Mahatma Gandhi

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

Disobedience without civility, discipline, discrimination, non-violence, is certain destruction. Disobedience combined with love is the living water of life. Civil disobedience is a beautiful variant to signify growth, it is not …

I hold the opinion firmly that Civil Disobedience is the purest type of constitutional agitation. Of course, it becomes degrading and despicable if its civil, i.e. non-violent character is a mere camouflage.

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.

There is no such thing as slow freedom. Freedom is like a birth. Till we are fully free we are slaves.

I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.

I cannot understand why the Ali Brothers are going to be arrested as the rumours go, and why I am to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to the Amir, I also would send one to inform the Amir …

There is nothing in the Koran to warrant the use of force for conversion. The holy book says in the clearest language possible, “There is no compulsion in religion.” The Prophet’s whole life is a repudiation of compulsion in religion. No …

"It has always been easier to destroy than to create."

I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of …

The pre-British period was not a period of slavery. We had some sort of swaraj under Mogul rule. In Akbar’s time the birth of a Pratap was possible, and in Aurangzeb’s time a Sivaji could flourish. Has 150 years of British rule produced …

I have even seen the writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India's expense. I can only answer that Satyagraha is made of …

If India adopted the doctrine of love as an active part of her religion and introduced it in her politics. Swaraj would descend upon India from heaven. But I am painfully aware that that event is far off as yet.

I came in contact with every known Indian anarchist in London. Their bravery impressed me, but I felt that their zeal was misguided. I felt that violence was no remedy for India's ills, and that her civilisation required the use of a …

"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful revolution, a refusal to obey every single state-made law.

For me the only training in Swaraj we need is the ability to defend ourselves against the whole world and to live our natural life in perfect freedom, even though it may be full of defects. Good government is no substitute for …

"Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others… to do the work of defense for him."

"When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than to remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour."

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

[I]t is not true that we shall necessarily progress if our political conditions undergo a change, irrespectively of the manner in which it is brought about. If the means employed are impure, the change will not be in the direction of …

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.