Mahatma Gandhi Quotes
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, political leader, and philosopher who developed the doctrine and practice of satyagraha, nonviolent civil resistance, into a transformative form of political action. Beginning with his work for the civil rights of Indians in South Africa, he led the Indian National Congress in a decades-long campaign that culminated in Indian independence in 1947. The quotes below are attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, organized by topic.
Browse Mahatma Gandhi by topic
Mahatma Gandhi on Death
-
“The human body is meant solely for service, never for indulgence . The secret of happy life lies in renunciation . Renunciation is life. Indulgence spells death.”
1940s | Harijan , (24 February 1946), p. 19 -
“"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."”
1920s | Young India, 11 August 1920, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , Vol. 21, p. 133. -
“"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."”
1920s | Young India, 15 November 1920, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , Vol. 22, p. 169.
Mahatma Gandhi on Freedom
-
“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 and democracy?”
1940s | Non-Violence in Peace and War , 1942, Vol. 1, Ch. 142 -
“There is no such thing as slow freedom. Freedom is like a birth. Till we are fully free we are slaves.”
1920s | Young India (15 December 1921) -
“If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence.”
1920s | Statement during his trial for "exciting disaffection toward His Majesty's Government as established by law in India" (18 March 1922) [ specific citation needed ]
Mahatma Gandhi on God
-
“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.”
1920s | "A Word of Explanation" in Young India (January 1921) -
“Satan 's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.”
1920s | "The Inwardness of Non-Co-operation". Quoted in Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches (1922), p. 144 . -
“I do regard Islam to be a religion of peace in the same sense as Christianity , Buddhism and Hinduism are.”
1920s | Young India , January 20, 1927, in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , vol. 32, p. 588.
Mahatma Gandhi on Justice
-
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
-
“The Indians do not regret that capable natives can exercise the franchise. They would regret if it were otherwise. They, however, assert that they too, if capable, should have the right. You, in your wisdom , would not allow the Indian or the native the precious privilege under any circumstances, because they have a dark skin .”
Wikiquote -
“You say that the magistrate's decision is unsatisfactory because it would enable a person , however unclean, to travel by a tram, and that even the Kaffirs would be able to do so. But the magistrate's decision is quite different. The Court declared that the Kaffirs have no legal right to travel by tram. And according to tram regulations, those in an unclean dress or in a drunken state are prohibited from boarding a tram. Thanks to the Court's decision, only clean Indians or coloured people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trams.”
Comments on a court case in The Indian Opinion (2 June 1906) -
“Disobedience is a right that belongs to every human being, and it becomes a sacred duty when it springs from civility.”
1920s | Young India (4 January 1926) -
“For one man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.”
1920s | Young India (27 January 1927) -
“"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."”
1930s | From a letter to the Viceroy, 1930, published in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , Vol. 49, p. 180. -
“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience . It supersedes all other courts.”
1920s | Young India (15 December 1921) -
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French . It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs.”
1930s | Gandhi's Collected Works , Vol 74 (1938)
Mahatma Gandhi on Knowledge
-
“Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)”
One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year , we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in t -
“Why, of all places in Johannesburg , the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.”
Letter to Dr. Porter, Medical Officer of Health for Johannesburg (15 February 1905); later published in The Indian Opinion . -
“Why, of all places in Johannesburg , the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on ”
Letter to Dr. Porter, Medical Officer of Health for Johannesburg (15 February 1905); later published in The Indian Opinion . -
“In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the native. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?”
Comments on a court case in The Indian Opinion (25 March 1905) -
“Comments on a court case in The Indian Opinion (25 March 1905)”
In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the native. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian? -
“Our sages have taught us to learn one thing; `As in the Self, so in the Universe.' It is not possible to scan the universe as it is to scan the self. Know the self and you know the universe.”
1920s | Young India (8 April 1926) -
“I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw to myself cranks, faddists, and madmen.”
1920s | Young India (13 June 1929); also in All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections (2005) edited by Krishna Kripalani, p. 163
Mahatma Gandhi on Life
-
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
-
“Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans , who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”
Address given in Bombay (26 September 1896), Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , Vol. 1, p. 410 (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes. -
“Now when we talk of brotherhood of men, we stop there and feel that all other life is there for man to exploit for his own purposes. But Hinduism excludes all exploitation.”
1920s | Young India (26 December 1926) -
“"To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse than starving the body.”
1930s -
“Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.”
1930s | Harijan, 28-3-1936
Mahatma Gandhi on Love
-
“I'm a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience, which is God.”
1920s | Young India (21 January 1927)
Mahatma Gandhi on Mind
-
“I have no doubt in my mind that vaccination is a filthy process, that it is harmful in the end and that it is little short of taking beef .”
1930s | chapter 01. Independence Pledge ( 1930 ) , [2]
Mahatma Gandhi on Nature
-
“Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals .”
1900s | "My Experience in Gaol", Indian Opinion (7 March 1908). Also: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , op cit., Vol. 8, p. 199. -
“The only thing lawful is non-violence. Violence can never be lawful in the sense meant here, i.e., not according to man-made laws, but according to the laws made by Nature for man.”
1940s | Harijan (27 October 1946) p. 369 -
“Vegetarians should have that moral basis—that a man was not born a carnivorous animal, but born to live on the fruits and herbs that the earth grows.”
1930s | Speech at Meeting of London Vegetarian Society (20 November 1931), in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999 electronic edition), Volume 54 ,
Mahatma Gandhi on Politics
-
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.”
-
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“There is no path to peace; peace is the path.”
-
“Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful revolution, a refusal to obey every single state-made law.”
1920s | As quoted in Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1920-1929), D.G. Tendulkar, Vol. 2, (1920-1929), 2nd edition, Publications Division (1960), p 52
Mahatma Gandhi on Time
-
“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.”
1910s | From an article on dealing with snake bites, published in Indian Opinion dated August 9th, 1913 , in the Gujarti language edition, English translation available in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandh -
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”
1930s | Harijan (19 November 1938) p. 343
Mahatma Gandhi on Truth
-
“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.”
1920s | Young India 1924-1926 (1927), p. 1285
Mahatma Gandhi on Virtue
-
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
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. -
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
-
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
-
“Seven social sins: politics without principles , wealth without work , pleasure without conscience , knowledge without character , commerce without morality , science without humanity , and worship without sacrifice .”
1920s | A list closing an article in Young India (22 October 1925); Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Vol. 33 (PDF) p. 135 Variant: The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: we -
“"Politics without principle, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice — are the seven social sins."”
1920s | Originally published in Young India , 22 October 1925, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , Vol. 33, p. 135.
Things actually not said by Mahatma Gandhi
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Mahatma Gandhi but are in fact from someone else. Did Mahatma Gandhi say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Describing the stages of a winning strategy of nonviolent activism. There is no record of Gandhi saying this. A close variant of the quotation first appears in a 1918 US trade union address by Nicholas Klein :
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: 1914: "If…we were to go back to…'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' there would be very few [Honourable] Gentlemen in this House who would not…be blind and toothless." — George Perry Graham , during a debate on capital punishment before the Canadian House of Commons. Official Report of the
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“Hate the sin and love the sinner.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is variant of a traditional Christian proverb; ie : " Hate the sin, but love the sinner " in Sermons, Lectures, and Occasional Discourses (1828) Edward Irving , and similar expressions date to those of Augustine of Hippo : " Love the sinner and hate the sin. " Gandhi did express approval of suc
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“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.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Prof. Michael N. Nagler in his foreword to Gandhi the Man (1978) by Eknath Easwaran, p. 8
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“Action expresses priorities.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Apparently a rephrasing of "Actions express priorities," from Peak Performers (1987) by Charles A. Garfield. The phrase is adjacent to a Gandhi quote in at least one list of quotations alphabetized by last name.
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: There is "no reliable documentary evidence for the quotation", according to an article in The New York Times . Brian Morton, "Falser Words Were Never Spoken" , New York Times , 2011-08-29. It is not found as a direct Gandhi quotation in the 98-volume authorized Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi . Mi
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“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 can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it—always... When you are in doubt that that is God's way, the way the world is meant to be... think of that.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This appears to have been originally written by John Briley in the screenplay for the movie, Gandhi (1982), spoken by Ben Kingsley , playing Gandhi. The earliest [partial] misattribution to Gandhi appears to be by Ronald Reagan in an address to the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 198
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Despite its near-universal attribution to Gandhi, this line does not appear in his Collected Works or in any verified primary source. The Gandhi Research Foundation and the Quote Investigator have both attempted unsuccessfully to trace it to Gandhi. The earliest verifiable English appearances are mid-twentieth-century, well after Gandhi's death.
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
This pacifist aphorism is consistently attributed to Gandhi but does not appear in his Collected Works. Gandhi's grandson Arun Gandhi has stated that he heard the saying as a personal expression of his grandfather's views, but no published source has been located. The phrase first appears in print in the 1940s and gained currency through the American civil rights movement.
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“Poverty is the worst kind of violence.”
Quoted without reference to earlier source, time or location in A Just Peace through Transformation: Cultural, Economic, and Political Foundations for Change (1988) by the International Peace Association (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
The earliest attribution of this to Gandhi yet located is in a T-shirt advertisement in Mother Jones , Vol. 8, No. 5 (June 1983), p. 46 (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“If you don't ask, you don't get.”
Widespread late 20th century aphorism that appears to have been first attributed to Gandhi in various self-help books of the early 2000s. Google Books (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“I have never advocated "passive" anything. We must never submit to unjust laws. Never. And our resistance must be active and provocative.”
This may be derived from lines in the movie Gandhi (1982); such statements have not been located among published sources. (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“I like your Christ . I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time.”
As quoted by William Rees-Mogg in The Times [London] (4 April 2005) {not found}. Gandhi here makes reference to a statement of Jesus: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Luke 16:13); also partly quoted in Christianity in the Crosshairs: Real Life Solutions Discovered in the Line of Fire (2004, p. 74 books.google ) by Bill Wilson . A variation is found in Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal & Gandhi Research Foundation's website mkgandhi.org . Christian missionary E. Stanley Jones , who spent much time with Gandhi in India, is said to have askedː “Mr Gandhi,… (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“[asked what he thought of modern civilization] That would be a good idea.”
variant: "I think it would be a good idea" when asked what he thought of Western civilization. On p. 75 of Ralph Keyes' book The Quote Verifier (2006), Keyes writes: 'During his first visit to England, when asked what he though of modern civilization, Gandhi is said to have told news reporters, "That would be a good idea." The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations cites E. F. Schumacher's Good Work as its source for this Gandhiism, as does Nigel Rees in the Cassell Companion to Quotations . In that 1979 book, Schumacher said he saw Gandhi make this remark in a filmed record of his quizzing by reporters as he disembarked in Southampton while visiting England in 1930. Gandhi did not visit England… (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”
Earliest instance of this quote found on google books is the 1989 book Forest primeval: the natural history of an ancient forest by Chris Maser, but there it appears to be Maser's own thought (see p. 230 followed by a different supposed Gandhi quote ). (Disputed.)
-
Did Mahatma Gandhi say this? No.
“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”
Earliest instance of this quote found on Google Books is the heading to a chapter entitled "How to Make Free Money From Your Website" from 2001 , where it is attributed to "M. K. Ghandi" [sic]. (Disputed.)