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What Difference Does It Make To The Dead, The Orphans, And The Homeless, Whether The Mad Destruction Is Wrought Under The Name Of Totalitarianism Or The Holy Name Of Liberty Or Democracy?

-Mahatma Gandhi

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What Difference Does It

Mahatma Gandhi

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What Difference Does It Make To The Dead, The Orphans, And The Homeless, Whether The Mad Destruction Is Wrought Under The Name Of Totalitarianism Or The Holy Name Of Liberty Or Democracy?

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

May Not Men Earn Their Bread By Intellectual Labor? No, The Needs Of The Body Must Be Supplied By The Body.

As A Rule I Had A Distaste For Any Reading Beyond My School Books.

My Conception Of Dominion Status Implies Present Ability To Severe The British Connection If I Wish To.

A Small Body Of Determined Spirits Fired By An Unquenchable Faith In Their Mission Can Alter The Course Of History.

Public Opinion Alone Can Keep A Society Pure And Healthy.

The Seeker Is At Liberty To Extract From This Treasure Any Meaning He Likes, So As To Enable Him To Enforce In His Life The Central Teaching.

The Enemy Is Fear. We Think It Is Hate; But, It Is Fear.

If You Approached People With Trust And Affection You Would Have Ten-fold Trust And Thousand-fold.

Satan's Successes Are The Greatest When He Appears With The Name Of God On His Lips.

No Indian Who Aspires To Follow The Way Of True Religion Can Afford To Remain Aloof From Politics.

My Effort Should Never Be To Undermine Another's Faith But To Make Him A Better Follower Of His Own Faith.

One May Detest The Wickedness Of A Brother Without Hating Him.

Forgiveness Is The Virtue Of The Brave.

Without The Study Of Samskrit One Cannot Become A True Indian And A True Learned Man.

A Resolute And Wise Refusal To Take Part In Festivities Will Be An Incentive For Introspection And Self-purification.

If It Had Not Been For The Christians That I Have Known I Might Have Been A Christian.

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.

Pure Motives Can Never Justify Impure Or Violent Action.

Performance Of One's Duties Should Be Independent Of Public Opinion.

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

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

Cowardice Is Impotence Worse Than Violence. The Coward Desires Revenge But Being Afraid To Die, He Looks To Others, Maybe To The Government Of The Day, To Do The Work Of Defense For Him. A Coward Is Less Than A Man. He Does Not Deserve To Be A Member Of A Society Of Men And Women.

My Knowledge Of The Letter Of The Shastras Is Better, But Of True Religion They Are Able To Give Me But Little.

For Us, Patriotism Is The Same As The Love Of Humanity.

Without Prayer There Is No Inward Peace.

Just As A Prayer May Be Merely A Mechanical Intonation As Of A Bird, So May A Fast Be A Mere Mechanical Torture Of The Flesh.

I Cannot In All Conscience Agree To Anyone Being Sent To The Gallows. God Alone Can Take Life Because He Alone Gives It . . .

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

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

Nonviolence Is An Attribute Of The Almighty Whose Ways Of Fulfilling Himself Are Inscrutable.

Wherever You Are You Will Always Be In My Heart.

Long Distance Relationship

What Faith Can You Place In A General Or A Soldier Who Lacks Resolution And Determination, Who Says, 'i Shall Keep Guard As Long As I Can'?

When We Fear God, Then We Shall Fear No Man, However High-placed He May Be.

Nonviolence And Cowardice Go Ill Together.

Salvation Of The Gita Is Perfect Peace.

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.

Dining And Marriage Restrictions Stunt Hindu Society.

Every Reform Means Awakening. Once Truly Awakened, The Nation Will Not Be Satisfied With Reform Only In One Department Of Life.

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

To Know Music Is To Transfer It To Life.

Persistent Questioning And Healthy Inquisitiveness Are The First Requisite For Acquiring Learning Of Any Kind.

Selfishness Is Blind.

Action Expresses Priorities.

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.

All Business Depends Upon Men Fulfilling Their Responsibilities.

A Man Who Has Broken With His Past Feels A Different Man. He Will Not Feel It A Shame To Confess His Past Wrongs, For The Simple Reason That These Wrongs Do Not Touch Him At All.

To Safeguard Democracy The People Must Have A Keen Sense Of Independence, Self-respect, And Their Oneness.

Armed Conspiracies Against Something Satanic Is Like Matching Satans Against Satan.

I Worship God As Truth Only. I Have Not Yet Found Him, But I Am Seeking After Him. I Am Prepared To Sacrifice The Things Dearest To Me In Pursuit Of This Quest. Even If The Sacrifice Demanded My Very Life, I Hope I May Be Prepared To Give It.

Man Can Only Describe God In His Own Poor Language.

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

We Notice That The Mind Is A Restless Bird; The More It Gets The More It Wants, And Still Remains Unsatisfied. The More We Indulge Our Passions The More Unbridled They Become. Our Ancestors, Therefore, Set A Limit To Our Indulgences. They Saw That Happiness Was Largely A Mental Condition. A Man Is Not Necessarily Happy Because He Is Rich, Or Unhappy Because He Is Poor.... Millions Will Always Remain Poor.

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

India Has The Right, If She Only Knew, Of Becoming The Predominant Partner By Reason Of Her Numbers, Geographical Position And Culture Inherited For Ages.

God Demands Nothing Less Than Self - Surrender As The Price For The Only Real Freedom That Is Worth Having.

National Education To Be Truly National Must Reflect The National Condition For The Time Being.

The Lives Of Zoroaster, Jesus And Mohammed, As I Have Understood Them, Have Illumined Many A Passage In The Gita.

To Get Rid Of The Infatuation For English Is One Of The Essentials Of Swaraj.

Satyagraha Is A Purely Spiritual Weapon.

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

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

You May Pluck Out My Eyes, But That Cannot Kill Me. You May Chop Off My Nose, But That Will Not Kill Me. But Blast My Belief In God, And I Am Dead.

It Has Always Been A Mystery To Me How Men Can Feel Themselves Honoured By The Humiliation Of Their Fellow Beings.

The Quest Of Truth Involves Tapas-self-suffering-sometimes Even Unto Death.

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Conquer The Heart Of The Enemy With Truth And Love, Not By Violence.

Prayer Can Come In Only When Fasting Has Done Its Work. It Can Make Fasting Easy And Bearable.

There Is Nothing That Wastes The Body Like Worry, And One Who Has Any Faith In God Should Be Ashamed To Worry About Anything Whatsoever.

The Gita Is Not For Those Who Have No Faith.

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

By Spiritual Training I Mean Education Of The Heart.

Nonviolent Action Without The Co-operation Of The Heart And The Head Cannot Produce The Intended Result.

God Never Made Man That He May Consider Another Man As Untouchable.

Thanks To The Court's Decision, Only Clean Indians (meaning Upper Caste Hindu Indians) Or Colored People Other Than Kaffirs, Can Now Travel In The Trains.

Look At The Sparrows; They Do Not Know What They Will Do In The Next Moment. Let Us Literally Live From Moment To Moment.

Inspirational Life

Man Cannot Be Transformed From Bad To Good Overnight.

One's Own Religion Is After All A Matter Between Oneself And One's Maker And No One Else's.

Labour Is Priceless, Not Gold.

Mankind Has To Get Out Of Violence Only Through Non-violence.

I Believe In The Fundamental Truth Of All Great Religions Of The World.

Speak Only If It Improves Upon The Silence.

Culture Of The Mind Must Be Subservient To The Heart.

Prayer From The Heart Can Achieve What Nothing Else Can In The World.

Truth Is My God. Non-violence Is The Means Of Realizing Him.

A Man Who Throws Himself On God Ceases To Fear Man

A Principle Is The Expression Of Perfection, And As Imperfect Beings Like Us Cannot Practise Perfection, We Devise Every Moment Limits Of Its Compromise In Practice.

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

When Untouchability Is Rooted Out, These Distinctions Will Vanish And No One Will Consider Himself Superior To Any Other.

In The Midst Of Death Life Persists.

Darkness To Light

My Attempt And Prayer Are And Will Be For An Honorable Peace Between Belligerent Nations In The Least Possible Time.

Birth-control Through Self-restraint Is The Most Desirable, Sensible And Totally Harmless Method.

There Can Be No Friendship Between Cowards, Or Cowards And Brave Men.

The Gita Is Not Only My Bible And My Koran, It Is More Than That, It Is My Mother.

Let Your Thoughts Be Positive For They Will Become Your Words. Let Your Words Be Positive For They Will Become Your Actions. Let Your Actions Be Positive For They Will Become Your Values. Let Your Values Be Positive For They Will Become Your Destiny.

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

The Removal Of Untouchability Is One Of The Highest Expressions Of Ahimsa.

I May Have Become Christian, Were It Not For Christians.

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

There Are Times When You Have To Obey A Call Which Is The Highest Of All, I.e. The Voice Of Conscience Even Though Such Obedience May Cost Many A Bitter Tear, And Even More, Separation From Friends, From Family, From The State, To Which You May Belong, From All That You Have Held As Dear As Life Itself. For This Obedience Is The Law Of Our Being.

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

All My Actions Have Their Rise In My Inalienable Love Of Mankind.

All Religions Teach That Two Opposite Forces Act Upon Us And The Human Endeavour Consists In A Series Of Eternal Rejections And Acceptances.

To Forgive Is Not To Forget. The Merit Lies In Loving In Spite Of The Vivid Knowledge That One That Must Be Loved Is Not A Friend. There Is Not Merit In Loving An Enemy When You Forget Him For A Friend.

Learning Takes Us Through Many States Of Life, But It Fails Utterly In The Hour Of Danger And Temptation. Then Faith Alone Saves.

Hinduism Has Made Marvelous Discoveries In Things Of Religion, Of The Spirit, Of The Soul. We Have No Eye For These Great And Fine Discoveries. We Are Dazzled By The Material Progress That Western Science Has Made. Ancient India Has Survived Because Hinduism Was Not Developed Along Material But Spiritual Lines.

The Meaning Of Prayer Is That I Want To Evoke That Divinity Within Me.

Bravery On The Battlefield Is Impossible For Us. Bravery Of The Soul Still Remains Open To Us.

Democracy Demands Patient Instruction On It Before Legislation.

A Weak Man Is Just By Accident. A Strong But Non-violent Man Is Unjust By Accident.

To Lose Patience Is To Lose The Battle.

I Have Nothing New To Teach The World. Truth And Non-violence Are As Old As The Hills. All I Have Done Is To Try Experiments In Both On As Vast A Scale As I Could.

This Mad Rush For Wealth Must Cease And The Labourer Must Be Assured Not Only Of A Living Wage But, Also A Daily Task That Is Not Mere Drudgery.

A Nonviolent Action Accompanied By Nonviolence In Thought And Word Should Never Produce Enduring Violent Reaction Upon The Opponent.

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

Compassion Is A Muscle That Gets Stronger With Use.

Hinduism Has Absorbed The Best Of All The Faiths Of The World And In That Sense Hinduism Is Not An Exclusive Religion.

Decency Requires That When A Programme Is Approved By The Majority, All Should Carry It Out Faithfully.

I Look Upon Air-power For Destruction As A Terrible Crime Against Humanity.

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

Yajna Is Duty To Be Performed, Or Service To Be Rendered, All Twenty-four Hours Of The Day.

Repression Does For A True Man Or A Nation What Fire Does For Gold.

My Religion Says That Only He Who Is Prepared To Suffer Can Pray To God.

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

There Is No Such Thing As ‘too Insane’ Unless Others Turn Up Dead Due To Your Actions.

Man Can Never Be A Woman's Equal In The Spirit Of Selfless Service With Which Nature Has Endowed Her.

Whether Humanity Will Consciously Follow The Law Of Love, I Do Not Know. But That Need Not Disturb Me. The Law Will Work Just As The Law Of Gravitation Works Whether We Accept It Or Not.

Law Of Attraction

The Ideally Non-violent State Will Be An Ordered Anarchy.

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

What God May Have Enabled Me To Do Is But A Repayment Of Debt, And He Who Repays A Debt Deserves No Praise.

I Want To Realize Brotherhood Or Identity Not Merely With The Beings Called Human, But I Want To Realize Identity With All Life, Even With Such Things As Crawl Upon Earth.

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

I Came To The Conclusion Long Ago That All Religions Were True And That Also That All Had Some Error In Them, And While I Hold By My Own Religion, I Should Hold Other Religions As Dear As Hinduism. So We Can Only Pray, If We Were Hindus, Not That A Christian Should Become A Hindu; But Our Innermost Prayer Should Be That A Hindu Should Become A Better Hindu, A Muslim A Better Muslim, And A Christian A Better Christian.

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

I Retain The Opinion That Council Entry Is Inconsistent With Non-co-operation As I Conceive It.

The Only Way Hinduism Can Convert The Whole World To Cow-protection Is By Giving An Object-lesson In Cow-protection And All It Means.

My Love Of Nationalism Is That My Country May Become Free, And If Need Be, The Whole Of The Country Die, So That The Human Race May Live.

Everything That We Do Is Insignificant...and...it Is Very Important That We Do It!

Well, India Is A Country Of Nonsense

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

To A People Famishing And Idle, The Only Acceptable Form In Which God Can Dare Appear Is Work And Promise Of Food As Wages.

The Greatness Of A Nation And Its Moral Progress Can Be Judged By The Way Its Animals Are Treated. I Hold That The More Helpless A Creature The More Entitled It Is To Protection By Man From The Cruelty Of Humankind.

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

Man The Law-giver Will Have To Pay A Dreadful Penalty For The Degradation He Has Imposed Upon The So Called Weaker Sex.

Heroes Are Made In The Hour Of Defeat. Success Is, Therefore, Well Described As A Series Of Glorious Defeats.

The Charkha Is An Outward Symbol Of Truth And Nonviolence.

It Is Unwise To Be Too Sure Of One's Own Wisdom.

Man Lives Freely Only By His Readiness To Die.

In The March Towards Truth, Anger, Selfishness, Hatred, Etc., Naturally Give Way, For Otherwise Truth Would Be Impossible To Attain. A Man Who Is Swayed By Passions May Have Good Enough Intentions, May Be Truthful In Word, But He Will Never Find The Truth.

The Primary Object Of Non-co-operation Is Nowhere Stated To Be Paralysis Of The Government. The Primary Object Is Self-purification.

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

Even A Little Untruth Destroys A Man, As A Drop Of Poison Ruins Milk.

The Law And The Lawgiver Are One.

On India Rests The Burden Of Pointing The Way To All The Exploited Races Of The Earth.

Violent Means Will Give Violent Freedom.

Non-violence Does Not Signify That Man Must Not Fight Against The Enemy, And By Enemy Is Meant The Evil Which Men Do, Not The Human Beings Themselves.

The Alphabet Of Ahimsa Is Best Learnt In Domestic School And I Can Say From Experience That If We Secure Success There, We Are Sure To Do So Everywhere Else.

The Moment The Cultivators Of The Soil Realize Their Power, The Evil Of Zamindari Will Be Sterilized.

My Religion Forbids Me To Belittle Or Disregard Other Cultures, As It Insists, Under Pain Of Civil Suicide, Upon Imbibing And Living My Own.

If You Want To Change The World, Be That Change.

The Beauty Of Poetry Is That The Creation Transcends The Poet.

The Only Virtue I Want To Claim Is Truth And Nonviolence.

I See A Clear Breach Of Ahimsa Even In Driving Away Monkeys; The Breach Would Be Proportionately Greater If They Have To Be Killed.

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

When You Want To Find Truth As God, The Only Inevitable Means Is Love, That Is Nonviolence.

Conservation Of National Sanitation Is Swaraj Work And It May Not Be Postponed For A Single Day On Any Consideration Whatsoever.

Cent Percent Swadeshi Gives Sufficient Scope For The Most Insatiable Ambition For Service And A Satisfaction Of Every Kind Of Talent.

Ahimsa Magnifies One's Own Defects, And Minimizes Those Of The Opponent. It Regards The Mole In One's Own Eye As A Beam And The Beam In The Opponent's Eye As A Mole.

... There Are Chords In Every Human Heart. If We Only Knew How To Strike The Right Chord, We Would Bring Out The Music.

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.

All Your Scholarship, All Your Study Of Shakespeare And Wordsworth Would Be In Vain, If At The Same Time You Do Not Build Your Character, And Attain Mastery Over Your Thoughts And Actions.

If I Did Not Have A Sense Of Humor, I Would Have Long Ago Killed Myself.

Forgiveness Is Choosing To Love. It Is The First Skill Of Self-giving Love.

Positive Thinking

In This Age Of The Rule Of Brute Force, It Is Almost Impossible For Anyone To Believe That Any One Else Could Possibly Reject The Law Of The Final Supremacy Of Brute Force.

Your Life Is Your Message.

There Is A Vital Connection Between Satyagraha And Charkha, And The More I Find That Belief Challenged, The More I Am Confirmed In It.

The Future Of India Lies In Its Villages

Permanent Good Can Never Be The Outcome Of Untruth And Violence

Renunciation Is Everyone's Prerogative.

It Was Through The Hindu Religion That I Learnt To Respect Christianity And Islam.

If India Adopted The Doctrine Of Love As An Active Part Of Her Religion And Introduced It In Her Politics. Swaraj Would Descend Upon India From Heaven. But I Am Painfully Aware That That Event Is Far Off As Yet.

Swaraj Is Not Meant For Cowards, But For Those Who Would Mount Smilingly To The Gallows And Refuse Even To Allow Their Eyes To Be Bandaged.

Human Dignity Demands Courage To Defend Oneself.

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

I Have So Much To Accomplish Today That I Must Meditate For Two Hours Instead Of One.

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.

Non-violence And Cowardice Are Contradictory Terms. Non-violence Is The Greatest Virtue, Cowardice The Greatest Vice. Non-violence Springs From Love, Cowardice From Hate. Non-violence Always Suffers, Cowardice Would Always Inflict Suffering. Perfect Non-violence Is The Highest Bravery. Non-violent Conduct Is Never Demoralising; Cowardice Always Is.

Without Action, You Aren't Going Anywhere.

The Sacred Thread And The Tuft Of Hair Without A Pure Heart And A Spirit Of Toleration Do Not Make A Hindu.

If Love Wasn't The Law Of Life, Life Would Not Have Persisted In The Midst Of Death.

If Britain Wins Wholly, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy And Perhaps Even Bolshevik Russia Will Disappear.

An Institution That Suffers From A Plethora Of Leaders Is Surely In A Bad Way.

Who Can Deny That Much That Passes For Science And Art Today Destroys The Soul Instead Of Uplifting It And Instead Of Evoking The Best In Us, Panders To Our Basest Passions?

A Democrat Must Be Utterly Selfless. He Must Think And Dream Not In Terms Of Self Or Of Party, But Only Of Democracy.

To Call Woman The Weaker Sex Is A Libel; It Is Man's Injustice To Woman.

Nonviolence Is An Active Force Of The Highest Order. It Is Soul Force Or The Power Of The Godhead Within Us.

I Don't Reject Christ. I Love Christ. It's Just That So Many Of You Christians Are So Unlike Christ.

What Is True Of The Individual Will Be Tomorrow True Of The Whole Nation If Individuals Will But Refuse To Lose Heart And Hope.

The Spinning Wheel Is Not Meant To Oust A Single Man Or Woman From His Or Her Occupation.

A Country Whose Culture Is Based On Nonviolence Will Find It Necessary To Have Every Home As Much Self-contained As Possible.

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