Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence. He was the leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. He is considered to be the father of the nation in India.
Mahatma Gandhi’s Biography
He was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a coastal town in Gujarat, British India. His father was a senior government official and his mother came from a family of merchants.
Gandhi’s education began at home with his mother and later he attended school in Porbandar and Rajkot. In 1888 he went to England to study law at University College London. Still, he returned to India after three years because he could not afford to continue his studies there without financial help from his family.
“Mahatma” is a Sanskrit word that means “great-souled”. It is a title given to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by the Indian people after he led India to independence from British rule. He was a man of peace and non-violence who used his philosophy of Ahimsa (non-violence) to fight for the rights of the Indian people. In doing so, he became one of the most influential and iconic leaders in history.
Mahatma Gandhi’s Quotes
We can all learn from the man who was one of the pioneers of simple living. Here are some quotes from him to inspire & motivate you to greatness:
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
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“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
“God has no religion.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.”
“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”
“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”
“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.”
“It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.”
“Action expresses priorities.”
“My Life is My Message.”
“You don’t know who is important to you until you actually lose them.”
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.”
“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
“There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.”
“Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.”
“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
“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.”
“They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”
“I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect.”
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”
“I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.”
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
“Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.”
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”
“There is no ‘way to peace’,
there is only ‘peace’.”
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“Truth is one, paths are many.”
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
“I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.”
“Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.”
“My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.”
“Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.”
“I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.”
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.”
“There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.”
“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”
“I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.”
“It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.”
“If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.”
“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”
“If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.”
“What barrier is there that love cannot break?”
“It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.”
“Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.”
“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
“Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.”
“Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.”
“There are no good-byes, where ever you’ll be, you’ll be in my heart.”
“There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.”
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
“There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.”
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
“They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”
“I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.”
“Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.”
“The path is the goal.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.”
“Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.”
“It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.”
“True beauty lies in the purity of the heart.”
“There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid.”
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
“Love never claims, it ever gives.
Love ever suffers, never resents,
never revenges itself.”
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
“The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.”
“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”
“Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them: a desire, a dream, a vision.”
“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”
“No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.”
“True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.”
“Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle, and a victory.”
“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.”
“It is better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.”
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.”
“Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.”
“You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve love and affection.”
“Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.”
“Everyone holds a piece of the truth.”
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
“Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak.”
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.
“Hatred can be overcome only by love.”
“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
“What lies ahead of you & what lies behind you is nothing compared to what lies within you.”
“Behaviour is the mirror in which we can display our image.”
“A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.”
“Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.”
“Where there is fear there is no religion.”
“A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.”
“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”
“My effort should never be to undermine another’s faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith.”
“Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid. The Valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone.”
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