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Those Who Think Religion Has Nothing To Do With Politics Understand Neither Religion Or Politics... The Things That Will Destroy Us Are: Politics Without Principles, Pleasures Without Conscience, Knowledge Without Character, Business Without Morality.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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Those Who Think Religion

Mahatma Gandhi

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Those Who Think Religion Has Nothing To Do With Politics Understand Neither Religion Or Politics... The Things That Will Destroy Us Are: Politics Without Principles, Pleasures Without Conscience, Knowledge Without Character, Business Without Morality.

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

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

What Better Book Can There Be Than The Book Of Humanity.

A Satyagrahi Is Dead To His Body Even Before The Enemy Attempts To Kill Him.

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

A Truly Nonviolent Man Would Never Live To Tell The Tale Of Atrocities. He Would Have Laid Down His Life On The Spot In Non-violent Resistance.

When You Know The Truth, The Truth Makes You A Soldier.

It Is The Duty Of A Non-co-operator To Preach Disaffection Towards The Existing Order Of Things. Non-co-operators Are But Giving Disciplined Expression To A Nation's Outraged Feelings.

Free, Open Love I Have Looked Upon As Dog's Love. Secret Love Is, Besides, Cowardly.

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

The Consumption Of Vegetables Involves Himsa, But I Cannot Give Them Up.

If Blood Be Shed, Let It Be Our Own. Let Us Cultivate The Calm Courage To Die Without Killing.

Those Who Are Lacking In Bhakti (devotion), Lacking In Faith, Are Ill Qualified To Interpret The Scriptures.

Renunciation Means Absence Of Hankering After Fruit.

If We Know How Much Passive Violence We Perpetrate Against One Another, We Will Understand Why There Is So Much Physical Violence Plaguing Societies And The World.

Had We Adopted Non-violence As The Weapon Of The Strong, Because We Realised That It Was More Effective Than Any Other Weapon, In Fact The Mightiest Force In The World, We Would Have Made Use Of Its Full Potency And Not Have Discarded It As Soon As The Fight Against The British Was Over Or We Were In A Position To Wield Conventional Weapons. But As I Have Already Said, We Adopted It Out Of Our Helplessness. If We Had The Atom Bomb, We Would Have Used It Against The British.

To See Farther, You Must Climb Higher.

Even A Single Lamp Dispels The Deepest Darkness.

An Opponent Is Entitled To The Same Regard For His Principles As We Would Expect Others To Have For Ours. Non-violence Demands That We Should See Every Opportunity To Win Over Opponents.

A Teetotaler Would Regard It As His Duty To Associate With His Drunkard Brother For The Purpose Of Weaning Him From The Evil Habit.

Ahimsa And Truth Are My Two Lungs. I Cannot Live Without Them.

In A Self-respecting India, Is Not Every Woman's Virtue As Much Every Man's Concern As His Own Sister's?

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

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

It Is As Much Our Obligation Not To Cooperate With Evil As It Is To Cooperate With Good

The Strength To Kill Is Not Essential For Self-defence; One Ought To Have The Strength To Die.

The One Religion Is Beyond All Speech.

I Learned From Hussain How To Be Wronged And Be A Winner, I Learnt From Hussain How To Attain Victory While Being Oppressed.

To Observe Morality Is To Attain Mastery Over Our Mind And Our Passions.

Power Invariably Elects To Go Into The Hands Of The Strong. That Strength May Be Physical Or Of The Heart Or, If We Do Not Fight Shy Of The Word, Of The Spirit. Strength Of The Heart Connotes Soul-force. Let It Be Remembered That Physical Force Is Transitory, Even As The Body Is Transitory. But The Power Of Spirit Is Permanent Even As The Spirit Is Everlasting.

Life And Death Are But Phases Of The Same Thing, The Reverse And Obverse Of The Same Coin. Death Is As Necessary For Man's Growth As Life Itself.

True Prayer Is Not A Prelude To Inaction.

Man Should Earnestly Desire The Well - Being Of All God's Creations And Pray That We May Have The Strength To Do So.

When I Despair, I Remember That All Through History The Way Of Truth And Love Has Always Won.

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

Boycott Brought About Anyhow Of British Cloth Cannot Yield The Same Results As Such Boycott Brought About By Hand-spinning And Khaddar.

Satyagraha Is A Force That Has Come To Stay. No Force In The World Can Kill It.

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

Civil Disobedience Is The Only Nonviolent Escape From The Soul-destroying Heat Of Violence.

Without Devotion, Action And Knowledge Are Cold And Dry And Many Even Become Shackles.

Man Is The Center Of A Circle Without A Circumference, Except The One He Creates For Himself.

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

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

There Is No God Higher Than Truth.

Non-co-operation And Civil Disobedience In Terms Of Swaraj Are Not To Be Thought Of Without Substantial Constructive Effort.

My Idea Of Society Is That While We Are Born Equal, Meaning That We Have A Right To Equal Opportunity, All Have Not The Same Capacity.

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

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

My Religion Is Based On Truth And Non-violence. Truth Is My God. Non-violence Is The Means Of Realising Him.

The Only Things That Separates Us From The Brute, With Which We Have So Much In Common, Is The Capacity To Distinguish Between Right And Wrong.

All The Religions Of The World, While They May Differ In Other Respects, Unitedly Proclaim That Nothing Lives In This World But Truth.

Meditation Is Waiting On God.

One Must Become As Humble As The Dust Before He Can Discover Truth.

Patience Means Self-suffering.

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

That Religion And That Nation Will Be Blotted Out Of The Face Of The Earth Which Pins Its Faith On Injustice, Untruth Or Violence.

Peace Will Not Come Out Of A Clash Of Arms But Out Of Justice Lived And Done By Unarmed Nations In The Face Of Odds.

I Would Beseech You Not Only To Be Pure Beyond Suspicion But I Would Ask You To Combine With Stainless Purity, Great Wisdom And Great Ability.

No Swaraj Government With Any Pretension To Being A Popular Government Can Possibly Be Organised And Maintained On A War-footing.

Mere Brave Speech Without Action Is Letting Off Useless Steam.

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

In The East, As In The West, Newspapers Are Fast Becoming People's Bible, Koran, Zend-avesta And Gita All Rolled Into One.

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

To Die Without Killing Is The Badge Of A Satyagrahi.

I Would Rather Drown Myself In The Waters Of The Sabarmati Than Harbour Hate Or Animosity In My Heart.

God Cannot Be Realized Through Intellect.

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

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

Sooner Or Later

Man Should Forget His Anger Before He Lies Down To Sleep.

When You Surrender Completely To God, As The Only Truth Worth Having, You Find Yourself In Service Of All That Exists. It Becomes Your Joy And Recreation. You Never Tire Of Serving Others.

Finding Yourself

A Man Like Me Cannot But Believe That This Earthquake Is A Divine Chastisement Sent By God For Our Sins.

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

Every Hindu Boy And Girl Should Possess Sound Samskrit Learning.

My Whole Soul Rebels Against The Idea That Hinduism And Islam Represent Two Antagonistic Cultures And Doctrines.

God Is Continuously In Action, Without Resting For A Single Moment.

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 Politics Is My Religion, My Religion Is My Politics.

If You Think The World Is All Wrong, Remember That It Contains People Like You.

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.

I Believe In Conversion Of Mankind, Not Its Destruction.

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.

Equality Of Sexes Does Not Mean Equality Of Occupations.

Undoubtedly, Prayer Requires A Living Faith In God. Successful Satyagraha Is Inconceivable Without That Faith.

It Is Better To Allow Our Lives To Speak For Us Than Our Words. God Did Not Bear The Cross Only Two Thousand Years Ago. He Bears It Today, And He Dies And Is Resurrected From Day To Day. It Would Be A Poor Comfort To The World If It Had To Depend On A Historical God Who Died Two Thousand Years Ago. Do Not, Then, Preach The God Of History, But Show Him As He Lives Today Through You.

Democracy And Violence Can Ill Go Together.

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.

India's Way Is Not Europe's. India Is Not Calcutta And Bombay. India Lives In Her Seven Hundred Thousand Villages.

He Who Spins Before The Poor, Inviting Them To Do Likewise, Serves God As No One Else Does.

No Man Could Look Upon Another As His Enemy, Unless He First Became His Own Enemy.

But You Can Wake A Man Only If He Is Really Asleep. No Effort That You Make Will Produce Any Effect Upon Him If He Is Merely Pretending Sleep.

The Power Of Nonviolent Resistance Can Only Come From Honest Working Of The Constructive Programme.

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

Nearly Everything You Do Is Of No Importance, But It Is Important That You Do It.

If The English Educated Neglect, As They Have Done And Even Now Continue, As Some Do, To Be Ignorant Of Their Mother Tongue, Linguistic Starvation Will Abide.

There Is More To Life Than Increasing Its Speed.

I Invite Even The School Of Violence To Give This Peaceful Non-co-operation A Trial.

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

If You Want To Play Your Part In The World's Affairs, You Must Refuse To Deck Yourselves For Pleasing Man.

The Best Politics Is Right Action.

Bullies Are Always To Be Found Where There Are Cowards.

Of All The Animal Creations Of God, Main Is The Only Animal Who Has Been Created In Order That He May Know His Maker. Man's Aim Is Life Is Not Therefore To Add From Day To Day To His Material Prospects And To His Material Possessions, But His Predominant Calling Is, From Day To Day To Come Nearer To His Own Maker.

Tolstoy Was The Greatest Apostle Of Nonviolence That The Present Age Has Produced.

My Creed Of Nonviolence Does Not Favour The Punishment Of Thieves And Dacoits And Even Murderers.

The Very Essence Of Democracy Is That Every Person Represents All The Varied Interests Which Compose The Nation.

If You Are Left With Only One Piece Of Homespun,wear It With Dignity

He Who Gives Up Action Falls. He Who Gives Up The Reward Rises. But Renunciation Of Fruit In No Way Means Indifference To The Result.

Sickness Is The Result Not Only Of Our Acts, But Out Thoughts Also.

Truth Triumphs, Even If There Be No Public Support.

Human Language Can But Imperfectly Describe God's Ways.

In The Attitude Of Silence The Soul Finds The Path In A Clearer Light, And What Is Elusive And Deceptive Resolves Itself Into Crystal Clearness. Our Life Is A Long And Arduous Quest After Truth.

God Comes To The Hungry In The Form Of Food.

Journalism Has Become The Art Of "intelligent Anticipation Of Events."

For A Firm Believer In Swadeshi, There Need Be No Pharisaical Self-satisfaction In Wearing Khadi.

Nothing Is Of A Permanent Nature.

I Believe In Absolute Oneness Of God And Therefore Also Of Humanity.

A Nation That Is Capable Of Limitless Sacrifice Is Capable Of Rising To Limitless Heights. The Purer The Sacrifice The Quicker The Progress.

Non-co-operation In The Political Field Is An Extension Of The Doctrine As It Is Practised In The Domestic Field.

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

Relationships Are Based On Four Principles: Respect, Understanding, Acceptance And Appreciation.

I Do Not Believe In The Doctrine Of The Greatest Good Of The Greatest Number. The Only Real, Dignified, Human Doctrine Is The Greatest Good Of All.

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

Non-co-operation Is Not A Movement Of Drag, Bluster Or Bluff.

A Satyagrahi, Whilst He Is Ever Ready To Fight, Must Be Equally Eager For Peace.

Our Aim Is Not To Do Things By Violence To Opponents.

It Is The Quality Of Our Work Which Will Please God And Not The Quantity.

Quality Not Quantity

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.

Learn As If You Will Live Forever.

I Know No Diplomacy Save That Of Truth.

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

I Believe In Advaita, I Believe In The Essential Unity Of Man And For That Matter Of All That Lives.

The Sanyasa Of The Gita Will Not Tolerate Complete Cessation Of Activity.

Intellect Takes Us Along In The Battle Of Life To A Certain Limit, But At The Crucial Moment It Fails Us. Faith Transcends Reason. It Is When The Horizon Is The Darkest And Human Reason Is Beaten Down To The Ground That Faith Shines Brightest And Comes To Our Rescue.

President Means Chief Servant

Few Men Are Wantonly Wicked.

Wherever Flaxseeds Become A Regular Food Item Among The People, There Will Be Better Health.

The Foundation Of Service And Your Real Training Lie In Spinning Khaddar.

Untouchability Is A Many-headed Monster And Forms, Some Of Them So Subtle As Not To Be Easily Detected.

I Do Not Regard Flesh-food As Necessary For Us At Any Stage And Under Any Clime In Which It Is Possible For Human Beings Ordinarily To Live, I Hold Flesh-food To Be Unsuited To Our Species.

Vegetarian Health

To Me Truth Is God And There Is No Way To Find Truth Except The Way Of Nonviolence.

A Little Of True Nonviolence Acts In A Silent, Subtle, Unseen Way And Leavens The Whole Society.

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

India Will Not Be A Helpless Partner In Her Own Exploitation And Foreign Domination.

Nirvana Is The Utter Extinction Of All That Is Base In Us, All That Is Vicious In Us. Nirvana Is Not Like The Black, Dead Peace Of The Grave, But The Living Peace, The Living Happiness Of A Soul Which Is Conscious Of Itself And Conscious Of Having Found Its Own Abode In The Heart Of The Eternal.

There Is An Orderliness In The Universe, There Is An Unalterable Law Governing Everything And Every Being That Exists Or Lives. It Is No Blind Law; For No Blind Law Can Govern The Conduct Of Living Beings.

Hate The Sin, Love The Sinner.

The Truest Test Of Civilization, Culture And Dignity Is Character And Not Clothing.

If We Develop The Force Of Will, We Shall Find That We Do Not Need The Force Of Arms.

Not To Have Control Over The Senses Is Like Sailing In A Rudderless Ship, Bound To Break To Pieces On Coming In Contact With The Very First Rock.

If We Are To Reach Real Peace In This World And If We Are To Carry On A Real War Against War, We Shall Have To Begin With Children; And If They Will Grow Up In Their Natural Innocence, We Won't Have To Struggle; We Won't Have To Pass Fruitless Idle Resolutions, But We Shall Go From Love To Love And Peace To Peace, Until At Last All The Corners Of The World Are Covered With That Peace And Love For Which Consciously Or Unconsciously The Whole World Is Hungering.

My Motto Is "unite Now, Today If You Can; Fight If You Must. But In Every Case Avoid British Intervention."

Nations Are Born Out Of Travail And Suffering

A Country That Is Governed By Its National Army Can Never Be Morally Free And, Therefore, Its So-called Weakest Member Can Never Rise To His Full Moral Height.

It Is The Function Of God Rama To Destroy Evil, Wherever It Occurs And It Is Equally The Function Of God Rama To Give To His Devotees Like Bibhishana A Free Charter Of Irrevocable Self-government.

Non-cooperatio N With Evil Is A Sacred Duty.

The Greater The Realization Of Truth And Ahimsa, The Greater The Illumination.

The Richest Grace Of Ahimsa Will Descend Easily Upon The Owner Of Hard Discipline.

The Power We Call God Defies Description.

I Have Not Conceived My Mission To Be That Of A Knight-errant Wandering Everywhere To Deliver People From Difficult Situations. My Humble Occupation Has Been To Show People How They Can Solve Their Own Difficulties.

Difficult Situations

I Believe That There Is No Prayer Without Fasting, And There Is No Real Fast Without Prayer.

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

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

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.

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

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.

That Service Is The Noblest Which Is Rendered For Its Own Sake.

Service To Others

Cow Protection To Me Is One Of The Most Wonderful Phenomena In The Human Evolution.

The Restoration Of Spinning To Its Central Place In India's Peaceful Campaign For Deliverance From The Imperial Yoke Gives Her Women A Special Status.

Government Of The People By The People And For The People Cannot Be Conducted At The Bidding Of One Man, However Great He May Be.

You May Have Occasion To Possess Or Use Material Things, But The Secret Of Life Lies In Never Missing Them.

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.

Live As If You Were To Die Tomorrow. Learn As If You Were To Live Forever.

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.

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

Hindu-muslim Unity, Khaddar And Removal Of Untouchability Are To Me The Foundation Of Swaraj.

The States Can Make The Finest Contribution To The Building Of India's Future Independence If They Set The Right Example In Their Own Territories.

To Me God Is Truth And Love, God Is Ethics And Morality, God Is Fearlessness.

You Cannot Cure A Lesser Evil By A Greater Evil.

Art To Be Art Must Soothe.

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.

I Cannot Be Subservient Anywhere.

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

We Believe As Much In The Purity Of Race As We Think They Do... We Believe Also That The White Race Of South Africa Should Be The Predominating Race.

I Am A Hindu Because It Is Hinduism Which Makes The World Worth Living. I Am A Hindu Hence I Love Not Only Human Beings, But All Living Beings.

God Turns His Back On Those Who Quarrel Among Themselves.

Your Life Is Your Message.

Begin With Duties Of A Man And Rights Will Follow As Spring Follows Winter

Whatever May Be True Of The Other Modes Of Warfare, Insatyagraha It Has Been Held That The Causes For Failure Are To Be Sought Within.

That Which You Look Upon As Your Own You May Keep Only So Long As The World Allows You To Own It.

If We Had The Atom Bomb, We Would Have Used It Against The British.

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

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

If Everybody Lives By The Sweat Of His Brow, The Earth Will Become A Paradise.

Satyagraha Is Search For Truth, And God Is Truth.

Search For Truth

It Is An Ever-growing Belief With Me That Truth Cannot Be Found By Violent Means.

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

I Have Repeatedly Stated That Satyagraha Never Fails And That One Perfect Satyagrahi Is Enough To Vindicate Truth.

It Is Nature's Kindness That We Do Not Remember Past Births. Life Would Be A Burden If We Carried Such A Tremendous Load Of Memories.

Rama Nama Should Come From The Heart. In That Event, Rama Nama Could Become An Effective Remedy Against All Ailments. A Man Who Believes In Rama Nama Would Not Make A Fetish Of The Body But Would Regard It As A Means Of Serving God. And For Making It Into A Fit Instrument For That Purpose, Rama Nama Is The Sovereign Means. To Install Rama Nama In The Heart Requires Infinite Patience. It Might Even Take Ages. But The Effort Is Worthwhile. Rama Nama Cannot Come From The Heart Unless One Has Cultivated The Virtues Of Truth, Honesty And Purity Within And Without.

Far More Indispensable Then Food For The Physical Body Is Spiritual Nourishment For The Soul. One Can Do Without Food For A Considerable Time, But A Man Of The Spirit Cannot Exist For A Single Second Without Spiritual Nourishment.

People Cannot Hurt You Without Your Permission.

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