“[We] need the same advice that was given to Martha. If we but do “the one thing needful,” there is no occasion for us to be “anxious and troubled” about the many things in the shape of wanting to know what our Governors will do, or who the next Prime Minister is likely to be, or what laws affecting us are likely to be passed
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“It is impossible in this body to follow ahimsa fully. Violence is inescapable. While the eyes wink and nails have to be pared, violence in one form or another is unavoidable. Evil is inherent in action, says the Gita. Arjuna did not, therefore, raise the question of violence and nonviolence. He simply raised the question of distinction between kinsmen and others, much in the same way that a fond mother would advance arguments favouring her child.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognise this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“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.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“shall be able to kindle the same in you. But one cannot light a piece of stone. Only those of you who have some oil and wick in them will light their lamp with this matchstick of mine.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Then, too, the dissemination of the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign to it, and also opposed it by open violence. Thus the truth—that his life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis, which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man—this truth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also against deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting with the truth.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Your right is to work, and not to expect the fruit. The slave-owner tells the slave: ‘Mind your work, but beware lest you pluck a fruit from the garden. Yours is to take what I give.’ God has put us under restriction in the same manner. He tells us that we may work if we wish, but that the reward of work is entirely for Him to give. Our duty is to pray to Him, and the best way in which we can do this is to work with the pick-axe, to remove scum from the river and to sweep and clean our yards. This, certainly, is a difficult lesson to learn.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
“Why
should I, who have no need to work for food, spin? ' may be the question
asked. Because I am eating what does not belong to me. I am living on the
spoliation of my countrymen. Trace the source of every coin that finds its way
into your pocket, and you will realise the truth of what I write. Every one
must spin.”
―
Mahatma Gandhi
