Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

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

It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.

India's freedom will not be won by violence but only by the purest suffering without retaliation.

With God as witness, I want to proclaim this truth, that the way of violence cannot bring Swaraj, it can only lead to disaster.

I knew A.J. Muste very well. I tried for a while to be like he was, and that is a total pacifist. But then Margot [my wife] hit me hard in the stomach one day to prove to me that I wasn't as perfect a pacifist as I thought I was.

I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails.

I hold that the world is sick of armed rebellions.

A nonviolent person's life is always at the disposal of him who would take it.

When every young man refuses to go to war, you will have peace. You do not defend any idea with violence.

The cry for peace will be a cry in the wilderness, so long as the spirit of nonviolence does not dominate millions of men and women.

Truth is self-evident, nonviolence is its maturest fruit. It is contained in truth, but is not self-evident.

It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

Violence is the weapon of the weak.

True nonviolence is mightier than the mightiest violence.

I can think about what [Mahatma] Gandhi said or [Martin Luther] King said about violence begetting violence, and still be true to my job by asking myself the question whenever we're confronted with a situation where some may be arguing for military action: Will this actually result in America being safer, or the most lives being saved?

Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation.

To die without killing is the badge of a satyagrahi.

History has no record of a nation having adopted nonviolent resistance.

A truly nonviolent man would never live to tell the tale of atrocities. He would have laid down his life on the spot in non-violent resistance.

The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand.

True ahimsa lay in running into the mouth of himsa.

Nonviolence is an unchangeable creed. It has to be pursued even in face of violence raging around you.

I want peace and am willing to fight for it.

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?

Our aim is not to do things by violence to opponents.