“We measure the universe by our own miserable foot-rule. When we are slaves, we think that the whole universe is enslaved. Because we are in an abject condition, we think that the whole of India is in that condition. As a matter of fact, it is not so, yet it is as well to impute our slavery to the whole of India. But if we bear in mind the above fact, we can see that if we become free, India is free. And in this thought you have a definition of Swaraj. It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“people continued—regardless of all that leads man forward—to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“All your scholarship would be in vain if at the same time you do not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“Good travels at a snail's pace. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“When there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or himsa (violence). Take any instance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the cherished end. But it may be freely admitted that the Gita was not written to establish ahimsa. It was an accepted and primary duty even before the Gita age. The Gita had to deliver the message of renunciation of fruit. This is clearly brought out as early as the second chapter. 26. But if the Gita believed in ahimsa or it was included in desirelessness, why did the author take a warlike illustration? When the Gita was written, although people believed in ahimsa, wars were not only not taboo, but nobody observed the contradiction between them and ahimsa.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
“I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.”
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Mahatma Gandhi