Woman is
the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities.
She has the right to participate in the minutest details in
the activities of man, and she has an equal right of freedom
and liberty with him.
Hatred ever kills, love never dies such is the vast
difference between the two. What is obtained by love is
retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a
burden in reality for it increases hatred.
Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion.
For want of valour is want of religious faith.
There are times when you have to obey a call which is the
highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though
such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more,
separation from friends, from family, from the state to
which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as
life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.
Insistence on truth can come into play when one party
practices untruth or injustice. Only then can love be
tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one
party disregards the obligation of friendship.
The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that
too, unconditional assistance. Co-operation which needs
consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship.
Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which
does not bind.
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.
A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a
fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified
and composed and with God as witness.
Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience
can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.
Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a
sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by
enabling them to realize that they need not fear brute
force, if they would but know the soul within.
Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also
erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I
once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the
world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest
of us being happy.
To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in
spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved
is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when
you forget him for a friend.
The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives,
everything he does becomes tainted.
Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man
can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for
which people live for ages and ages.
I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself
in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the
Potter's divine hands so that my service may become more
certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied
propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will
see it.
Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is
transmuted into an ineffable joy.
As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be
religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding
morality. Man, for instance,cannot be untruthful, cruel or
incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does
it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule
is to test everything in the light of reason and experience,
no matter from where it comes.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against
measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but
against the system they administer. The roots of
non-cooperation lie not in hatred but in justice, if not in
love.
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my
windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands
to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I
refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in
other people's houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.
Measures must always in a progressive society be held
superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments,
working for their fulfilment.
I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we
should become less than beasts by making the noblest of
God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.
The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility.
Non-violence means reliance on God, the rock of ages. If we
would seek his aid, we must approach Him with a humble and
contrite heart.
Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human
beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die
for it.
There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is
the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has
found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me
will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will
remain.
Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to
the growth of a true democratic spirit.
This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to
diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of
is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost.
God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands,
even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into
watertight compartments called social, political and
religious. All act and react upon one another.
The only virtue I want to claim is truth and non-violence. I
lay no claim to superhuman powers. I want none. I wear the
same corruptible flesh that the weakest of my fellow beings
wears, and am therefore as liable to err as any. My services
have many limitations, but God has upto now blessed them in
spite of the imperfections.
The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered
by the still small voice of conscience.
If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot
afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith
in one's cause.
When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the
moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a
menace to the world and to India herself.
Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion
is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the
scales of philosophical comparison.
In nature there is fundamental unity running through all the
diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so
as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental
unity.
However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy
motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods
even to serve the noblest of causes.
Birth and death are not two different states, but they are
different aspects of the same state. There is as little
reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the
other.
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the
outcome of untruth & violence. Even if my belief is a fond
delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating
delusion.
I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with
taking care of the present. God has given me no control over
the moment following.
Indeed one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly
tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows
in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
My trust is solely in god. And I trust men only because I
trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like
Timon, a hater of my species.
One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and
one's Maker and no one else's.
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my
God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and
bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be
able to save one's head.
Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in
battle.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged
weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have
said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be
dignified into a principle.
Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man.
They die up to a point.
Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law
gives is a punishment.
I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good,
wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and
deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be
true. It is a painful climb, but the pain of it is a
positive pleasure to me. Each step upwards makes me feel
stronger and fit for the next.
Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on
to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without
effort.
Self-respect knows no considerations.
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 then
the one derived from fear of punishment.
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and
does not help to solve them is no religion.
There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly
good.
No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice
and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is 'making
sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in
need of sympathy for his sacrifice.
That service is the nobelest which is rendered for its own
sake.
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason,
to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
God tries his votaries through and through but never beyond
endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through the
ordeal he prescribes for them.
Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never
resents never revenges itself.
I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any
other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility
enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the
cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance
and assimilation.
Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is.
The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and
knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil.
Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when
he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to
the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show
himself lower then the brute.
Anger is the enemy of Ahimsa(Non-violence) and pride is a
monster that swallows it up.
A principle is the expression of perfection, and as
imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we
devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
It is easy enough to say, 'I do not believe in God.' For God
permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks
at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it not
its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment.
He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa. He who
is angry is guilty of Himsa.
Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms
of spirituality.
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.
Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and
the same to us all.
I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be
often upset by God, but, at the same time, where the
ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's
plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often
better then anticipated.
A 'no' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater
than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to
avoid trouble.
Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is
notworth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain
the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.
A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit
thesin again, when offered before one who has the right to
receiveit, is the purest type of repentance.
Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition
for building up a sound education.
Perfection is the exclusive attribute of God, and it is
indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is
possible for human beings to become perfect. It is necessary
for all of us to aspire after that perfection but when that
blessed state is attained, it becomes indescribable,
indefinable.
What is true of the individual will be to-morrow true of the
whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart
and hope.
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.
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel
themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow
beings.
The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be
adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to
resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and
attacking oneself, for we are all tarred with the same
brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as
such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a
single human being, is to slight those divine powers and
thus to harm not only that Being, but with Him, the whole
world.
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but
let no one lust for martyrdom.
A True soldier does not argue as he marches, how success is
going to be ultimately achieved. But he is confident that if
he only plays his humble part well, somehow or other the
battle will be won. It is in that spirit that every one of
us should act. It is not given to us to know the future. But
it is given to everyone of us to know how to do our own part
well.
If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also
under certain conditions is equally a duty.
Of all the animal creation of God, man is the only animal
who has been created in order that he may know his Maker.
Man's aim in life is not therefore to add from day to day to
his material prospects and to his material possessions, but
his predominant calling is, from day to day to come nearer
to his own Maker.
Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical.
Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body
without soul.
Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good
deed should call forth approbation, and a wicked deed dis-approbation,
the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves
respect or pity as the case may be. Hate the sin and not the
sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand
is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred
spreads in the world.
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in
other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this
world but Truth.
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance
of all morality.
Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God
sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into
our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the
warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way
to find oneself.
I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a
lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to
restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience,
which is God.
Real suffering, bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone.
Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to
Satyagraha.
But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an
unalterable law governing everything and every being that
exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can
govern the conduct of living beings.
The first condition of humaneness is a little humility and a
little diffidence about the correctness of one's conduct and
a little receptiveness.
Where love is, there God is also.
We are merely the instruments of the Almighty's will and
therefore ignorant of what helps us forward and what acts as
an impediment. We must thus rest satisfied with the
knowledge only of the means and if these are pure, we can
fearlessly leave the end to take care of itself.
There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we
achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline
will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason
and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity
Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to
order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon
intense individual effort.
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who
always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear
consistent drives himself into a false position.
I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also
politically inexpedient, and have therefore always
discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
When anything assumes the strength of a creed, it becomes
self-sustained and derives the needed support from within.
I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is
ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that
change a living Power that is changeless, that holds all
together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That
informing power or spirit is God. And since nothing else I
see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone
is.
Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms.
Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest
vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate.
Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict
suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery.
Non-violent conduct is never demoralising, cowardice always
is.
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be
real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
It is man's social nature which distinguishes him from the
brute creation. If it is his privilege to be independent, it
is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an arrogant
man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be
self-contained.
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or lordliness. It
consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences
whether it is in matters social, political or other. It
consists in deeds, not in words.
Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.
Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man
theniron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the
metal.
It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal
of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never
supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for
them if we had not either the intention or the ability to
carry them out.
Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth.
Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain
limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith
transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and
human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines
brightest and comes to our rescue.
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to
reason and is in conflict with morality.
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive
possession of no one race or religion.
Each one prays to God according to his own light.
The world is touched by sacrifice. It does not then
discriminate about the merits of a cause. Not so God - He is
all seeing. He insists on the purity of the cause and on
adequate sacrifice thereof.
Breach of promise is no less an act of insolvency than a
refusal to pay one's debt.
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is
daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to
have a heart without words than words without a heart.
The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be
effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the
most spotless.
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works
for the welfare of his fellow-men.
We may have our private opinions but why should they be a
bar to the meeting of hearts?
There should be truth in thought, truth in speech, and truth
in action. To the man who has realised this truth in
perfection, nothing else remains to be known because all
knowledge is necessarily included in it.
I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided
it is not based on brute force.
I saw that nations like individuals could only be made
through the agony of the Cross and in no other way. Joy
comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of
pain voluntarily borne by oneself.
An ounce of practice is worth more then tons of preaching.
Courage has never been known to be a matter of muscle; it is
a matter of the heart. The toughest muscle has been known to
tremble before an imaginary fear. It was the heart that set
the muscle atrembling.
To me art in order to be truly great must, like the beauty
of Nature, be universal in its appeal. It must be simple in
its presentation and direct in its expression, like the
language of Nature.
God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes
to bless.
When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the
latter becomes irresistible.
Suffering has its well-defined limits. Suffering can be both
wise and unwise, and when the limit is reached, to prolong
it would be not unwise but the height of folly.
Have I not gazed at the marvellous mystery of the starry
vault, hardly ever tiring of the great panorama?
I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the
spirit of service and sacrifice.
Proved right should be capable of being vindicated by right
means as against the rude i.e. sanguinary means. Man may and
should shed his own blood for establishing what he considers
to be his right. He may not shed the blood of his opponent
who disputes his 'right'.
I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being
faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults
of others.
Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within
everyone.
I have been a willing slave to this most exacting Master fr
more then half a century. His voice has been increasingly
audible as years have rolled by. He has never forsaken me
even in my darkest hour. He has saved me often against
myself and left me not a vestige of independence. The
greater the surrender to Him, the greater has been my joy.
A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is
necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance
instead of a help. Therefore the ideal of creating an
unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a
delusion and a snare.
Evil is, good or truth misplaced.
There is no human institution but has its dangers. The
greater the institution, the greater the chances of abuse.
Democracy is a great institution and therefore it is liable
to be greatly abused. The remedy therefore is not avoidance
of democracy but reduction of the possibility of abuse to a
minimum.
Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless
service with which nature has endowed her.
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of
the world.
My life is one indivisible whole, and all my activities run
intoone another, and they all have their rise in my
insatiable love of mankind.
I need no inspiration other then Nature's. She has never
failed me yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into
ecstasies. Besides God's handiwork, does not man's fade into
insignificance?
The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.
To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him
the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the
body; it is starvation of the soul the dweller in the body.
Humility cannot be an observance by itself. For, it does not
lend itself to being deliberately practised. It is, however,
an indispensable test of 'Ahimsa.' For one who has 'Ahimsa'
in him it becomes part of his very nature.
God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May
He be so to every one of us.
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.
Destruction is not the law of humans. Man lives freely only
by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his
brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other injury,
no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another
is a crime against humanity.
The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly,
act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our
thought to the body.
Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid
for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
Manliness consists in making circumstances subserve to
ourselves.
Those who will not heed themselves perish. To understand
this principle is not to be impatient, not to reproach fate,
not to blame others. He who understands the doctrine of
self-help blames himself for failure.
Surely conversion is a matter between man and his Maker who
alone knows his creatures' hearts. A conversion without a
clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of God and Religion.
Conversion without cleanliness of heart can only be a matter
of sorrow, not joy, to a godly person.
I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can
achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort
and cultivate the same hope and faith. Work without faith is
like an attempt to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit.
Ill-digested principles are, if anything, worse than
ill-digested food, for the latter harms the body and there
is cure for it, whereas the former ruins the soul and there
is no cure for it.
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches
are different.
Restraint never ruins one's health. What ruins it,is not
restraint but outward suppression. A really self-restrained
person grows every day from strength to strength and from
peace to more peace. The very first step in self-restraint
is the restraint of thoughts.
We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so
constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or
abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and
stop.
True religion is not a narrow dogma. It is not external
observance. It is faith in God and living in the presence of
God. It means faith in a future life, in truth and Ahimsa.
There prevails today a sort of apathy towards these things
of the Spirit.
Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in
God and has fear of God.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable
faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
I may live without air and water, but not without Him. You
may pluck out my eyes, but that cannot kill me. You may chop
off my nose but that will not kill me. But blast my belief
in God, and I am dead.
Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been
know to yield to the influence of love. You must never
despair of human nature.
Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of
life. What would a man not pay for living ?
I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a
difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal
effort. It can be done only by God's grace.
Everyone has faith in God though everyone does not know it.
For everyone has faith in himself and that multiplied to the
nth degree is God. The sum total of all that lives is God.
We may not be God, but we are of God, even as a little drop
of water is of the ocean.
There is no one without faults, not even men of God. They
are men of God not because they are faultless, but because
they know their own faults, they strive against them, they
do not hide them, and are ever ready to correct themselves.
Non-violence and cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a
fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms
implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true
non-violence is an impossibility without the possession of
unadulterated fearlessness.
Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot
command results, we can only strive.
The hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so must
the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of
non- violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of
non-violence to generate heat.
Rights accrue automatically to him who duly performs his
duties. In fact the right to perform one's duties is the
only right that is worth living for and dying for. It covers
all legitimate rights. All the rest is grab under one guise
or another and contains in it seed of Himsa.
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.
Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is
spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food
for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot
exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment.
A dissolute character is more dissolute in thought than in
deed. And the same is true of violence. Our violence in word
and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging violence of
thought in us.
Democracy must in essence, therefore, mean the art and
science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and
spiritual resources of all the various sections of the
people in the service of the common good of all.
A principle is a principle. and in no case can it be watered
down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We
have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be
conscious, deliberate and hard.
A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of
itspeople.
Who am I? I have no strength save what God gives me. I have
no authority over my countrymen save the pure moral. If He
holds me to be a pure instrument for the spread of
non-violence in place of the awful violence now ruling the
earth, He will give me the strength and show me the way. My
greatest weapon is mute prayer. The cause of peace is
therefore, in God's good hands.
I want to see India free in my life-time. But God may not
consider me fit enough to see the dream of my life
fulfilled. Then I shall quarrel, not with Him but with
myself.
All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be
no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere
fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.
Between husband and wife there should be no secrets from one
another. I have a very high opinion of the marriage tie. I
hold that husband and wife merge in each other. They are one
in two or two in one.
It is foolish to think that by fleeing one can trick the
dread god of death. Let us treat him as a beneficent angel
rather than a dread god. We must face and welcome him
whenever he comes.
It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e.
hate, ruled us we should have become extinct long ago. And
yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men
and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society
was violence.
The badge of the violent is his weapon, spear, sword or
rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent.
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.
It is through truth non-violence that I can have some
glimpseof God. Truth non-violence are my God. They are the
obverse and reverse of the same coin.
Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by
his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our
hearts.
Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or
woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in
the purity of our hearts.
An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his
principles as we would expect others to have for ours.
Non-violence demands that we should seek every opportunity
to win over opponents.
Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in
reaching it.
Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than
his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations,
however noble and great the latter may be.
No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the
test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of
society in which the values will have changed and character,
not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of
merit.
How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse
to do the master's bidding. He may torture me, break my
bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead
body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who
am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to
do what he wanted done.
Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also
faith in man.
Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and
high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily
wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
Power invariably elects to go into the hands of the strong.
That strength may be physical or of the heart or, if we do
not fight shy of the word, of the spirit. Strength of the
heart connotes soul-force. Let it be remembered that
physical force is transitory, even as the body is
transitory. But the power of the spirit is permanent even as
the spirit is everlasting.
Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering
quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for
saints only but for all.
My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction
to the human family, that every man or woman, however weak
in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and
liberty, and that this defence prevails, though the world be
against the individual resister.
Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the
dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel
stronger for confession.
I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I
am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things
dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the
sacrifice demanded my very life, I hope I may be prepared to
give it.
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our
writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our
lives be open books for all to study.
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He
is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not
an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is
not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are
not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a
favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.
|