Ahimsa Quotes

Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?

Gandhi, brought out of his semirural setting and given a Western-style education, initially attempted to become more English than the English.

It is nauseating to see Mr.[Mohandas K.] Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the King Emperor.

After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect, none so scientific, none so philosophic, and none so spiritual as the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. The more you know it, the more you will love it; the more you try to understand it, the more deeply you will value it

Cow-protection can only be secured by cultivating universal friendliness, i.e. ahimsa.

In Swaraj, based on ahimsa, people need not know their rights, but it is also necessary for them to know their duties.

Complete independence will be complete only to the extent of our approach in practice to truth and nonviolence.

My main aim in 'Gandhi' was to project him as the vanguard of non-violence. Nowhere in the world has a movement of non-cooperation sans violence received so much support from masses as Gandhi's movement in India did. He was, to a great extent, responsible for freeing his nation from the British Raj.

I hate to admit this, but I've never actually hit anyone. I don't even kill wasps or spiders. I'm pretty veggie as well. In fact, really, I'm New Age.

Jainism has two ways of looking at things: one called Dravyarthekaraya and the other Paryayartheka Noya. According to the Dravyarthekaraya view the universe is without beginning and end, but according to the Paryayartheka view we have creation and destruction at every moment.

The fullest application of ahimsa does make life impossible.

One should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite another to kill. Do not injure any being, either strong or weak, in the world.

Ahimsa is my God, and Truth is my God.

I've had a Hindu upbringing. There's a lot about it I think is cool. Temples are amazing. It's a nice vibe when people are praying. And there's lots about it where I understand why they believe those things. But I'm not practising.

Hinduism is a living organism liable to growth and decay subject to the laws of Nature. One and indivisible at the root, it has grown into a vast tree with innumerable branches. The changes in the season affect it. It has its autumn and its summer, its winter and its spring. It is, and is not, based on scriptures. It does not derive its authority from one book. Non violence has found the highest expression and application in Hinduism.

Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.

My errors have been errors of calculation and judging men, not in appreciating the true nature of truth and ahimsa or in their application.

I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.

Ahimsa is one of the world's great principles, which no power on earth can wipe out.

A person who has truly realized the principle of nonviolence has the God given strength for his weapon, and the world has not yet known anything that can match it.

To avoid causing terror to living beings, let the disciple refrain from eating meat.

I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory.

'As I am, so are these. As are these, so am I.' Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill.

I do not knowingly kill any living thing - including insects or rodents - and I thank my food for sustaining me.

Gandhi, who went to Wendy's and asked, "Where's the belief?" Never got a dinner!