Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
Whether one or many, I must declare my faith that it is better for India to discard violence altogether even for defending her borders
Is it not possible for us all to realize that the masses will never mount to freedom through murder?
The reaction that a ruthless dictator sets up in us either that of awe or pity according respectively as we react to him violently on nonviolently.
The Koran says that there can be no heaven for one who sheds the blood of an innocent neighbour.
My experience teaches me that truth can never be propagated by doing violence.
A civilization based on nonviolence must be different from that organized for violence.
We no longer have a choice between violence and non-violence. The choice of today stands between nonviolence or non-existence.
Nothing enduring can be built on violence.
When faced with a choice between violence and cowardice, always choose violence
An unjust law in itself is an act of violence.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence.
The truth is that cowardice itself is violence of a subtle type and therefore dangerous and far more difficult to eradicate than the habit of physical violence.
When the panchayat raj is established, public opinion will do what violence can never do.
The difficulty one experiences in meeting himsa arises from weakness of mind.
Our nonviolence in respect of the Government is a result of our incapacity for effective violence.
True ahimsa lay in running into the mouth of himsa.
The moral to be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is that it will not be destroyed by counter bombs even as violence cannot be by counter-violence.
The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.
The bomb-throwers have discredited the cause of freedom, in whose name they threw the bombs.
For me to dominate the Congress in spite of these fundamental differences is almost a species of violence which I must refrain from.
Any act of injury done from self-interest, whether amounting to killing or not, is doubtless himsa.
None, while in flesh, can be entirely free from himsa, because one never completely renounces the will to live.
The consumption of vegetables involves himsa, but I cannot give them up.
It is difficult to judge, when both sides are employing weapons of violence, which side 'deserves' to succeed.
The socialistic conception of the West was born in an environment reeking with violence.
By using violence to subjugate one another we are using violence against our own souls.
To prevent the workers from going to their work by standing in front of them is pure violence and must be given up.
The state represents violence in a concentrated and organize form.
We do want to drive out the beast in man, but we do not want on that account to emasculate him.
Peace through superior violence inevitably leads to the atom bomb and all that it stands for.
Armed conspiracies against something satanic is like matching Satans against Satan.
A successful bloody revolution can only mean further misery for the masses.
If there is violence, it will certainly be crushed because violence can only end in a disgraceful rout.
Violence is bound sooner or later to exhaust itself but peace cannot issue out of such exhaustion.
Our aim is not to do things by violence to opponents.
Violence always thrived on counter violence.
Civil disobedience does not admit of any violence or countenancing of violence directly or indirectly.
Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation.
What is gained by violence must be lost before superior violence.
Violence becomes imperative when an attempt is made to assert rights without any reference to duties.
I do not regard killing or assassination or terrorism as good in any circumstances whatsoever.
I do not want to live at the cost of the life even of a snake. I should let him bite me to death rather than kill him.
To kill these (rabid) dogs, in my opinion, amount to himsa, but I believe it to be inevitable if we are to escape much greater himsa.
For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence.
I would risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of the whole race.
My opposition to the socialist and the other consists in attacking violence as a means of effecting any lasting reform.
I condemn, for all climes and for all times, secret murders and unfair methods even for a fair cause.
Violence can only be effectively met by nonviolence. This is an old established truth.
My dictionary has no such expression as a violent fight.
I hold that the world is sick of armed rebellions.
Not violence, nor untruth but non-violence and Truth are the laws of our being.
With God as witness, I want to proclaim this truth, that the way of violence cannot bring Swaraj, it can only lead to disaster.
It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.
Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.
A nonviolent occupation is that occupation which is fundamentally free from violence and which involves no exploitation or envy of others.
The nation cannot be kept on the nonviolent path by violence.
If intellect plays a large part in the field of violence, I hold that it plays a larger part in the field of nonviolence.
My nonviolence does recognize different species of violence, defensive and offensive.
The rishis, who discovered the law of nonviolence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton.
The votaries of nonviolence cannot harbour violence even in thought, let alone the question of doing it.
If it is by force that we wish to achieve Swaraj, let us drop nonviolence and offer such violence as we may.
Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute.
Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.
Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.
Nonviolence in the sense of mere non-killing does not appear to me, therefore, to be of any improvement on the technique of violence.
Nonviolence of the strong is infinitely braver than their violence.
True nonviolence is mightier than the mightiest violence.
Non-co-operators will make a serious mistake if they seek to convert people to their creed by violence.
I isolate this non-co-operation from Sinn Feinism, for it is so conceived as to be incapable of being offered side by side with violence.
I have recognized that the nation has the right, if it so wills, to vindicate her freedom even by actual violence.
Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence.
The fragrance of nonviolence was never sweeter than it was today amidst the stink of violence of the most cowardly type that was being displayed in the cities of India.
I must declare that it is better for India do discard violence altogether even for defending her borders.
India's freedom will not be won by violence but only by the purest suffering without retaliation.
What senseless violence does is to prolong the lease of life of the British or foreign rule.
Just as there are signs by which you can recognize violence with the naked eye, so is the spinning wheel to me a decisive sign of nonviolence.
Khadi has been conceived as the foundation and the image of ahimsa. A real khadi-wearer will not utter an untruth. A real khadi-wearer will harbour no violence, no deceit, no impurity.
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.
Nonviolence is an unchangeable creed. It has to be pursued even in face of violence raging around you.
My non-violence bids me dedicate myself to the service of the minorities.
I have an implicit faith ... that mankind can only be saved through non-violence, which is the central teaching of the Bible, as I have understood the Bible.
What is wanted is a deliberate giving up of violence out of strength.
It is no non-violence if we merely love those that love us. It is non-violence only when we love those that hate us.
I have no secret methods. I know no diplomacy save that of truth. I have no weapon but non-violence.
Belief in non-violence is based on the assumption that human nature in the essence is one and therefore unfailingly responds to the advances of love ...
Nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger... . Between violence and cowardly flight I can only prefer violence to cowardice.
Poverty is the greatest violence.
Mental violence has no potency and injures only the person whose thoughts are violent. It is otherwise with mental non-violence. It has potency which the world does not yet know.
Violence will prevail over violence, only when someone can prove to me that darkness can be dispelled by darkness
If we know how much passive violence we perpetrate against one another, we will understand why there is so much physical violence plaguing societies and the world.
Strictly speaking, no activity and no industry is possible without a certain amount of violence, no matter how little. Even the very process of living is impossible without a certain amount of violence. What we have to do is to minimize it to the greatest extent possible.
Ahimsa is the highest duty. Even if we cannot practice it in full, we must try to understand its spirit and refrain as far as is humanly possible from violence.
In the application of the method of non-violence, one must believe in the possibility of every person, however depraved, being reformed under humane and skilled treatment.
Intolerance is a species of violence and therefore against our creed.
Violence begins with the fork.
Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic
Humankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter - hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred.
It is through truth & non-violence that I can have some glimpse of God. Truth & non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.