Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength, and there is nothing automatic or intuitive about the resoluteness required for using non-violent methods in political struggle and the quest for Truth.

No police officer could compel a satyagrahi to give evidence against a person who has confessed to him. A satyagrahi would never be guilty of a betrayal of trust.

Truth and nonviolence are both the means and the end, and given the right type of men, the legislatures can be the means of achieving the concrete pursuit of truth and nonviolence.

Satyagraha is a law for universal application. Beginning with the family, its use can be extended to every other circle.

Since satyagraha is a method of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest coercion.

My satyagrahi spirit tells me that I may not retaliate.

In the dictionary of satyagraha, there is no enemy.

The force generated by nonviolence is infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's ingenuity.

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

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.

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.

A satyagrahi has always his minimum and it is this minimum that is wanted in connection with this struggle.

The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme.

A satyagrahi may not ride two horses, truth and untruth, at the same time, nor, to change the metaphor, trim his sail to catch every breeze as you do in the name of communism.

It will be hard to find a parallel in history in which unarmed people have represented the urge for freedom, turning their armlessness into the central means for deliverance.

My interest in India's freedom will cease if she adopts violent means, for their fruit will not be freedom but slavery in disguise.

Jail-going is only the beginning, not the end of satyagraha. The acme of satyagraha for us would be to lay down our lives for the defence of India's just cause.

Not those who shout 'satyagraha', 'satyagraha' will do satyagraha, but those who will work for it.

Without satyagraha carried out in the proper spirit, there is no victory, no Swaraj.

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

Yes, he [Mahatma Gandhi] was a great man. However...between me and Gandhi there was never the understanding there was between me and my father.

There is no "playing with truth" in the Charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of Truth.

A satyagrahi would neither retaliate nor would he submit to the criminal, but seek to cure him by curing himself.

The method of satyagraha requires that the satyagrahi should never lose hope, so long as there is the slightest ground left for it.

But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.