Mahatma Gandhi Quotes
If there is violence, it will certainly be crushed because violence can only end in a disgraceful rout.
Gandhi, Mahatma. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 76, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1979, p. 392.
The Turkish revolution was by historical standards relatively bloodless as compared especially with other republican revolutions like the United State and France. However, the revolution that brought Ataturk to power was a relatively mild one in terms of the immediate changes that unlike many revolutions which produced instant radical change. In Turkey, the radical change took place in the years after the revolution when Ataturk with hardly any bloodshed produced compulsory public secular education, scientific elevation in society, separation of mosque and state, gender equality including universal voting, change to western dress, elimination of the caliphate, speech and press freedom, and many others including changing the entire language to use the Latin alphabet instead of Arabic. No nation in history has gone thought more social and cultural change and modernized so fast as Turkey after its revolution. The result is the most modern and successful Islamic country in the world.
Stalin did not want any political opposition with its own militia. American gun control opponents often cite this quotation to show that in Russia, Stalin achieved dictatorial power by disarming the population in general and only allowing government officials to have guns. They argue that even Stalin could not have tyrannized the entire Soviet Union if every citizen had the right to bear arms as provided for by the Second Amendment.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.
