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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Inspirational Quotations by Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948,) called the “Mahatma” (Sanskrit: “great-souled,”) was the apostle of peace and non-violence who said, “My life is my message.” He is the political and spiritual father of modern India. His strategy of passive resistance was based on a philosophical-religious synthesis of traditional Hinduism, Tolstoyan Christianity, and other world religions. His movement mounted pressure on the British to grant India independence.

Born into a family of modest means in Porbandar, Gujarat, Gandhi was educated in British schools and earned a law degree in London. He found his calling in South Africa, where he experimented with nonviolent resistance to fight anti-Indian regulations in South Africa.

Returning to India, Gandhi led a series of nonviolent campaigns as the leader of the Indian crusade for home rule. When Great Britain granted independence in 1947, the partition of India along religious lines led Gandhi to declare his life a failure because India could not govern itself as one nation but instead gave in to the division. Gandhi’s fair-minded treatment of the Muslim cause and his desperate attempts to end intercommunal violence provoked his assassination by a Hindu nationalist just six months after independence.

Gandhi is one of the most-biographed people in the history of the world. Physicist Albert Einstein once said, “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”

Gandhi inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, the 14th Dalai Lama, and other political leaders who resist oppressive regimes. He was also a prolific writer; his most famous work is his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1940.)

Gandhi is idolized as a modern saint not only for his extraordinary public life as the leader of India’s peaceful struggle for independence but also for his enduring philosophical contributions to humanity.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Mohandas K. Gandhi

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Inspirational Quotes by Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Fear serves only to accentuate suffering and makes one’s condition pitiable.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Strength

Prayer needs a heart, not a tongue.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Faith, Prayer

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
—Mohandas K. 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.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Wisdom

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Faith, Religion, Morality

They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Self-respect

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Prayer

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Conscience

Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation, and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Faith is a function of the heart. It must be enforced by reason. The two are not antagonistic as some think. The more intense one’s faith is, the more it whet’s one’s reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Faith

Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Violence

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Nothing is impossible for pure love.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Love

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Truth

Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be
suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

To lose patience is to lose the battle.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Patience

If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Criticism

The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Action, Vision

Man becomes what he eats. The grosser the food the grosser the body.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Violence, Defeat

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.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Goodness, Evil, Good

It may be long before the law of love will be recognized in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty.
—Mohandas K. 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.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Gentleness

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Mistakes, Freedom

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare to appear is work and promise of food and wages.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

My faith runs so very much faster than my reason that I can challenge the whole world and say, “God is, was and ever shall be.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Faith, Challenges

If you want to stand before God, you must shed your robe of egoism.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Confrontation, Peace, Forgiveness

When you are in the right, you can afford to keep your temper. When you are in the wrong, you can’t afford to lose it.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Those who know how to think need no teachers.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Thinking, Teaching, Thought, Living

Everything we do is futile, but we must do it anyway.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Complete independence through truth and non-violence means the independence of every unit, be it the humblest of the nation, without distinction of race, colour or creed.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

My effort should never be to undermine another’s faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Whether humanity will consciously follow the law of love, I do not know. But that need not disturb me. The law will work just as the law of gravitation works, whether we accept it or not. The person who discovered the law of love was a far greater scientist than any of our modern scientists. Only our explorations have not gone far enough and so it is not possible for everyone to see all its workings.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Topics: Prayer, Faith

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