Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

If the fight comes unsolicited, I am not willing to die meekly, to surrender without an effort. And that being so, am I still a pacifist?

The strength to kill is not essential for self-defense; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who by dying with courage and compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent opponents.

Love does not imply pacifism.

Pacifism as a mass movement aims to avoid suffering; pacifists often say that no cause is worth suffering or dying for. The ethos of Solidarity is based on an opposite premise - that there are causes worth suffering and dying for.

Those who 'abjure' violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

I myself am a very nonviolent person and only resort to violence when I absolutely have to.

If the oppressor uses peaceful means, the oppressed will never resort to violence. But if the oppressor uses violence, then the oppressed have no other alternative than violence—to retaliate with similar forms.

I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent all the time. I'd say, okay, let's get with it, we'll all be nonviolent. But I don't go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody's going to be nonviolent. If they make the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. If they make the White Citizens Council nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. But as long as you've got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don't want anybody coming to me talking any nonviolent talk.

The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.

Anytime you tell a man to turn the other cheek or to be nonviolent in the face of a violent enemy, you're making that man defenseless. You're robbing him of his God-given right to defend himself.

Nonviolence of the strong is infinitely braver than their violence.

My nonviolence does recognize different species of violence, defensive and offensive.

Nonviolence in the sense of mere non-killing does not appear to me, therefore, to be of any improvement on the technique of violence.

If we pick a fight, then we're just as bad as them. Combat should be used just to help people who can't defend themselves, period." "Well, if I don't fight back and they pound on me, then I'm one of the people I should be defending.

I'm a very great non-violent character. I would never resort to violence to change anything.

Violence is absolutely not our method.

Pacifists are like sheep who believe that wolves are vegetarians.

I am a pacifist.

When you do something in a nonviolent way, people will die and there will be casualties. But you're taking a different point of view that has a power.

Violence isn't really my thing.

I'm still very aware of the violence in our culture, more so than other people. I know where it comes from when someone is trying to suppress someone else, sometimes they fight back.

I don't ever believe in violence as a kind of medicine.

Be bullied, be outraged, be killed, but do not kill.

I'm a pacifist.

The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.