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EPIGRAMS FROM GANDHIJI
(Quotations) |
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y
A life of sacrifice is the pinnacle of art, and is full of true joy.
God accepts the sacrifice of the pure in heart.
The State is sum total of the sacrifice, on its behalf, of its members. XXV-240
The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God or man.
The stability of a State depends upon the readiness of every citizen to subordinate his rights to those of the rest.
Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self-sacrifice.
The charkha is the symbol of sacrifice, and sacrifice is essential for the establishment of the image of the deity.
An ideal sanctified by the sacrifices of such master-spirits as Lenin cannot go in vain; the noble example of their renunciation will be emblazoned for ever and quicken and purify the idea as time passes.
If I were overful of pity for the cow, I should sacrifice my life to save her but not take my brother's.
Woman is the embodiment of sacrifice and suffering and her advent to public life should, therefore, result in purifying it, in restraining unbridled ambition and accumulation of property.
Non-co-operation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it demands respect for the opposite views.
It is a sad thing that our schoolboys look upon manual labour with disfavour, if not contempt.
A saint who considers himself superior to a sinner forfeits his sainthood and becomes worse than the sinner, who unlike the proud saint, knows not what he is doing.
The temples are for the sinners, not for the saints.
If salt loses its savour, wherewith can it be salted?
There is no article like salt, outside water, by taxing which the state can reach the starving millions, the sick, the maimed and the utterly helpless.
Salvation is nothing more and nothing less than being well in every way.
Salvation of the Gita is perfect peace.
Moksha is a bodiless superphysical state in which there is neither drinking nor eating and therefore neither the milking of buffalo nor the plucking even of a weed.
The Brahmin's duty is to look after the sanitation of the soul, the bhangi's that of the body of society.
Every one must be his own scavenger.
Conservation of national sanitation is Swaraj work and it may not be postponed for a single day on any consideration whatsoever.
In the matter of outward sanitation we have to learn a great deal from the West.
Corporate cleanliness can only be ensured if there is a corporate conscience and a corporate insistence on cleanliness in public places.
To me, the test of a people's knowledge of sanitation is the condition of their latrines.
Every Hindu should have enough knowledge of Sanskrit to be able to express himself in that language. T-2-273
Satan's snares are most subtly laid and are the most tempting when the dividing line between right and wrong is so thin as to be imperceptible.
Satan mostly employs comparatively moral instruments and the language of ethics to give his aims an air of respectability.
Satan's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.
Since one Satan is one too many for me, I would not multiply him.
Armed conspiracies against something satanic is like matching satans against Satan.
A fast to be true must be accompanied by a readiness to receive pure thoughts and determination to resist all Satan's temptations.
I am not likely to obtain the result flowing from the worship of God by laying myself prostrate before Satan.
The British Government in India constitutes a struggle between the modern civilization, which is the kingdom of Satan, and the ancient civilization, which is the Kingdom of God.
God rules even where Satan seems to hold sway, because the latter exists only on God's sufferance.
Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be really no better than Satan's workshop.
What crimes, for which we condemn the Government as Satanic, have not we been guilty of towards our own untouchable brethren?
The eternal duel between Ormuzed and Ahriman, God and Satan, is raging in my breast, which is one among their billion battlefields.
Satyagraha is a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and in the end makes itself irresistible.
Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth.
Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within.
Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.
The grand theory of satyagraha is built upon a belief in that truth.
All satyagraha and fasting is a species of tyaga. It depends for its effects upon an expression of wholesome public opinion shorn of all bitterness.
The fight of satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid. Satyagraha teaches us the art of living as well as dying.
The satyagrahi general has to obey his inner voice, for over and above the situation outside he examines himself constantly and listens to the dictates of the inner self.
Satyagraha, of which civil resistance is but a part, is to me the universal law of life.
Satyagraha is itself an unmistakable mute prayer of an agonized soul.
Satyagraha is a law of universal application. Beginning with the family, its use can be extended to every other circle.
Satyagraha can rid society of all evils, political, economic and moral.
Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts had nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open.
Satyagraha is a purely spiritual weapon.
A genuine satyagraha should never excite contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard or respect.
Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the repressor is tired of it and the object of satyagraha is gained.
In satyagraha, a courted imprisonment carries its own praise.
Final satyagraha in inconceivable without an honourable peace between the several communities composing the Indian nation.
Satyagraha does not depend on the outside help, it derives all its strength from within.
My purpose is to describe experiments in the science of satyagraha and not at all to describe how good I am.
The method of satyagraha requires that the satyagrahi should never lose hope, so long as there is the slightest ground left for it.
In the dictionary of satyagraha, there is no enemy.
Even as satyagraha is a weapon unique of its kind and not one of the ordinary weapons used by people, so is khadi a unique article of commerce which will not, cannot, succeed on terms common to other articles.
Since satyagraha is a method of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest coercion.
Jail-going is only the beginning, not the end of satyagraha. The acme of satyagraha for us would be to lay down our lives for the defence of India's just cause.
Satyagraha as conceived by me is a science in the making.
It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.
For a satyagrahi brigade only those are eligible who believe in ahimsa and satya.
Satyagraha is a force that has come to stay. No force in the world can kill it.
Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.
Satyagraha and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering.
A clear victory of satyagraha is impossible so long as there is illwill.
I regard the constituent assembly as the substitute of satyagraha. It is constructive satyagraha.
Non-co-operation and civil disobedience are but the different branches of the same tree called satyagraha.
Whatever may be true of the other modes of warfare, in satyagraha it has been held that the causes for failure are to be sought within.
Seeming failure is not of the law of satyagraha but of incompetence of the satyagrahi by whatever cause induced.
There is no 'playing with truth' in the charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of Truth.
Without satyagraha carried out in the proper spirit, there is no victory, no Swaraj.
The word 'defeat' is not to be found in my dictionary, and everyone who is selected as a recruit in my army may be certain that there is no defeat for a satyagrahi.
What I call the law of satyagraha is to be deduced from an appreciation of duties and rights flowing therefrom.
Force that the performance of duty naturally generates is the non-violent and invincible force that satyagraha brings into being.
Not those who shout 'satyagraha', 'satyagraha' will do satyagraha, but those who will work for it.
There is a vital connection between satyagraha and charkha, and the more I find that belief challenged, the more I am confirmed in it.
There must be power in the word of a satyagraha general, not the power that the possession of limitless arms gives, but the power that purify of life, strict vigilance and the ceaseless application produce.
A satyagrahi is sometimes bound to use language which is capable of two meanings, provided both the meanings are obvious and necessary and there is no intention to deceive anyone.
My satyagrahi spirit tells me that I may not retaliate.
A satyagrahi should have a living faith in God.
A satyagrahi turns the searchlight inward relentlessly to weed out all the defects that may be lying hidden there still.
A satyagrahi has infinite patience, abundant faith in others, and ample hope.
A satyagrahi has no other stay but God, and he who has any other stay or depends on any other help cannot offer satyagraha.
A satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal wrong.
A satyagrahi loves his so-called enemy even as he loves his friend. He owns no enemy.
A satyagrahi must ceaselessly strive to realize and live truth. And he must never contemplate hurting anyone by thought, word or deed.
I have repeatedly stated that satyagraha never fails and that one perfect satyagrahi is enough to vindicate Truth.
The satyagrahi strives to reach the reason through the heart. The method of reaching the heart is to awaken the public opinion.
A satyagrahi has always his minimum and it is the minimum that is wanted in connection with this struggle.
The satyagrahi should not have any hatred in his heart against the opponent.
There is no time limit for a satyagrahi nor is there a limit to his capacity for suffering.
A satyagrahi is dead to his body even before the enemy attempts to kill him.
A satyagrahi would neither retaliate nor would he submit to the criminal, but seek to cure him by curing himself.
No confirmed satyagrahi is dismayed by the dangers, seen or unseen, from his opponent's side.
To die without killing is the badge of a satyagrahi.
A satyagrahi is nothing if not instinctively law-abiding.
A satyagrahi exhausts all other means before he resorts to satyagraha.
A satyagrahi, whilst he is ever ready to fight, must be equally eager for peace.
In the code of the satyagrahi, there is no such thing as surrender to brute force.
You are no Satyagrahi if you remain silent or passive spectators while your enemy is being done to death.
A satyagrahi lays down his life, but never gives up. That is the meaning of the 'do or die' slogan.
A satyagrahi may not ride two horses, truth and untruth, at the same time, nor, to change the metaphor, trim his sail to catch every breeze as you do in the name of communism.
No police officer could compel a satyagrahi to give evidence against a person who had confessed to him. A satyagrahi would never be guilty of a betrayal of trust.
A scavenger who works in His service shares equal distinction with a king who uses his gifts in His name and as a mere trustee.
A bhangi, if he is true to his salt, is a sanitarian.
I am not ashamed to call myself a bhangi, and I ask every bhangi not to be ashamed of his calling.
My mother was certainly a scavenger inasmuch as she cleaned me when I was a child.
Society is sustained by several services. The bhangi constitutes the foundation of all services.
To clothe the bhangi with the dignity and respect due to him is the special task and privilege of the educated class.
The ideal bhangi of my conception would be a Brahmin par excellence, possibly even excel him.
Schools
All our national schools ought to be converted into factories of our national ammunition, namely, constructive work.
Science to be science must afford the fullest scope for satisfying the hunger of body, mind and soul.
Science has not so far discovered any recipe for making the body immortal.
To state the limitation of science is not to belittle it.
Scientific knowledge requires constant probing into the why and wherefore of every little process that you perform.
The Western science has made the discovery that society that is indifferent to the welfare of its servants suffers a heavy material loss.
Ahimsa is a science. The word 'failure' has no place in the vocabulary of science.
I know nothing of the science of astrology and I consider it to be a science, if it is a science, of doubtful value, to be severely left alone by those who have any faith in Providence.
A prayerful study and experience are essential for a correct interpretation of the scriptures. MOG-13
A man who would interpret the scriptures must have the spiritual discipline.
Every true scripture only gains by criticism.
My belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired.
The self-realization is the subject of Gita, as it is of all scriptures.
Searching of self ennobles, searching of others debases.
The history of the world is full of instances of men who rose to leadership by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery and tenacity.
Shraddha means self-confidence and self-confidence means faith in God.
A votary of ahimsa must cultivate a habit of unremitting toil, sleepless vigilance, ceaseless self-control.
It was unalloyed self-suffering which was the truest form of self-defense which knew no surrender.
Individual civil disobedience was everybody's inherent right, like the right of self-defence in normal life.
The strength to kill is not essential for self-defense; one ought to have the strength to die.
Self-defence…. is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.
If every component part of the nation claims the right of self-determination for itself, there is no one nation and there is no independence.
It is the function of God Rama to destroy evil wherever it occurs, and it is equally the function of God Rama to give to his devotees like Bibhishana a free charter of irrevocable self-government.
Nonviolent attainment of self-government presupposes a nonviolent control over the violent elements in the country.
Self-government to be self-government has merely to reflect the will of the people who are to govern themselves.
Not even self-immolation can be allowed to support a bad or an immoral cause.
Literature, full of the virtues of self-indulgence, served out in attractive forms, is flooding this country from the West and there is the greatest need for our youth to be on their guard.
Selflessness may be the purest form of selfishness.
Self-pity comes when you do a thing for which you expect recognition from others.
Life is an aspiration. Its mission to strive after perfection which is self-realization.
There is no other way of self-realization except the way of complete self-abandonment.
This self-realization is the subject of the Gita, as it is to all scriptures.
To find Truth completely is to realize oneself and one's destiny, i.e. to become perfect.
What I want to achieve, what I have been striving and pining for these thirty years, is self-realization, that is, to see God face to face.
The object of the Gita appears to me to be that of showing the most excellent way to attain self-realization.
We must learn to be self-reliant and independent of schools, courts, protection and patronage of a Government we seek to end, if it will not mend.
In a self-respecting India, is not every woman's virtue as much every man's concern as his own sister's?
Man does not live by bread alone. Many prefer self-respect of food.
To yield to the threat of actual use of violence is a surrender of one's self-respect and religious conviction.
If we were strong, self-respecting and not susceptible to frightfulness, the foreign rulers would have been powerless for mischief.
Can it be ever dangerous for a lion to tell a number of other lions who in their ignorance consider themselves to be mere lambs that they, too, are not lambs but lions?
Self-respect and honour cannot be protected by others. They are for each individual himself or herself to guard.
Self-restraint is the very keystone of the ethics of vow-taking.
All the four stages in a man's life are devised by the seers in Hinduism for imposing discipline and self-restraint.
There is always the fear of self-righteousness possessing us, the fear of arrogating to ourselves a superiority that we do not possess.
Rule of all without the rule of oneself would prove to be as deceptive and as disappointing as a painted toy mango, charming to look at but hollow and empty within.
As every country is fit to eat, to drink and to breathe, even so is every nation fit to manage its own affairs, no matter how badly.
Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others.
My method is conversion, not coercion; it is self-suffering, not the suffering of the tyrant.
Love can never express itself by imposing suffering on others. It can only express itself by self-suffering, by self-purification.
If hand-spinning is an effective method of making India self-supporting, it must be made part of the franchise.
God will rule the lives of all those who will surrender themselves without reservation to Him.
God demands nothing less than complete self-surrender as the rice for the only real freedom that is worth having.
Service is not possible unless it is rooted in love or ahimsa.
Social service that savours of patronage is not service.
Voluntary service of others demands the best of which one is capable, and must take precedence over service of self.
The platform of services is as big as the world. It is never overcrowded.
Khadi service, village service and the Harijan service are one in reality though three in name.
For me, humanitarian service, or rather service of all that lives, is religion. And I draw no distinction between such religion and politics.
My creed is service of God and therefore of humanity.
Human body is meant solely for service, never for indulgence.
Charkha is an instrument of service.
That prince is acceptable to me who becomes a prince among his people's servants.
God took and needed no personal service. He served His creatures without demanding and service for Himself in return.
Man becomes not the lord and master of all creation but he is its servant.
The time is fast coming when politicians will cease to fear the religion of humanity and humanitarians will find entrance into political life indispensable for full service.
The foundation of service and your real training lie in spinning Khaddar.
My nonviolence bids me dedicate myself to the service of minorities.
Ahimsa must express itself through acts of selfless service of the masses.
Cent per cent swadeshi gives sufficient scope for the most insatiable ambition for service and an satisfy every kind of talent.
This belief in the necessity of English training has enslaved us. It has unfitted us for true national service.
Renunciation made for the sake of service is an ineffable joy of which none can deprive one, because that nectar springs from within and sustains life.
The safest rule of conduct is to claim kinship when we want to do service and not to insist on kinship when we want to assert a right.
Men's triumph will consist in substituting the struggle for existence by the struggle for mutual service.
Silence is a great help to a seeker after truth like myself.
Experience has taught me that silence is a part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth.
Modern civilization has taught us to convert night into day and golden silence into brazen din and noise.
The Divine Radio is always singing if we could only make ourselves ready to listen to it, but is impossible to listen without silence. TIG-60
Simplicity is the essence of universality.
Do not be lifted off your feet, do not be drawn away from the simplicity of your ancestors.
I cannot help thinking that it would be a great catastrophe. a great national tragedy, if you were to barter away your simplicity for this tinsel splendour.
To end slavery, you must overcome the mental and physical inertia of the masses and quicken their intelligence and creative faculty.
Compulsory obedience to a master is a state of slavery, willing obedience to one's father is the glory of sonship.
The way of mutual strife and exclusiveness was the only way to perdition and slavery.
The mentality which made one section of the Indians look upon another as enemies was suicidal; it could only serve to perpetuate their slavery.
No one chains a slave without chaining himself.
A slave has not the freedom even to do the right thing.
My business is not to throw overboard the slave-holder and tyrant.
My interest in India's freedom will cease is she adopts violent means for their fruit will be not freedom but slavery in disguise.
A slave-holder cannot hold a slave without putting himself or his deputy in the cage for holding the slave.
When a slave begins to take pride in his fetters and hugs them like precious ornaments, the triumph of the slave-owner is complete.
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall.
Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man than iron ones. The sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.
If as a member of a slave nation I could deliver the suppressed classes from their slavery without freeing myself from own, I would do so today.
Freedom is like a birth. Till we are fully free, we are slaves.
No nation keeps another in subjection without herself turning into a subject nation.
We have grown into the habit of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
Do not make the mistake that between drink and tobacco, drink is a lesser evil. No. If cigarette is Beelzebub, than drink is Satan.
I have looked up the dictionary meaning of socialism. It takes me no further than where I was before I read the definition.
The socialism that India can assimilate is the socialism of the spinning wheel.
If socialism means befriending one's enemies, I should be treated as a true socialist.
My socialism was natural to me and not adopted from any books.
Real socialism had been handed down to us by our ancestors who taught: 'All land belongs to Gopal, where then is boundary line?'
Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.
Society is sustained by several services. The bhangi constitutes the foundation of all services.
The rich cannot accumulate wealth without the co-operation of the poor in society.
Willing submission to social restraint for the sake of the will-being of the whole society enriches both the individual and the society of which he is a member.
Differences of opinion were inevitable in a living society.
Forgiveness adorns a soldier.
A soldier fights with an irresistible strength when he has blown up his bridges and burnt his boats. Even so, it is with a soldier of ahimsa.
We must treat arrest and imprisonment as a soldier who goes to battle seeks death.
A soldier in arms is trained to kill. Even his dreams are about killing.
Sorrow and suffering make for character if they are voluntarily borne, but not if they are imposed.
Soul-force comes only through God's grace and never descends upon a man who is a slave to lust.
The use of soul-force for turning stones into bread would have been considered, as it is still considered, as black magic.
History supplied numerous instances to prove that brute force is as nothing before soul-force.
MM-334
Great causes cannot be served by intellectual equipment alone, they call for spiritual effort of soul-force.
The strength of the soul can defy a whole world in arms against it.
Bravery is not a quality of the body; it is of the soul.
The force of spirit is ever progressive and endless. Its full expression makes it unconquerable in the world.
Spiritual force is like any other force at the service of man.
Nonviolence or soul-force too does not need physical aids for its propagation or effect.
Nonviolence is an active force of the highest order. It is soul-force or the power of the godhead within us.
Nonviolence is the attribute of the soul, and, therefore, to be practised by everybody in all the affairs of life.
Only living things bring living joy to the soul and must elevate it.
Mere mental, that is, intellectual labour is for the soul and is its own satisfaction.
Anything which is a hindrance to the fight of the soul is a delusion and a snare, even like the body which often does hinder you in the path of salvation. XXV-250
A balanced intellect presupposes a harmonious growth of body and soul.
Just as the body cannot exist without blood, so the soul needs the matchless and pure strength of faith. TIG-112
The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.
All true are must help the soul to realize its inner self.
Man is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart or soul alone.
Our life is a long and arduous quest for truth, and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height.
Fear is a worse disease than malaria or kalaazar; these diseases kill the body, fear kills the soul.
The force of love is the same as the force of the soul or truth.
The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit.
My soul refuse to be satisfied so long as it is a helpless witness of a single wrong or a single misery.
The sword was a rusty weapon. Its very effective substitute was the force of the spirit which cost nothing and which was indestructible.
A genuine fast cleanses the body, mind and soul. It crucifies the flesh and to that extent sets the soul free. MM-35
Spiritual instruments suffer in their potency when their use is taught through non-spiritual messages are self-propagating.
The deepest spiritual truths are always unutterable.
By spiritual training I mean education of the heart.
God is the vital force or spirit which is all-pervading and therefore beyond human ken.
The human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality.
Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within.
Satyagraha is a purely spiritual weapon. T-3-260
The temples were like spiritual hospitals, and the sinful, who were spiritually diseased, had the first right to be ministered to by them.
Whatever else India may not be, she is at least one thing. She is the greatest storehouse of spiritual knowledge. XXVI-333
Mortification of the flesh has been held all the world over as a condition of spiritual progress.
One's everyday life was never capable of being separated from his spiritual being.
There is no yajna (Sacrifice) greater than spinning calculated to bring peace to the troubled spirit, to soothe the distracted student's mind, to spiritualize his life.
Let not the spirit wander while the words of prayer run on out of our mouth.
I believe that if one man gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him, and if one man falls, the whole world falls to that extent. XXV-390
Slow and inglorious self-imposed starvation among the starving masses is every time more heroic than the death of the scaffold under false exaltation.
The state is the sum total of the sacrifice, on its behalf, of its members.
Strikes, cessation of work and hartal are wonderful things no doubt, but it is not difficult to abuse them. MM-222
If he (Gandhiji himself) were a cabinet minister, he would offer the strikers nothing whatever under the threat of a strike which implied force.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
A person who has truly realised the principle of nonviolence has the God-given strength for his weapon and the world has not yet known anything that can match it.
Whatever strength the masses have is due entirely to ahimsa, however imperfect or defective its practice might have been.
A definite forgiveness would mean a definite recognition of our strength.
The greater our innocence, the greater our strength and the swifter our victory.
The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit.
If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.
A
soldier fights with in irresistible strength when he has blown up his bridges
and burnt his boats.
If we were strong, self-respecting and not susceptible to frightfulness, the foreign rulers would have been powerless for mischief.
Just as the body cannot exist without blood, so the soul needs the matchless and pure strength of faith. TIG-112
Every truth is self-acting and possesses inherent strength.
Civil disobedience can only lead to strength and purity.
Satyagraha does not depend on the outside help, it derives all its strength from within.
Nonviolence is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and the bravest.
If God holds me to be a pure instrument for the spread of nonviolence in the place of the awful violence now ruling the earth, He will give me the strength and show me the way.
The nonviolence I teach is active nonviolence of the strongest. But the weakest can partake in it without becoming weaker. XXVI-140
Man's triumph will consist in substituting the struggle for existence by a struggle for mutual service.
A student is a searcher after truth. XXVI-377
A student is he who continuously uses his faculty of observation, puts two and two together and carves out for himself a path in life.
Vacation is just the period when the students' minds should be free from the routine work and be left free for self-help and original development. T-2-373
A burning passion coupled with absolute detachment is the key to all success. MM-464
Sorrow and suffering make for character if they are voluntarily borne, but not they are imposed.
Success is the certain result of suffering of the extremist character voluntarily undergone.
Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.
True suffering does no know itself and never calculates.
If a man voluntarily allows himself to be crushed, he yields the oil of moral energy which sustains the world.
Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering. MM-295
India's
freedom will no be won by violence but only by the purest suffering without
retaliation.
*Nanda broke down every barrier and won his way to freedom not by brag, not by bluster, but by the purest form of self-suffering. T-2-281
* A south Indian Saint, Nandnar
Reason has to be strengthened by suffering, and suffering opens the eyes of understanding.
The only way love punishes is by suffering. T-2-87
There is no time limit for a satyagrahi nor is there is limit to his capacity for suffering.
Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering, without the intoxicating excitement of killing.
Satyagraha and its offshoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering.
The hardest heart and the grossest ignorance must disappear before the rising sun of suffering without anger and without malice.
Only the toad under the harrow knows where it pinches him.
The quest of Truth involves tapas (self-suffering) sometimes even unto death.
I have not lost the hope that the masses will refuse to bow to the Moloch of war but they will rely upon their own capacity for suffering to save their country's honour.
I literally believe in the possibility of a Sudhanva* smiling away whilst he was being drowned in the boiling oil. XXVI-273
* A mythological hero who withstood all persecution bravely
He who atones for sins never calculates; he pours out the whole essence of his contrite heart.
Birth and observance of forms cannot determine one's superiority and inferiority.
The weapon of nonviolence does not need superman or superwomen to wield it; even beings of common clay can use it and have used it before this with success.
It is a sin to let simple folk such as the Gonds to be encouraged in the practice of superstition.
There is that Supreme Judge who can hang you, but He leaves you alive.
True swadeshi is that alone in which all the processes through which cotton has to pass are carried out in the same village or town.
Swadeshism is not a cult of hatred. It is a doctrine of selfless service that has its roots in the purest ahimsa, i.e. love.
My swadeshi chiefly centers round the handspun khaddarand extend to everything that can and is produced in India.
Cent per cent swadeshi gives sufficient scope for the most insatiable ambition for service and can satisfy every kind of talent.
My nationalism is as broad as my Swadeshi. I want India's rise so that the whole world may benefit. XXBI-279
I swear by swadeshi as it affords occasion for an ample exercise of all our faculties and as it tests every one of the millions of men and women, young and old.
The wearer of khadi from a swadeshi standpoint is like a man making use of his lungs.
Swadeshi is the only doctrine consistent with the law of humanity and love.
I must not serve distant neighbour at the expense of the nearest.
I refuse to buy from anybody anything however nice or beautiful if it interferes with my growth or injures those whom Nature has made my first care.
My modesty has prevented me from declaring from the house-top that the message of non-co-operation, nonviolence and swadeshi is a message to the world.
India must protect her primary industries even as a mother protects her children against the whole world without being hostile to it.
If the people resolve and carry this programme of boycott and Swadeshi out, they would not have to wait for Swaraj even for a year.
For a firm believer in swadeshi, there need be no Pharisaical self-satisfaction in wearing khadi.
Even swadeshi, like any other good thing, can be ridden of death if it is made a fetish.
Swaraj is a hardy tree of patient growth.
Swaraj of a people means the sum total of the Swaraj (self-rule) of individuals.
Swaraj, from its very nature, is not in the giving of anybody.
The pilgrimage to Swaraj is a painful climb. MM-320
For winning Swaraj one requires iron discipline. XXV-51
Swaraj will favour Hinduism no more than Islam, nor Islam more than Hinduism.
A Swaraj government means a government established by the free joint will of Hindus, Mussalmans and others.
Swaraj means a state such that we can maintain our separate existence without the presence of English.
It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.
Conservation of national sanitation is Swaraj work and it may not be postponed for a single day on any consideration whatsoever.
Swaraj means ability to regard every inhabitant of India as our own brother or sister.
Swaraj can only be achieved through an all-round consciousness of the masses.
Swaraj is not meant for cowards, but for those who would mount smilingly to the gallows and refuse even to allow their eyes to be bandaged.
Swaraj
would be real Swaraj only when there would be no occasion for safeguarding
any rights.
To get Swaraj is to get rid of our helplessness.
Swaraj means even under dominion status a capacity to declare independence at will.
Swaraj is not a product of excitement or intoxication. Swaraj will be the natural and inevitable result of business like habits.
Let the content of Swaraj grow with the growth of national consciousness and aspirations.
Swaraj does not depend on jail going. If it did, there are thousands of prisoners in jail today. It depends on everyone doing his or her own task.
Swaraj without any qualifying clause includes that which is better than the best one can conceive or have today.
So long as we fear the outside world, we must cease to think of Swaraj. XXVI-162
Half-a-dozen or twenty cities of India alone working together cannot bring Swaraj.
No Swaraj government with any pretension to being a popular government can possibly be organised and maintained on a war-footing.
Lovers of Swaraj cannot therefore rest till a solution is found which would allay Mussalman apprehensions and yet not endanger Swaraj.
If Swaraj is to be had by peaceful methods, it will only be attained by attention to every little detail of national life.
We are aware that the business of Swaraj will thrive only if the boycott of foreign cloth is successful.
To ignore the Mussalman grievance as if it was not felt is to postpone Swaraj.
It only confirms me in my belief that there is no Swaraj without a settlement with the Mussalmans.
If we want Swaraj to be built on non-violence, we will have to give the villages their proper place.
Work for Swaraj fails to appeal to us because we have no music in us.
There can be no Swaraj where there is no harmony, no music.
Swaraj for me means freedom for the meanest of countrymen.
My Swaraj will be not a result of murder of others but a voluntary act of continuous self-sacrifice.
My Swaraj is to keep intact the genius of our civilization.
Swaraj as conceived by me does not mean the end of kingship.
The Swaraj of my dream is the poor man's Swaraj.
The Swaraj of my dream recognizes no race of religious distinctions.
My Swaraj takes note of bhangis, dheds, dublas and the weakest of the weak, and except the spinning-wheel I know no other thing which befriends all these.
Swaraj is our birthright. No one can deprive us of it unless we forfeit it ourselves.
I know that not only is Swaraj our birthright, but it is our sacred duty to win it.
The cryptic meaning of Swaraj I have often described to be within the empire, if possible, without, if necessary.
If God gives me the privilege of dying for Hinduism of my conception, I shall have sufficiently died for the unity of all and even for Swaraj.
I want India the hardihood to say that Swaraj could not be granted even by God.
I have had the hardihood to say that Swaraj could not be granted even by God.
I declare that we cannot win Swaraj for our famishing millions, for our deaf and dumb, for our lame and crippled, by the way of the sword.
With God as witness, I want to proclaim this truth, that the way of violence cannot bring Swaraj, it can only lead to disaster.
When large numbers of wholly innocent men are in jail, we may take it that Swaraj is at hand.
We shall make progress towards Swaraj only if we do everything thoughtfully and with understanding.
Prosecution of the constructive programme means constructing structure of Swaraj.
Every moment of my existence is dedicated to the winning of Swaraj by means of truth and nonviolence.
The restoration of free speech, free association and free press is almost the whole Swaraj.
Destruction of the churches and the like is not the way to Swaraj as defined by the Congress.
If it is by force that we wish to achieve Swaraj, let us drop nonviolence and offer such violence as we may.
Non-co-operation and civil disobedience in terms of Swaraj were not to be thought of without substantial constructive effort.
Let us by prayer purify ourselves and we shall not only remove untouchability but shall also hasten the advent of Swaraj.
So long as the untouchability disfigures Hinduism, so long do I hold the attainment of Swaraj to be an utter impossibility.
The khadi work without the mastery of the science of khadi will be love's labour lost in terms of Swaraj.
The call of the spinning wheel is the noblest of all. Because it is the call of love. And love is Swaraj.
The get rid of the infatuation for English is one of the essentials of Swaraj.
Unless nonviolence of the strong is be no thought of civil disobedience for Swaraj, whether within the states or in British India.
A bogus Congress register can never lead you to Swaraj any more than a paper boat can help you to sail across the Padma. *
Reliance upon the sword is wholly inconsistent with reliance upon God.
The sword is too much in evidence among the Mussalmans. It must be sheathed if Islam is to be what it means: peace.
Islam was born in an environment where the sword was and still remains the supreme law.
India's acceptances of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my trial.
If India takes up the doctrine of the sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India will cease to be the pride of my heart.
The essential part of your message to the country is not how to wield the sword, but to cease to be afraid of it.
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