Mahatma Gandhi Quotes and Picture Quotes

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who is generally regarded as “Father of the nation” in India was a pioneer of nonviolent social protest and a great leader the world could ever see.He was the one who strongly believed that victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary and led the struggle for India’s independence using Truth and non violence. Even today he is deemed to be an inspirational figure for everyone and will be for generations to come.He is commonly called as Mahatma Gandhi where Mahatma means Great Soul.Before having a look at the most inspirational Mahatma Gandhi quotes,you can have a glance at quick facts about him – Mahatma Gandhi Biography

Inspirational Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

Gandhi quotes from The Story of My Experiments with Truth

• A man of truth must also be a man of care.
• Selfishness is blind.
• My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth.
• To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life.
• In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be.
• It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my experiments with truth, as my life consists of nothing but those experiments.
• Jealousy does not wait for reasons.
• Nothing is impossible for pure love.
• My joy was boundless. I had learnt the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men’s hearts. I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby – not even money, certainly not my soul.
• But all my life though, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.

Mahatma Gandhi quotes on peace, truth and nonviolence

• Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
• An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.
• An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
• Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.
• The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles.
• I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.
• An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
• There’s no God higher than truth.
• Truth never damages a cause that is just.
• Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

• When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.
• It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
• I honor the place in your where the entire universe resides… a place of light, of love, of truth, of peace, of wisdom. I honor the place in you where when you are in that place and I am in that place there is only one of us.
• Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
• An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
• Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

Mahatma Gandhi Quotes on love, humanity and belief

• As human beings, our greatness is not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.
• Love never claims, it ever gives.
• Love is the subtlest force in the world.
• To believe that what has not occurred in history will not occur at all, is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.
• True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.
• The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.
• If i have the belief that i can do it, i shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if i may not have it at the beginning.

• Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.
• Where there is love there is life.
• I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
• The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit.
• As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.
• We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.

Motivating Mahatma Gandhi Quotes from all categories

• I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
• Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.
• A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
• You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean,if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
• A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
• Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
• There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
• There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.
• Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
• My life is my message.

• If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
• I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
• An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
• There is more to life than increasing its speed.
• Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
• Truth never damages a cause that is just.
• Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
• Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
• We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
• Action expresses priorities.
• Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
• You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
• Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.
• The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
• Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
• Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
• In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
• Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
• Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
• Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
• To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
• Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
• Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
• In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
• Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.
• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
• It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
• The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
• There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.
• I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.

• Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
• Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
• We do not need to proselytize either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
• An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
• That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.
• A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
• I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
• We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.
• Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
• Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
• The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.
• Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
• Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
• Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands.
• The good man is the friend of all living things.
• The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.
• What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
• The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
• Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
• An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
• Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
• I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.
• I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
• A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
• The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.
• Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.
• Poverty is the worst form of violence.
• Prayer is a confession of one’s own unworthiness and weakness.
• In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
• Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.
• Those who know how to think need no teachers.
• It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
• There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
• Fear of death makes us devoid both of valor and religion. For want of valor is want of religious faith.
• Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.
• Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
• Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfillment.
• I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God’s creation, woman, the object of our lust.

• Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
• God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
• When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
• Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
• For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
• I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.
• It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
• One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.
• My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing him.
• It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.
• Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
• Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.
• Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
• Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
• A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
• There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.
• Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
• A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practice perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
• f patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
• Though we may know him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
• Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.
• It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
• The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
• Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
• If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
• Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.
• All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
• Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
• Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
• Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
• Commonsense is the realized sense of proportion.
• Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

• Each one prays to God according to his own light.
• The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.
• Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
• We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
• I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.
• God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.
• When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
• I have worshiped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.
• I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.
• Man can never be a woman’s equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
• I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
• The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.
• God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
• The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
• Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
• The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
• Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.
• Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
• Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?
• I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.
• Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.
• A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
• Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
• Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.

• Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
• Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.
• Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.
• Peace is its own reward.
• Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
• Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
• You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
• No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
• A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
• A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.
• I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
• Self-respect knows no considerations.
• What is true of the individual will be to-morrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
• I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
• Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.
• Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
• Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
• There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.
• Morality is contraband in war.
• A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident.
• Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.
• Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
• It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
• What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
• To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.
• We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
• I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.
• All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.
• We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
• What is true of the individual will be to-morrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
• When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
• When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
• I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
• I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
• If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
• It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.