Mahatma Gandhi Quotes on Politics
Gandhi's political philosophy is articulated across Hind Swaraj (1909), the long-running editorials in Young India and Harijan, and the autobiographical My Experiments with Truth (1927–29). The two principal Gandhian categories are satya (truth) and ahimsa (non-violence), integrated in the practical political method of satyagraha — truth-force, the disciplined non-violent resistance through which the satyagrahi confronts injustice while refusing the dehumanization of the opponent that violent resistance would entail. The framework draws on the Bhagavad Gita, on Tolstoy's Christian anarchism, on Ruskin's social criticism, and on the experience of resistance to colonial power in South Africa and India, and shaped the philosophy and practice of subsequent non-violent political movements from the American civil rights movement through the South African anti-apartheid struggle.
Quotes
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“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:
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
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Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.”
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Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“There is no path to peace; peace is the path.”
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Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:
“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
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“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) -
“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. -
“"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. -
“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 -
“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 -
“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) -
“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.