The Words of Mahatma Gandhi

1. Be the change you want to see in the world.

2. Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering.

3. The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly and act rightly.

4. The world is touched by sacrifice. The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective, it demands the sacrifice of the bravest.

5. Real suffering, bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And therein lies the key to Satyagraha (‘Truth-Force’).

6. There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.

7. I have not the shadow of 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.

8. Whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast.

9. There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, and that is the voice of conscience, even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear.

10. Under certain circumstances, fasting is the one weapon God has given us for use in times of utter helplessness.

11. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you. Then you win.

12. When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won.

13. A wise man deliberately forgets many things.

14. There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring.

15. The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

16.  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.

17. Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.

18. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

19.  For me, every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

20.  Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

21. When the cause is right, the means will come.

22. Men often hesitate to make a beginning because they feel that the objective cannot be achieved in its entirety. This attitude of mind is precisely our greatest obstacle to progress, an obstacle that each man, if he only wills it, can clear.

From Terence MacSwiney,  Irish freedom fighter, whose hunger strike to death in 1920 inspired Indian freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi –

It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will prevail.

 

From Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose missionary work for the poor enshrined Gandhian principles –

People are often unreasonable, irrational and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.