Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

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

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

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

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

The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force.

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

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

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.

Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the repressor is tired of it and the object of satyagraha is gained.

Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.

Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.

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

Nonviolence is a universal law acting under all circumstances.

An awakened people who rely upon their nonviolent strength are independent in the face of any conceivable combination of the armed powers.

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.

There is a vital connection between satyagraha and charkha, and the more I find that belief challenged, the more I am confirmed in it.

A satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal wrong.

In satyagraha, a courted imprisonment carries its own praise.

The primary object of non-co-operation is nowhere stated to be paralysis of the Government. The primary object is self-purification.

We're not really pacifists, we're nonviolent soldiers.

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

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.

Indeed, a civil resister offers resistance only when peace becomes impossible.

Nonviolence or soul force does not need physical aids for its propagation of effect.

Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open.