120 Gandhi Quotes - Peace, Truth & Nonviolence

Truth and Integrity

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
There is no God higher than truth.
Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.
The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. Only then will he have a glimpse of truth.
There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.
The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth.
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
My life is an indivisible whole, and all my activities run into one another; they all have their rise in my insatiable love of mankind.

See also: Peace Quotes for Calm and Harmony

Nonviolence and Peace

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Peace will not come out of a clash of arms, but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations.
Retaliation is counter-poison and poison breeds more poison.
The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

See also: Wisdom Quotes for Insight and Understanding

Humility Character and Inner Strength

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
The greater our innocence, the greater our strength and the swifter our victory.
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow men.
Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.
There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.
Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength.
My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents.

Freedom Justice and Courage

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
It is easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
Let the first act of every morning be to make the resolve for the day: I shall not fear anyone on Earth.

Wisdom for Daily Life

To lose patience is to lose the battle.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
It does not require money to live neat, clean and dignified.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
Where there is love there is life.

Simplicity and Self-Discipline

Live simply that others might simply live.
The less you need, the freer you become.
There is goodness as well as greatness in simplicity, not in wealth.
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
The purer I try to become, the nearer to God I feel myself to be.
The real ornament of a woman is her character, her purity.
There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring.
The good man is the friend of all living things.
Purity, patience and perseverance are the virtues to cultivate for self-discipline.
There is beauty in simplicity.
It is difficult but not impossible to conduct strictly honest business.

Service Duty and Leadership

Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.
A leader is useless when he acts against the promptings of his own conscience.
Every person in a well-ordered state is fully conscious of both his responsibilities and his rights.
The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.
Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.
My life is my message.
The best leadership is service.
You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment; full effort is full victory.

Change and Reform

The future depends on what we do in the present.
Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
A "No" uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a "Yes" merely uttered to please.
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. The strongest might weaken.
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.
A reformer must know that he cannot bring about social reform without touching religion.
Constant development is the law of life.
The first principle of change is non-cooperation with evil.
Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Humanity and Compassion

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one.
A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he has done to his fellow men.
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Service to humanity is the service to God.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.

Faith and Spirituality

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.
There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it though I do not see it.
Whilst everything around me is ever changing, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless.
In the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.
Faith is not something to grasp. It is a state to grow into.
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God.
The essence of all religions is one; only their approaches are different.
God has no religion.
The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of the heart.
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
There is no prayer without faith.