Leader · Indian · 1869 – 1948 · 193 quotes
Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
Mohandas Gandhi
Leader · Indian · 1869 – 1948
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.
Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
Each one prays to God according to his own light.
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.
Be the change that you want to see in the world.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
Those who know how to think need no teachers.
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
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.
Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
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.
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.
I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
