Mahatma Gandhi Self Quotations

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

Remember that there is always a limit to self-indulgence, but none to self-restraint.

Your character must be above suspicion and you must be truthful and self-controlled.

Each and every one of you should consider himself to be a trustee for the welfare of the rest of his fellow labourers and not be self-seeking.

Leo Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non­resistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self­suffering.

It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all.

You will eat not to satisfy your palate but your hunger. A self-indulgent man lives to eat; a self-restrained man eats to live.

Truth, purity, self-control, firmness, fearlessness, humility, unity, peace, and renunciation - these are the inherent qualities of a civil resister.

Nanda broke down every barrier and won his way to freedom not by brag, not by bluster, but by the purest form of self-suffering.

If we were strong, self-respecting and not susceptible to frightfulness, the foreign rulers would have been powerless for mischief.

Spiritual instruments suffer in their potency when their use is taught through non-spiritual messages which are self-propagating.

Voluntary service of others demands the best of which one is capable, and must take precedence over service of self.

It is the function of God Rama to destroy evil, wherever it occurs and it is equally the function of God Rama to give to his devotees like Bibhishana a free charter of irrevocable self-government.

The one condition for fighting for peace and liberty is to acquire self-restraint.

We must learn to be self-reliant and independent of schools, courts, protection and patronage of a Government we seek to end, if it will not mend.

There is always the fear of self-righteousness possessing us, the fear of arrogating to ourselves a superiority that we do not possess.

This civilization is such that one has only to be patient and it will be self-destroyed.

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke.

All true art must help the soul to realize its inner self.

The function of violence is to obtain reform by external means, the function of passive resistance, that is, soul-force, is to obtain it by growth from within, which, in its turn, is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification.

Any act of injury done from self-interest, whether amounting to killing or not, is doubtless himsa.

To yield to the threat or actual use of violence is a surrender of one's self respect and religious conviction.

The highest truth needs no communicating, for it is by its very nature self-propelling. It radiates its influence silently as the rose its fragrance without the intervention of a medium.

The quest of Truth involves tapas-self-suffering-sometimes even unto death.

Every truth is self-acting and possesses inherent strength.

Truth is self-evident, nonviolence is its maturest fruit. It is contained in truth, but is not self-evident.

My Swaraj will be not be a result of murder of others but a voluntary act of continuous self-sacrifice.

Swaraj of a people means the sum total of the Swaraj (self-rule) of individuals.

The satyagrahi general has to obey his inner voice, for over and above the situation outside he examines himself constantly and listens to the dictates of the inner self.

To benefit by others' killing and to delude oneself into the belief that one is being very religions and nonviolent is sheer self-deception.

A resolute and wise refusal to take part in festivities will be an incentive for introspection and self-purification.

A complete fast is a complete and literal denial of self. It is the truest prayer.

If we are nonviolent through and through, our nonviolence would have been self-evident.

A nonviolent life is an act of self-examination and self-purification, whether by an individual, group or nation.

Nonviolent attainment of self-government presupposes a non-violent control over the violent elements in the country.

A country whose culture is based on nonviolence will find it necessary to have every home as much self-contained as possible.

Self-suppression is often necessary in the interest of truth and nonviolence.

You cannot build nonviolence on a factory civilization, but it can be built on self-contained villages.

Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.

At the centre of nonviolence is a force which is self-acting.

The primary object of non-co-operation is nowhere stated to be paralysis of the Government. The primary object is self-purification.

It is nonviolent non-co-operation which evokes the highest spirit of self-sacrifice that will wean one from the error of one's ways.

Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self-sacrifice.

If every component part of the nation claims the right of self-determination for itself, there is no one nation and there is no independence.

Men of stainless character and self purification will easily inspire confidence and automatically purify the atmosphere around them.

Love can never express itself by imposing sufferings on others. It can only express itself by self-suffering, by self-purification.

For a firm believer in swadeshi, there need be no Pharisaical self-satisfaction in wearing khadi.

In a self-respecting India, is not every woman's virtue as much every man's concern as his own sister's?

Let India become alive by self-purification, that is self-restraint and self-denial, and she will be a boon to herself and mankind.

All the four stages in a man's life are devised by the seers in Hinduism for imposing discipline and self-restraint.

What I want to achieve, what I have been striving and pining for these thirty years, is self-realization, that is, to see God face to face.

God demands nothing less than self - surrender as the price for the only real freedom that is worth having.

One hour spent in spinning should be an hour of self-development for the spinner.

If hand-spinning is an effective method of making India self-supporting, it must be made part of the franchise.

To one who reads the spirit of the Gita, it teaches the secret of nonviolence, the secret of realizing self through the physical body.

The object of the Gita appears to me to be that of showing the most excellent way to attain self-realization.

Self-realization is the object of the Gita, as it is of all scriptures.

A votary of ahimsa must cultivate the habit of unremitting toil, sleepless vigilance, ceaseless self-control.

My method is conversion, not coercion, it is self-suffering, not the suffering of the tyrant. I know that method to be infallible.

Remember there is always a limit to self-indulgence, none to restraint... Civilization , in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication but in the deliberate and voluntary restriction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment , and increases the capacity for service .

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.

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.

Fasting is futile unless it is accompanied by an incessant longing for self-restraint.

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.

To run away from danger, instead of facing it, is to deny one's faith in man and God, even one's own self. It were better for one to drown oneself than live to declare such bankruptcy of faith.

Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others.

Man does not live by bread alone. Many prefer self-respect to food.

The only safe and honorable course for a self-respecting man is to do what I have decided to do, that is, to submit without protest to the penalty of disobedience ... not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience.

There is always a limit to self-indulgence, but none to self-restraint.

At the individual level Swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for dispassionate self-assessment , ceaseless self purification and growing self-reliance.... It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves

Only an arrogant man will claim to be independent of everybody else and be self-contained.

The strength to kill is not essential for self-defence; one ought to have the strength to die.

It was Ba's inspiration which helped me reach the heights of my inner self. She was my priceless jewel.

Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.

When anything assumes the strength of a creed, it becomes self-sustained and derives the needed support from within.

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.

Golden fetters are no less galling to a self-respecting man that iron ones; the sting lies in the fetters, not in the metal.

Life is an aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection, which is self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or imperfections.

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

Patience means self-suffering.

I came in contact with every known Indian anarchist in London. Their bravery impressed me, but I felt that their zeal was misguided. I felt that violence was no remedy for India's ills, and that her civilisation required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection. - Hind Swaraj

Birth-control through self-restraint is the most desirable, sensible and totally harmless method.

Self-restraint is the very keystone of the ethics of vow-taking.

Individual civil disobedience was everybody's inherent right, like the right of self-defence in normal life.

A courageous man prefers death to the surrender of self-respect.

Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.

To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.

Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.

I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.

Self-defense...is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.

Good government is no substitute for self-government.

Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

Self-respect knows no considerations.

Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…

Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.

I become more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of Hussein, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers and his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.