It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all. The existence of God is like a geometrical axiom. It may be beyond our heart grasp. I shall not talk of an intellectual grasp. Intellectual attempts are more or less failures, as a rational explanation cannot give you the faith in a living God. For it is a thing beyond the grasp of reason. It transcends reason. There are numerous phenomena from which you can reason out the existence of God, but I shall not insult your intelligence by offering you a rational explanation of that type. I would have you brush aside all rational explanations and begin with a simple childlike faith in God. If I exist, God exists. With me it is a necessity of my being.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, Sep. 24, 1931
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.
MAHATMA GANDHI, An Autobiography
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
MAHATMA GANDHI, The Story of My Experiments With Truth
The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least.
MAHATMA GANDHI, attributed, Gandhi's Wisdom Box (Parkash)
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Non-Violence in Peace and War
It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, January 23, 1930
To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, Oct. 4, 1930
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.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, Oct. 22, 1925
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, Mar. 23, 1931
The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not for every man's greed.
MAHATMA GANDHI, attributed, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase
Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different road, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarreling?
MAHATMA GANDHI, Hind Swaraj
A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
MAHATMA GANDHI, attributed, Ethical Religion (Ganesan)
Jealousy does not wait for reasons.
MAHATMA GANDHI, An Autobiography
When a tiger changes his nature, Englishmen will change theirs.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Hind Swaraj
The cry for peace will be a cry in the wilderness, so long as the spirit of nonviolence does not dominate millions of men and women.
MAHATMA GANDHI, The World Tomorrow, Oct. 5, 1926
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the "still small voice" within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, Mar. 2, 1922
A man of truth must also be a man of care.
MAHATMA GANDHI, An Autobiography
One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Hind Swaraj
If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle, we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions. But we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, Nov. 19, 1931
I do feel that spiritual progress does demand, at some stage, that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.
MAHATMA GANDHI, quoted in Food As Medicine
Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.
MAHATMA GANDHI, The Story of My Experiments With Truth
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty.
MAHATMA GANDHI, The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
MAHATMA GANDHI, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections
It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Wit and Wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi
Satan’s successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.
I consider Western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity.
It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.
MAHATMA GANDHI, The Essential Writings
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
MAHATMA GANDHI, attributed, Ve-hayinu Kulanu shamah: And we were all there
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.
MAHATMA GANDHI, Young India, January 23, 1930
Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.
MAHATMA GANDHI, The Indian States' Problem
I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of reincarnation, I live in the hope that if not in this birth, in some other birth I shall be able to hug all of humanity in friendly embrace.
