Need An Artist To Explain A Work Of Art To Me? Why Should It Not Speak Out To Me Itself?

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.

Friendship That Insists Upon Agreement On All Matters Is Not Worth The Name. Friendship To Be Real Must Ever Sustain The Weight Of Honest Differences, However Sharp They Be.

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

All Crime Is A Kind Of Disease And Should Be Treated As Such.

True Nonviolence Is Mightier Than The Mightiest Violence.

A Personal Selfish Prayer Is Bad Whether Made Before An Image Or An Unseen God.

Even A Believer In Nonviolence Has To Say Between Two Combatants Which Is Less Bad Or Whose Cause Is Just.

Purity Of Mind And Idleness Are Incompatible.

Swaraj Would Be Real Swaraj Only When There Would Be No Occasion For Safeguarding Any Rights.

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.

No Culture Can Live If It Attempts To Be Exclusive.

Art And Culture

It's A Big Error To Dream Of A Society Where Nobody Needs To Be Good.

The Knowledge Of The Omnipresence Of God Also Means Respect For The Lives Even Of Those Who May Be Called Opponents.

I Suffer Snakes To Be Killed In The Ashram When It Is Impossible To Catch Them And Put Them Out Of Harm's Way.

Intolerance Is A Species Of Violence And Therefore Against Our Creed.

Faith Is Put To The Test When The Situation Is Most Difficult.

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.

Prayer Is Not An Old Woman's Idle Amusement. Properly Understood And Applied, It Is The Most Potent Instrument Of Action. . . . . . . Prayer Is The First And The Last Lesson In Learning The Noble And Brave Art Of Sacrificing Self In The Various Walks Of Life Culminating In The Defence Of One's Nation's Liberty And Honour.

As Human Beings, Our Greatness Lies Not So Much In Being Able To Remake The World - That Is The Myth Of The Atomic Age - As In Being Able To Remake Ourselves.

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

War With All Its Glorification Of Brute Force Is Essentially A Degrading Thing.

My Method Is Conversion, Not Coercion, It Is Self-suffering, Not The Suffering Of The Tyrant. I Know That Method To Be Infallible.

Was Not War Itself A Crime Against God And Humanity, And Therefore, Were Not All Those Who Sanctioned, Engineered And Conducted Wars, War Criminals?

I Have Been Practicing, With Scientific Precision, Nonviolence And Its Possibilities For An Unbroken Period Of Over Fifty Years.

Non-violence Is Not A Garment To Be Put On And Off At Will. Its Seat Is In The Heart, And It Must Be An Inseparable Part Of Our Being.

Courtesy Towards Opponents And Eagerness To Understand Their View-point Is The Abc Of Non-violence.

Even The Most Despotic Government Cannot Stand Except For The Consent Of The Governed.... Immediately The Subject Ceases To Fear The Despotic Force, His Power Is Gone.

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

It Is A Tragedy Of The First Magnitude That Millions Of People Have Ceased To Use Their Hands As Hands. Nature Has Bestowed Upon Us This Great Gift Which Is Our Hands. If The Craze For Machinery Method Continues, It Is Highly Likely That A Time Will Come When We Shall Be So Incapacitated And Weak That We Shall Begin To Curse Ourselves For Having Forgotten The Use Of The Living Machines Given To Us By God.

When Freedom Is In Jeopardy, Non-co-operation May Be A Duty And Prison May Be A Palace.

The Real Love Is To Love Them That Hate You, To Love Your Neighbor Even Though You Distrust Him.

For A Non-violent Person The Whole World Is One Family. He Will Thus Fear None, Nor Will Others Fear Him.

By Using Violence To Subjugate One Another We Are Using Violence Against Our Own Souls.

To Die Without Killing Is The Badge Of A Satyagrahi.

The Final Goal Of All Religions Is To Realise The Essential Oneness.

A Customer Is The Most Important Visitor On Our Premises, He Is Not Dependent On Us. We Are Dependent On Him.

Ahimsa Is The Attribute Of The Soul, And Therefore, To Be Practiced By Everybody In All Affairs Of Life. If It Cannot Be Practiced In All Departments, It Has No Practical Value.

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

India Is Less Manly Under The British Rule Than She Ever Was Before.

What Barrier Is There That Love Cannot Break?

The Story Of The Creation And Similar Things In It Did Not Impress Me Very Much, But On The Contrary Made Me Incline Somewhat Towards Atheism.

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

That Which Impels Man To Do The Right Thing Is God.

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.

Kashmir Is The Real Test Of Secularism In India.

The Still Small Voice Within You Must Always Be The Final Arbiter When There Is A Conflict Of Duty.

If I Was To Be Their Real Teacher And Guardian, I Must Touch Their Hearts, I Must Share Their Joys And Sorrows, I Must Help Them To Solve The Problems That Faced Them, And I Must Take Along The Right Channel The Surging Aspirations Of Their Youth.

I Consider Myself A Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist And Confucian.

My Heart Is Drawn Backwards And Forwards Between The Spinning Wheel And Books.

With Every True Friendship, We Build More Firmly The Foundations On Which The Peace Of The Whole World Rests.

Nonviolence, In Its Dynamic Condition Means Conscious Suffering.

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

My Dictionary Has No Such Expression As A Violent Fight.

We Do Want To Drive Out The Beast In Man, But We Do Not Want On That Account To Emasculate Him.

Woman, I Hold, Is The Personification Of Self-sacrifice, But Unfortunately Today She Does Not Realize What A Tremendous Advantage She Has Over Man. As Tolstoy Used To Say, They Are Laboring Under The Hypnotic Influence Of Man. If They Would Realize The Strength Of Non-violence They Would Not Consent To Be Called The Weaker Sex.

A Nation That Is Unfit To Fight Cannot, From Experience, Prove The Virtue Of Not Fighting.

Man's Triumph Will Consist In Substituting The Struggle For Existence By A Struggle For Mutual Service.

Economics That Hurt The Moral Well-being Of An Individual Or A Nation Are Immoral And, Therefore, Sinful.

Few Men Are Wantonly Wicked.

A Straight Fight In An Equal Battle Takes Some Bravery, But Braver Is He Who, Knowing That He Would Have To Sacrifice Ninety-five As Against Five Of The Enemy, Faces Death.

The Essence Of All Religions Is One. Only Their Approaches Are Different.

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