Gandhi Quotes

“True beauty after all consists in purity of heart. With”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of 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.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography - The Story of My Experiments With Truth

“For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from Him, Who as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and Whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them.”
― M.K Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography

“the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“True beauty after all consists in purity of heart.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth

“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.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth

“I believed then, and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's meals. It is my humble opinion that, far from taking away from one's capacity for work, it adds to it.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth

“It was with some difficulty that I got through the multiplication tables. The fact that I recollect nothing more of those days than having learnt, in company with other boys, to call our teacher all kinds of names, would strongly suggest that my intellect must have been sluggish, and my memory raw.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth

“Mama’ (literally, maternal uncle),”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Kaka’ (literally, paternal uncle).”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Who can say thus far, no further, to the tide of his own nature?” Who can erase the impressions with which he is born? It is idle to expect one’s children and wards necessarily to follow the same course of evolution as oneself.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question. How was one to treat alike insulting, insolent and corrupt officials, co-workers of yesterday raising meaningless opposition, and men who had always been good to one? How was one to divest oneself of all possessions? Was not the body itself possession enough? Were not wife and children possessions? Was I to destroy all the cupboards of books I had? Was I to give up all I had and follow Him? Straight came the answer: I could not follow Him unless I gave up all I had.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“I realised that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism to a real monogamous marriage. “I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows,” is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realised the necessity of definite action. “But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow?” Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Scatter her enemies, And make them fall; Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Ramanama”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Let every young man and woman be warned by my example, and understand that good handwriting is a necessary part of education. I am now of the opinion that children should first be taught the art of drawing before learning how to write. Let the child learn his letters by observation as he does different objects, such as flowers, birds, etc., and let him learn handwriting only after he has learnt to draw objects. He will then write a beautifully formed hand.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“bad handwriting should be regarded as a sign of an imperfect education.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“I realised that even a man’s reforming zeal ought not to make him exceed his limits. I also saw that in thus lending trust-money I had disobeyed the cardinal teaching of the Gita, viz., the duty of a man of equipoise to act without desire for the fruit. The error became for me a beacon-light of warning.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“My regard for jurisprudence increased, I discovered in it religion. I understood the Gita teaching of non-possession to mean that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“understood more clearly in the light of the Gita teaching the implication of the word ‘trustee’.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“I can think of only one remedy for this awful state of things—that educated men should make a point of travelling thirdclass and reforming the habits of the people, as also of never letting the railway authorities rest in peace, sending in complaints wherever necessary, never resorting to bribes or any unlawful means for obtaining their own comforts, and never putting up with infringements of rules on the part of anyone concerned.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“These unpleasant habits commonly include throwing of rubbish on the floor of the compartment, smoking at all hours and in all places, betel and tobacco chewing, converting of the whole carriage into a spittoon, shouting and yelling, and using foul language, regardless of the convenience or comfort of fellow-passengers.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“The indifference of the railway authorities to the comforts of the third-class passengers, combined with the dirty and inconsiderate habits of the passengers themselves, makes third-class travelling a trial for a passenger of cleanly ways.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Europe I travelled third—and only once first, just to see what it was like—but there I noticed no such difference between the first and the third-classes. In South Africa third-class passengers are mostly Negroes, yet the third-class comforts are better there than here.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“Third-class passengers are treated like sheep and their comforts are sheep’s comforts.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“The terrible sacrifice offered to Kali in the name of religion enhanced my desire to know Bengali”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“To see Gokhale at work was as much a joy as an education. He never wasted a minute. His private relations and friendships were all for public good. All his talks had reference only to the good of the country and were absolutely free from any trace of untruth or insincerity.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“And now after considerable experience with the many public institutions which I have managed, it has become my firm conviction that it is not good to run public institutions on permanent funds. A permanent fund carries in itself the seed of the moral fall of the institution. A public institution means an institution conducted with the approval, and from the funds, of the public. When such an institution ceases to have public support, it forfeits its right to exist. Institutions maintained on permanent funds are often found to ignore public opinion, and are frequently responsible for acts contrary to it. In our country we experience this at every step. Some of the so-called religious trusts have ceased to render any accounts.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

“I read with interest Max Muller’s book, India—What Can It Teach Us? and the translation of the Upanishads published by the Theosophical Society. All this enhanced my regard for Hinduism, and its beauties began to grow upon me. It did not, however, prejudice me against other religions.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi