Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force.

The force generated by nonviolence is infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's ingenuity.

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.

I can think about what [Mahatma] Gandhi said or [Martin Luther] King said about violence begetting violence, and still be true to my job by asking myself the question whenever we're confronted with a situation where some may be arguing for military action: Will this actually result in America being safer, or the most lives being saved?

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation.

Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute, and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher laws - to the strength of the spirit.

If the fight comes unsolicited, I am not willing to die meekly, to surrender without an effort. And that being so, am I still a pacifist?

I knew A.J. Muste very well. I tried for a while to be like he was, and that is a total pacifist. But then Margot [my wife] hit me hard in the stomach one day to prove to me that I wasn't as perfect a pacifist as I thought I was.

The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme.

Whatever strength the masses have is due entirely to ahimsa, however imperfect or defective its practice might have been.

It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

Gandhi was such an important figure to the pacifists of the '30s, and he was such an extraordinary embodiment of nonviolence, that I thought it was necessary to have him in there. When he would say something about the war, it was to some extent news - and he was sure to have a response that was different from that of other world leaders.

Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.

Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.

Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.

Nonviolence in the sense of mere non-killing does not appear to me, therefore, to be of any improvement on the technique of violence.

Did not Jesus say, resist not evil — with evil? Is not war the worst form of that evil.

Nonviolence is an unchangeable creed. It has to be pursued even in face of violence raging around you.

Our struggle consists in showing that our nonviolence is neither a cloak to hide our violence or hatred, nor a preparation for violence in the near or distant future.

India's freedom will not be won by violence but only by the purest suffering without retaliation.

There never was a good war or a bad revolution.

At the beginning of this century, people never questioned the effectiveness of war, never thought there could be real peace. Now, people are tired of war and see it as ineffective in solving anything.

Satyagraha is a law for universal application. Beginning with the family, its use can be extended to every other circle.

Since satyagraha is a method of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest coercion.