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 weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
• 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

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.
• Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
• 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.
• To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.
• In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
• To lose patience is to lose the battle.
• 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.
• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

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

• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
• 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 future depends on what we do in the present.
• The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
• 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

• Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
• The future depends on what we do in the present.
• 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.
• The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.
• Constant development is the law of life.
• The first principle of change is non-cooperation with evil.
• Poverty is the worst form of violence.

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.
• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
• I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
• There is no prayer without faith.

Wisdom for Daily Life

• Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
• The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
• It does not require money to live neat, clean and dignified.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
• The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
• To lose patience is to lose the battle.
• Where there is love there is life.

Humility Character and Inner Strength

• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
• The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
• Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
• 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.
• To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.
• 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.
• The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Humanity and Compassion

• 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.
• The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.
• 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 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 simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
• 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.
• The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
• There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.