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Religions Are Not For Separating Men From One Another, They Are Meant To Bind Them.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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Religions Are Not For

Mahatma Gandhi

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Religions Are Not For Separating Men From One Another, They Are Meant To Bind Them.

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Unless Nonviolence Of The Strong Is Really Developed Among Us, There Should Be No Thought Of Civil Disobedience For Swaraj, Whether Within The States Or In British India.

Love Is The Strongest Force The World Possesses And Yet It Is The Humblest Imaginable.

I Suggest That We Are Thieves In A Way. If I Take Anything That I Do Not Need For My Own Immediate Use, And Keep It, I Thieve It From Somebody Else. ... Nature Produces Enough For Our Wants From Day To Day, And If Only Every-body Took Enough For Himself And Nothing More, There Would Be No Pauperism In This World, There Would Be No Man Dying Of Starvation In This World. But So Long As We Have Got This Inequality, So Long We Are Thieving.

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

I Have Felt That The Gita Teaches Us That What Cannot Be Followed In Day-to-day Practice Cannot Be Called Religion.

For Me Every Ruler Is Alien That Defies Public Opinion.

I Am Not Likely To Obtain The Result Flowing From The Worship Of God By Laying Myself Prostrate Before Satan.

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

Truth Stands For The Fact, Nonviolence Negates The Fact.

Nationalism, Like Virtue, Has Its Own Reward.

The Avowed Policy Of Non-co-operation Has Been Not To Make Political Use Of The Disputes Between Labour And Capital.

For India To Enter Into The Race For Armaments Is To Court Suicide.

A Satyagrahi Is Sometimes Bound To Use Language Which Is Capable Of Two Meanings, Provided Both The Meanings Are Obvious And Necessary And There Is No Intention To Deceive Anyone.

Complete Civil Disobedience Is A State Of Peaceful Rebellion, A Refusal To Obey Every Single State-made Law.

If I Had No Sense Of Humor I Should Long Ago Have Committed Suicide.

I Am Not Fighting Machinery As Such, But The Madness Of Thinking That Machinery Saves Labor. Men Save Labor Until Thousands Of Them Are Without Work And Die Of Hunger On The Streets. I Want To Secure Employment And Livelihood Not Only To Part Of The Human Race, But For All. I Will Not Have The Enrichment Of A Few At The Expense Of The Community. At Present The Machine Is Helping A Small Minority To Live On The Exploitation Of The Masses. The Motive Force Of This Minority Is Not Humanity Or Love Of Their Kind, But Greed And Avarice.

The Best Way Of Losing A Cause Is To Abuse Your Opponent And To Trade Upon His Weakness.

You Cannot Neglect The Nearer Duty For The Sake Of A Remote.

For Winning Swaraj One Requires Iron Discipline.

Civilization Is The Encouragement Of Differences.

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

I Will Not Have The Power Of Nonviolence To Be Underestimated In Order To Cover My Limitations Or Weaknesses.

At The Individual Level Swaraj Is Vitally Connected With The Capacity For Dispassionate Self-assessment , Ceaseless Self Purification And Growing Self-reliance.... It Is Swaraj When We Learn To Rule Ourselves

I Do Believe That Ideas Ripen Quickly When Nourished By The Blood Of Martyrs.

Crime And Vice Generally Require Darkness For Prowling. They Disappear When Light Plays Upon Them.

Satyagraha Can Rid Society Of All Evils, Political, Economic And Moral.

I Came Alone In This World, I Have Walked Alone In The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death, And I Shall Quit Alone When The Time Comes.

It Would Be A Blunder Of The First Magnitude For The British To Be A Party, In Any Way Whatsoever, To The Division Of India.

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

Salvation Of The Gita Is Perfect Peace.

The Object Of The Gita Appears To Me To Be That Of Showing The Most Excellent Way To Attain Self-realization.

The Simplest Acts Of Kindness Are By Far More Powerful Then A Thousand Heads Bowing In Prayer.

People Say True Friends Must Always Hold Hands, But True Friends Don't Need To Hold Hands Because They Know The Other Hand Will Always Be There.

The Only Difference Between Man And Man All The World Over Is One Of Degree, And Not Of Kind, Even As There Is Between Trees Of The Same Species. Where In Is The Cause For Anger, Envy Or Discrimination?

Weeding Is As Necessary To Agriculture As Sowing.

Breach Of Promise Is A Base Surrender Of Truth.

Keeping Promises

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

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

Illness Or Disease Is Only Nature's Warning That Filth Has Accumulated In Some Portion Or Other Of The Body; And It Would Surely Be The Part Of Wisdom To Allow Nature To Remove The Filth, Instead Of Covering It Up With The Help Of Medicines.

You Can Judge A Society By The Way It Treats It's Animals

The Wind Of God's Grace Is Incessantly Blowing. Lazy Sailors On The Sea Of Life Do Not Take Advantage Of It. But The Active And Strong Always Keep The Sails Of Their Minds Unfurled To Catch The Favorable Winds And Thus Reach Their Destination Very Soon.

The Life Of Millions Is My Politics, From Which I Dare Not Free Myself Without Denying My Life-work And God.

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.

Nonviolence Is Impossible Without Humility.

If It Was Wrong To Seek God In A Stone, How Was It Right To Seek Him In A Book Called The Gita, The Granth Sahib Or The Koran?

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.

Belief In One God Is The Cornerstone Of All Religions.

Every Calamity Should Lead To A Thorough Cleansing Of Individual As Well As Social Life.

We May Not Be God, But We Are Of God, Even As A Little Drop Of Water Is Of The Ocean.

If You Worry About Yesterday's Failures, Then Today's Successes Will Be Few. The Future Depends On What We Do In The Present

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

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

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

In The Characteristics Of The Perfected Man Of The Gita, I Do Not See Any To Correspond To Physical Warfare.

The Practice Of Truth And Nonviolence Melted Religious Differences, And We Learnt To See Beauty In Each Religion.

What Is Faith If It Is Not Translated Into Action?

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

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.

My Greatest Weapon Is Mute Prayer.

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

Sooner Or Later

Capital As Such Is Not Evil; It Is Its Wrong Use That Is Evil. Capital In Some Form Or Other Will Always Be Needed.

Legal Imposition Avoids The Necessity Of Honour Or Good Faith.

As A Rule, The Mind, Residing In A Body That Has Become Weakened By Pampering, Is Also Weak, And Where There Is No Strength Of Mind There Can Be No Strength Of Soul.

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

The Object Of Basic Education Is The Physical, Intellectual And Moral Development Of Children Through The Medium Of Handicraft.

Moral Development

It Is Better To Be Charged With Cowardice And Weakness Than To Be Guilty Of Denial Of Our Oath And Sin Against God.

God's Grace And Revelation Are The Monopoly Of No Race Or Nation.

What The Sermon Describes In A Graphic Manner, The Bhagavadgita Reduces To A Scientific Formula.

My Satyagrahi Spirit Tells Me That I May Not Retaliate.

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

The Man Or The Woman Who Can Display The Nonviolence Of The Brave Can Easily Stand Against As External Invasion.

Action Expresses Priorities.

Ahimsa Is My God, And Truth Is My God.

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

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

Purest Religion Is Highest Expediency. Many Things Are Lawful But They Are Not All Expedient.

Purity Of Mind And Idleness Are Incompatible.

Since Nothing Else That I See Merely Through The Senses Can Or Will Persist, He Alone Is.

We May Never Be Strong Enough To Be Entirely Non-violent In Thought, Word And Deed. But We Must Keep Non-violence As Our Goal And Make Steady Progress Towards It.

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.

My Wisdom Flows From The Highest Source. I Salute That Source In You. Let Us Work Together For Unity And Love.

Working Together

Let Us Give Today First The Vital Things Of Life And All The Grace And Ornaments Of Life Will Follow.

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

In A Nonviolent Army, The General And The Officers Are Elected, Or Are As If Elected, When Their Authority Is Moral And Rests Solely On The Willing Obedience Of The Rank And File.

We Must Be Ever Courteous And Patient With Those Who Do Not See Eye To Eye With Us. We Must Resolutely Refuse To Consider Our Opponents As Enemies.

A Non-violent Revolution Is Not A Program Of Seizure Of Power. It Is A Program Of Transformation Of Relationships, Ending In A Peaceful Transfer Of Power.

Let Not The 12 Million Negroes Be Ashamed Of The Fact That They Are The Grandchildren Of Slaves. There Is Dishonor In Being Slave-owners.

Religion Is A Matter Of The Heart. No Physical Inconvenience Can Warrant Abandonment Of One's Own Religion.

How Heavy Is The Toll Of Sins And Wrong That Wealth, Power And Prestige Exact From Man.

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

Earth And Heaven Are In Us

I Contend That Non-violent Acts Exert Pressure Far More Effective Than Violent Acts, For The Pressure Comes From Goodwill And Gentleness.

The West Has Yet To Discover Anything So Hygienic As The Indian Toothstick.

I Am Conscious Of My Own Limitations. That Consciousness Is My Only Strength.

The State Represents Violence In A Concentrated And Organize Form.

Destruction Of The Churches And The Like Is Not The Way To Swaraj As Defined By The Congress.

For A Nonviolent Struggle, There Is No Age Limit. The Blind, The Maimed And The Bed-ridden May Serve, And Not Only Men But Women Also.

The Right To Err, Which Means The Freedom To Try Experiments, Is The Universal Condition Of All Progress.

Jesus, To Me, Is A Great World Teacher Among Others.

Indeed The Very Word, Nonviolence, A Negative Word, Means That It Is An Effort To Abandon The Violence That Is Inevitable In Life.

The Highest Fulfillment Of Religion Requires A Giving Up Of All Possessions.

As The Means, So The End.

Earth Provides Enough To Satisfy Every Man's Needs, But Not Every Man's Greed.

I Look Only To The Good Qualities Of Men. Not Being Faultless Myself, I Won't Presume To Probe Into The Faults Of Others.

One Needs To Be Slow To Form Convictions, But Once Formed They Must Be Defended Against The Heaviest Odds.

Real Non-co-operation Is Non-co-operation With Evil And Not With The Evil-doer.

Not Violence, Nor Untruth But Non-violence And Truth Are The Laws Of Our Being.

My Quarrel With The Advocates Of Contraceptives Lies In Their Taking For Granted That Ordinary Mortals Cannot Exercise Self-control.

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

If You Do Nothing There Will Be No Results

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

As Long As You Are Trying Your Very Best, There Can Be No Question Of Failure.

Only Living Things Bring Living Joy To The Soul And Must Elevate It.

There Can Be In The Eyes Of God No Distinction Between Man And Man, Even As There Is No Distinction Between Animal And Animal.

You Can Return Blow For Blow If You Are Not Brave Enough To Follow The Path Of Nonviolence.

I Believe In The Absolute Oneness Of God And Therefore Of Humanity. What Though We Have Many Bodies? We Have But One Soul. . . . I Know God Is Neither In Heaven Nor Down Below, But In Everyone.

Civil Disobedience Is Not Only The Natural Right Of A People, Especially When They Have No Effective Voice In Their Own Government, But That It Is Also A Substitute For Violence Or Armed Rebellion.

A Faith Gained In Strength Only When People Were Willing To Lay Down Their Lives For It.

A Genuine Satyagraha Should Never Excite Contempt In The Opponent Even When It Fails To Command Regard Or Respect.

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

Glory Lies In The Attempt To Reach One's Goal And Not In Reaching It.

Facts We Would Always Place Before Our Readers, Whether They Are Palatable Or Not, And It Is By Placing Them Constantly Before The Public In Their Nakedness That The Misunderstanding Between The Two Communities In South Africa Can Be Removed.

An Education Which Does Not Teach Us To Discriminate Between Good And Bad, To Assimilate The One And Eschew The Other, Is A Misnomer

You Will Not Pit One Word Of God Against Another Word Of God.

The Enlightened One Has Told You In Never-to-be-forgotten Words That This Little Span Of Life Is But A Passing Shadow, A Fleeting Thing.

It's Not Too Late At All. You Just Don't Yet Know What You Are Capable Of.

The Central Fact Of Hinduism Is Cow Protection.

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

Mankind Is One, Seeing That All Are Equally Subject To The Moral Law. All Men Are Equal In God's Eyes.

Do You Think I Am Superstitious? I Am A Super-atheist.

A Living Faith In God Means Acceptance Of The Brotherhood Of Mankind.

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.

There Is No Yajna (sacrifice) Greater Than Spinning Calculated To Bring Peace To The Troubled Spirit, To Soothe The Distracted Student's Mind, To Spiritualize His Life.

Civil Disobedience Presupposes Willing Obedience Of Our Self-imposed Rules, And Without It Civil Disobedience Would Be A Cruel Joke.

Public Opinion Alone Can Keep A Society Pure And Healthy.

Khaddar Has The Greatest Organizing Power In It Because It Has Itself To Be Organized And Because It Affects All India.

The Yajna Of Our Age And For Us Is The Spinning Wheel.

I Had Learnt At The Onset Not To Carry On Public Work With Borrowed Money.

The Light Of The World Will Illuminate Within You When You Fast And Purify Yourself.

There Is Always Enough For The Needy, There Is Never Enough For The Greedy.

In A Plan Of Life Based On Nonviolence, Woman Has As Much Right To Shape Her Own Destiny As Man Has To Shape His.

There Are Sufficient Resources On This Planet To Answer The Needs Of All, But Not Enough To Satisfy Everyone's Greed.

A Person Who Has Truly Realized The Principle Of Nonviolence Has The God Given Strength For His Weapon, And The World Has Not Yet Known Anything That Can Match It.

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

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

We May Have Our Private Opinions But Why Should They Be A Bar To The Meeting Of Hearts?

Swaraj Can Only Be Achieved Through An All-round Consciousness Of The Masses.

For Satyagraha And Its Offshoots, Non-co-operation And Civil Resistance, Are Nothing But New Names For The Law Of Suffering.

My Swaraj Is To Keep Intact The Genius Of Our Civilization.

Man Cannot Be Transformed From Bad To Good Overnight.

How Can I Even Secretly Harbour The Thought That My Neighbour's Faith Is Inferior To Mine?

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

Truth Is God, And Truth Overrides All Our Plans. The Whole Truth Is Only Embodied Within The Heart Of Great Power-truth.

I Will Not Let Anyone Walk Through My Mind With Their Dirty Feet.

Hate The Sin And Not The Sinner' Is A Precept Which, Though Easy Enough To Understand, Is Rarely Practiced, And That Is Why The Poison Of Hatred Spreads In The World.

The Krishna Of The Gita Is Perfection And Right Knowledge Personified, But The Picture Is Imaginary.

I Am Not Conscious Of A Single Experience Throughout My Three Months' Stay In England And Europe That Made Me Feel That After All East Is East And West Is West. On The Contrary, I Have Been Convinced More Than Ever That Human Nature Is Much The Same, No Matter Under What Clime It Flourishes, And That If You Approached People With Trust And Affection You Would Have Ten-fold Trust And Thousand-fold Affection Returned To You.

Religion Of Our Conception, Thus Imperfect, Is Always Subject To A Process Of Evolution And Re-interpretation.

True Prayer Is Not A Prelude To Inaction.

If A Single Man Demanded As Much As A Man With A Wife And Four Children, Then That Would Be A Violation Of The Concept Of Economic Equality.

Hinduism Is Not A Codified Religion.

The Spinning Wheel Means National Consciousness And A Contribution By Every Individual To A Definite Constructive National Work.

To Answer Brutality With Brutality Is To Admit One's Moral And Intellectual Bankruptcy.

Yajna Is Not Yajna If One Feels It To Be Burdensome Or Annoying.

Unless Our Hands Go Hand In Hand With Our Heads, We Will Be Able To Do Nothing Whatsoever.

That Nonviolence Which Only An Individual Can Use Is Not Of Much Use In Terms Of Society.

Purification Being Highly Infectious, Purification Of Oneself Necessarily Leads To The Purification Of One's Surroundings.

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

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

World Has Things Which Full Fill Man Needs, But Not Greeds.

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

Human Language Can But Imperfectly Describe God's Ways.

My Gita Tells Me That Evil Can Never Result From A Good Action.

God Is Not Outside This Earthly Case Of Ours.

The Safest Rule Of Conduct Is To Claim Kinship When We Want To Do Service And Not To Insist On Kinship When We Want To Assert A Right.

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.

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

The Reaction That A Ruthless Dictator Sets Up In Us Either That Of Awe Or Pity According Respectively As We React To Him Violently On Nonviolently.

I Own No Property And Yet I Feel That I Am Perhaps The Richest Man In The World.

Lovers Of Swaraj Cannot Rest Till A Solution Is Found Which Would Allay Mussalman Apprehensions And Yet Not Endanger Swaraj.

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.

I Isolate This Non-co-operation From Sinn Feinism, For It Is So Conceived As To Be Incapable Of Being Offered Side By Side With Violence.

Freedom Is Not Worth Having If It Does Not Connote Freedom To Err. It Passes My Comprehension How Human Beings, Be They Ever So Experienced And Able, Can Delight In Depriving Other Human Beings Of That Precious Right.

It Is My Great Misfortune That I Have To Measure Your Love By The Money Gifts You Give For Daridranarayana.

Khaddar Delivers The Poor From The Bonds Of The Rich And Creates A Moral And Spiritual Bond Between The Classes And The Masses.

3 Is Prime, 5 Is Prime, 7 Is Prime, But 9 Is Not Prime; -in This Incarnation.

A Coward Is Incapable Of Exhibiting Love; It Is The Prerogative Of The Brave.

Men Aspiring To Be Free Can Hardly Think Of Enslaving Others.

A Soldier Fights With An Irresistible Strength When He Has Blown Up His Bridges And Burnt His Boats. Even So, It Is With A Soldier Of Ahimsa.

Nonviolent Non-co-operation With Evil Means Co-operation With All That Is Good.

Where Love Is, There God Is Also.

If You Want A Change In The World, Be The Change

Contraceptive Methods Are Like Putting A Premium On Vice. It Makes Men And Women Reckless... As It Is, Man Has Sufficiently Degraded Woman For His Lust, And [contraception] , No Matter How Well Meaning The Advocates May Be, Will Still Further Degrade Her.

The Religion Of Nonviolence Is Not Meant Merely For Therishis And Saints.

Satyagraha Does Not Depend On Outside Help, It Derives All Its Strength From Within.

The Whole World Is In The Throes Of A New Birth. Anything Done For A Temporary Gain Would Be Tantamount To An Abortion.

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

Whoever Is Victor, There Should Be, After The War, A Commonwealth Of All Nations.

The Taking Of Vows That Are Not Feasible Or That Are Beyond One's Capacity Would Betray Thoughtlessness And Want Of Balance.

In My Humble Opinion, Non-cooperation With Evil Is As Much A Duty As Is Cooperation With Good. But In The Past, Non-cooperation Has Been Deliberately Expressed In Violence To The Evildoer. I Am Endeavoring To Show My Countrymen That Violent Non-cooperation Only Multiplies Evil And That Evil Can Only Be Sustained By Violence. Withdrawal Of Support Of Evil Requires Complete Abstention From Violence. Non-violence Implies Voluntary Submission To The Penalty For Non-cooperation With Evil.

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