Mahatma Gandhi Quotes on Freedom
Mahatma Gandhi understood freedom as a complete condition to be won by nonviolent means, and the quotes gathered here express that. For Gandhi freedom admits no half-measures: there is no such thing as slow freedom, which is like a birth, and until a people are fully free they remain slaves. He insisted that the means must match the end, and was sharply sceptical of violence committed in freedom's name, asking what difference it makes to the dead and the homeless whether destruction is wrought under totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy. Gandhi also tied his own liberty to that of others, declaring that as a lover of his own freedom he would do nothing to restrict another's. Drawn largely from Young India and his later writings, these passages present freedom as indivisible and inseparable from nonviolence.
Quotes
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Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.”
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“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) -
“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 ] -
“"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