103 Mahatma Gandhi Quotes about Nonviolence, Truth and Love

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was born and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in coastal Gujarat, India, and he was later trained in law at the Inner Temple, London. Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community’s struggle for civil rights. After returning to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Gandhi assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921 and he led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving Swaraj or self-rule. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and political protest. Gandhi famously led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 250 mi (400 km) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942.

Gandhi’s vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism, however, was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. Eventually, in August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out. Eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating. Among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest. Captured along with many of his co-conspirators and collaborators, Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were tried, convicted and executed while many of their other accomplices were given prison sentences.

Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence.

Table of Contents

1. Short Gandhi Quotes
2. Inspirational Gandhi Quotes
3. Witty Gandhi Quotes
4. Insightful Gandhi Quotes
5. Wise Gandhi Quotes
6. Cynical Gandhi Quotes
7. Poetic Gandhi Quotes
8. Romantic Gandhi Quotes
9. Long Gandhi Quotes

Short Gandhi Quotes

• Be the change that you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi
• My life is my message. Mahatma Gandhi
• God has no religion. Mahatma Gandhi
• Where there is love there is life. Mahatma Gandhi
• To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest. Mahatma Gandhi
• Hate the sin, love the sinner. Mahatma Gandhi
• Truth never damages a cause that is just. Mahatma Gandhi

• Action expresses priorities. Mahatma Gandhi
• Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. Mahatma Gandhi
• There is more to life than simply increasing its speed. Mahatma Gandhi
• In a gentle way, you can shake the world. Mahatma Gandhi
• Truth is one, paths are many. Mahatma Gandhi
• Poverty is the worst form of violence. Mahatma Gandhi
• The good man is the friend of all living things. Mahatma Gandhi
• Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong. Mahatma Gandhi
• Peace is its own reward. Mahatma Gandhi
• There is more to life than increasing its speed. Mahatma Gandhi

Inspirational Gandhi Quotes

• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Mahatma Gandhi
• The future depends on what you do today. Mahatma Gandhi

• Nobody can hurt me without my permission. Mahatma Gandhi
• The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Mahatma Gandhi
• Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. Mahatma Gandhi
• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Mahatma Gandhi
• Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Mahatma Gandhi
• You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind. Mahatma Gandhi

• It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity. Mahatma Gandhi
• A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. Mahatma Gandhi
• We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle. Mahatma Gandhi
• Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly. Mahatma Gandhi
• In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all. Mahatma Gandhi
• Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men. Mahatma Gandhi
• The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems. Mahatma Gandhi
• Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity. Mahatma Gandhi
• Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well. Mahatma Gandhi
• If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children. Mahatma Gandhi
• Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory. Mahatma Gandhi
• A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. Mahatma Gandhi
• Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Mahatma Gandhi
• If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm. Mahatma Gandhi
• We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it. Mahatma Gandhi

Witty Gandhi Quotes

• An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. Mahatma Gandhi
• Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. Mahatma Gandhi
• The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace. Mahatma Gandhi
• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed. Mahatma Gandhi
• Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. Mahatma Gandhi
• Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality. Mahatma Gandhi
• There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent. Mahatma Gandhi
• In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Gandhi

Insightful Gandhi Quotes

• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. Mahatma Gandhi
• A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes. Mahatma Gandhi

• To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer. Mahatma Gandhi
• It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. Mahatma Gandhi
• The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Mahatma Gandhi
• Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. Mahatma Gandhi
• There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever. Mahatma Gandhi
• I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect. Mahatma Gandhi
• Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. Mahatma Gandhi
• They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them. Mahatma Gandhi
• A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble. Mahatma Gandhi
• It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts. Mahatma Gandhi
• A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. Mahatma Gandhi
• Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man. Mahatma Gandhi
• As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi

Wise Gandhi Quotes

• Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another. Mahatma Gandhi
• I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. Mahatma Gandhi
• Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into. Mahatma Gandhi
• It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man. Mahatma Gandhi
• No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive. Mahatma Gandhi
• Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. Mahatma Gandhi
• I call him religious who understands the suffering of others. Mahatma Gandhi
• Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation. Mahatma Gandhi
• Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. Mahatma Gandhi
• It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. Mahatma Gandhi
• Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
• Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained. Mahatma Gandhi
• It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings. Mahatma Gandhi

Cynical Gandhi Quotes

• Speak only if it improves upon the silence. Mahatma Gandhi
• There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. Mahatma Gandhi
• I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. Mahatma Gandhi
• There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for. Mahatma Gandhi
• If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. Mahatma Gandhi
• Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is. Mahatma Gandhi

Poetic Gandhi Quotes

• Live simply so that others may simply live. Mahatma Gandhi
• I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. Mahatma Gandhi
• The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane. Mahatma Gandhi

• You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. Mahatma Gandhi
• An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. Mahatma Gandhi
• Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. Mahatma Gandhi
• Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening. Mahatma Gandhi
• My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet. Mahatma Gandhi

Romantic Gandhi Quotes

• You don’t know who is important to you until you actually lose them. Mahatma Gandhi
• I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. Mahatma Gandhi
• Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable. Mahatma Gandhi
• What barrier is there that love cannot break? Mahatma Gandhi
• It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful? Mahatma Gandhi
• When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator. Mahatma Gandhi

Long Gandhi Quotes

• Your beliefs become your thoughts,
  Your thoughts become your words,
  Your words become your actions,
  Your actions become your habits,
  Your habits become your values,
  Your values become your destiny.
  Mahatma Gandhi
• When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it ― always. Mahatma Gandhi
• Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning. Mahatma Gandhi
• It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results. Mahatma Gandhi
• What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy? Mahatma Gandhi
• Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment. Mahatma Gandhi
• The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth. Mahatma Gandhi

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