Mahatma Gandhi Thinking Quotations

I learnt the lesson on nonviolence from my wife, when I tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering my stupidity involved on the other, ultimately made me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her.

High thinking is inconsistent with a complicated material life based on high speed and imposed on us by mammon worship.

I do not like the word tolerance, but could not think of a better one. Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of other faiths to one

Faith is a function of the heart. It must be enforced by reason. The two are not antagonistic as some think. The more intense one's faith is, the more it whets one's reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.

It hurts me to think that people in their rush for everything modern despise all their ancient traditions and ignore them in their lives.

Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.

If you think the world is all wrong, remember that it contains people like you.

Before [Hindus and Moslems] dare think of freedom, they must be brave enough to love one another, to tolerate one another's religion, even prejudices and superstitions, and to trust one another. This requires faith in oneself.

I think it would be an excellent idea.

Mr. Gandhi, you have been working fifteen hours a day for fifty years. Don't you think you should take a vacation?" Gandhi smiled and replied, "I am always on vacation.

I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.

As the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or legislate for, the Indian.

Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.

I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of reincarnation, I live in the hope that if not in this birth, in some other birth I shall be able to hug all of humanity in friendly embrace.

Just think out for yourselves, if a man who was good yesterday has become bad after having come in contact with me, is he responsible that he has deteriorated or am I? ... It is well to take the blame sometimes.

We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do... We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race.

I think it would be a good idea.

Everyone wants to be strong and self sufficient, but few are willing to put in the work necessary to achieve worthy goals.

Detachment is not indifference. it is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachments to our opinions. We want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others needs and understand how to serve them.

At times of writing I never think what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.

If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.

In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.

Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither religion or politics... The things that will destroy us are: politics without principles, pleasures without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality.

We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they (the Whites) do...by advocating the purity of all races.

It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.

Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super-atheist.

Do not crave to know the views of others, nor base your intent thereon. To think independently for yourself is a sign of fearlessness.

If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.

I am just not thinking of India's deliverance. It will come, but will it be worth if England and France fall, or if they come out victorious over Germany ruined and humbled?

Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer and Lokmanya Tilak a greater scholar if they had not to start with the handicap of having to think in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English.

We, the English educated Indians, often unconsciously make the terrible mistake of thinking that the microscopic minority of the English-speaking Indians is the whole of India.

I am not fighting machinery as such, but the madness of thinking that machinery saves labor. Men save labor until thousands of them are without work and die of hunger on the streets. I want to secure employment and livelihood not only to part of the human race, but for all. I will not have the enrichment of a few at the expense of the community. At present the machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses. The motive force of this minority is not humanity or love of their kind, but greed and avarice.

Think of the poorest person you know and see if your next act will be of any use to him.

You may think your actions are meaningless and that they won't help, but that is no excuse, you must still act.

The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see Truth in fragment and from different points of vision.

The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

Think for tomorrow but act for today.

Newspapers should be read for the study of facts. They should not be allowed to kill the habit of independent thinking.

A democrat must be utterly selfless. He must think and dream not in terms of self or of party, but only of democracy.

Where death without resistance or death after resistance is the only way, neither party should think of resorting to law-courts or help from the government.

So long as we fear the outside world, we must cease to think of Swaraj.

Men aspiring to be free can hardly think of enslaving others.

I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man.

Where there are millions upon millions of units of idle labour, it is no use thinking of labour-saving devices.