Mahatma Gandhi - Self Quotes

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Individual civil disobedience was everybody's inherent right, like the right of self-defence in normal life.

Mahatma Gandhi
Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

Mahatma Gandhi
Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.

Mahatma Gandhi
Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke.

Mahatma Gandhi
"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... Man and his deed are two distinct things. It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking one-self. For we are all tarred with the same brush and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being, but with him, the whole world.

Mahatma Gandhi
I wanted to know the best of the life of one (Muhammad) who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind. I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.

Mahatma Gandhi
Man does not live by bread alone. Many prefer self-respect to food.

Mahatma Gandhi
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.

Mahatma Gandhi
To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.

Mahatma Gandhi
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

Mahatma Gandhi
We cannot evoke the true spirit of sacrifice and valour, so long as we are not free. I know the British Government will not be able to withhold freedom from us, when we have made enough self-sacrifice. We must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred.

Mahatma Gandhi
I came in contact with every known Indian anarchist in London. Their bravery impressed me, but I felt that their zeal was misguided. I felt that violence was no remedy for India's ills, and that her civilisation required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection.

Mahatma Gandhi
It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all.

Mahatma Gandhi
Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

Mahatma Gandhi
It is man's social nature which distinguishes him from the brute creation. If it is his privilege to be independent, it is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an arrogant man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be self-contained.

Mahatma Gandhi
Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man that iron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.

Mahatma Gandhi
To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?

Mahatma Gandhi
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.

Mahatma Gandhi
Remember that there is always a limit to self-indulgence but none to self-restraint, and let us daily progress in that direction.

Mahatma Gandhi
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

Mahatma Gandhi
When anything assumes the strength of a creed, it becomes self-sustained and derives the needed support from within.

Mahatma Gandhi
Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…

Mahatma Gandhi
The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership, by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery and tenacity.

Mahatma Gandhi
This is no appeal made by a man who does not know his business. I have been practising with scientific precision non-violence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years. I have applied it in every walk of life, domestic, institutional, economic and political. I know of no single case in which it has failed. Where it has seemed sometimes to have failed, I have ascribed it to my imperfections. I claim no perfection for my self. But I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but another name for God. In the course of the search the discovery of non-violence came to me. Its spread is my life-mission. I have no interest in living except for the prosecution of that mission.

Mahatma Gandhi
Life is an aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection, which is self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or imperfections.

Mahatma Gandhi
A resolute and wise refusal to take part in festivities will be an incentive for introspection and self-purification.

Mahatma Gandhi
The primary object of non-co-operation is nowhere stated to be paralysis of the Government. The primary object is self-purification.

Mahatma Gandhi
We must learn to be self-reliant and independent of schools, courts, protection and patronage of a Government we seek to end, if it will not mend.

Mahatma Gandhi
Men of stainless character and self purification will easily inspire confidence and automatically purify the atmosphere around them.

Mahatma Gandhi
Nanda broke down every barrier and won his way to freedom not by brag, not by bluster, but by the purest form of self-suffering.

Mahatma Gandhi