Gandhi Quotes

Regarding Jesus:

• "The message of Jesus as I understand it," said Gandhi, "is contained in the Sermon on the Mount unadulterated and taken as a whole... If then I had to face only the Sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I should not hesitate to say, 'Oh, yes, I am a Christian.' But negatively I can tell you that in my humble opinion, what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount... I am speaking of the Christian belief, of Christianity as it is understood in the west."
• "I consider myself a soldier."
• "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
  
• Talking about the Gospel passage of the rich young man, he said, "St. Mark has vividly described the scene. Jesus is in his solemn mood. He is earnest. He talks about eternity. He knows the world about him. He is himself the greatest economist of his time. He succeeded in sermonising time and space - He transcends them. It is to him at the best that one comes running, kneels down and asks, "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said unto him, "One thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell what thou hast and give it to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven - come, take up the cross and follow me." Here you have an eternal rule of life stated in the noblest words the English language is capable of producing." Let us seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, he said, and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added upon us. "These are real economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life."
• "Of all the things I have read what remained with me forever was that Jesus came almost to give a new law - not an eye for an eye but to receive two blows when only one was given, and to go two miles when they were asked to go one. I came to see that the Sermon on the Mount was the whole of Christianity for him who wanted to live a Christian life. It is that sermon that has endeared Jesus to me."
• "Jesus occupies in my heart," said Gandhi, "the place of one of the greatest teachers who have had a considerable influence on my life. I shall say to the Hindus that your life will be incomplete unless you reverentially study the teachings of Jesus... Make this world the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything will be added unto you. I tell you that if you will understand, appreciate, and act up to the spirit of this passage, you won't need to know what place Jesus or any other teacher occupies in your heart."
• "The example of Jesus suffering is a factor in the composition of my un-dying faith in non-violence. What then does Jesus mean to me? To me, He was one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever had."
• "in Jesus' own life was the key of his nearness to God, that he expressed as no other could, the spirit and will of God... I do believe that something of the spirit that Jesus exemplified in the highest measure, in its most profound human sense exist... If I did not believe it, I should be a sceptic, and to be a sceptic is to live a life that is empty and lacking moral content. Or, what is the same thing, to condemn the human race to a negative end."
• "I refuse to believe that there not exists or has ever existed a person that has not made use of his example to lessen his sins, even though he may have done so without realising it. The lives of all have, in some greater or lesser degree, been changed by His presence, His actions and the words spoken by His divine voice... I believe that he belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world; to all races and people, it matters litle under what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith or worship a God inherited from their ancestors."
• "Seeming failure is not of the law of Satyagraha but of incompetence of the Satyagrahist by whatever cause induced. The name of Jesus at once comes to the lips. It is an instance of brillant failure. And he has been acclaimed in the west as the prince of passive resisters. I showed years ago in South Africa that the adjective 'passive' was a misnomer, at least as applied to Jesus. He was the most active resister known perhaps to history. His was non-violence par excellence."
• "stagger humanity without shedding a drop of blood," by following the example of "Gentle Jesus, the greatest passive resister the world has seen." Though Jesus died, Gandhi said, "He lives in the memory of all true sons of God."
• would-be saints have always tried to imitate Christ, and Gandhi's aim "to live the Sermon on the Mount" puts him in that tradition, even to the point of martyrdom.
• want to tell others what I feel so particularly keen about, namely what is called non-resistance, but what is essentially nothing other than the teaching of love undistorted by false interpretations…This law has been proclaimed by all the world's sages, Indian, Chinese, Jewish, Greek, and Roman. I think it has been expressed most clearly of all by Christ…

Misc:

• "I am as certain as I am dictating these words that the stoniest German heart will melt [if only the Jews] . adopt active nonviolence. Human nature ... unfailingly responds to the advances of love. I do not despair of his [Hitler's] responding to human suffering even though caused by him."
• "Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs." Fischer asked: "You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?" Gandhi answered: "Yes, that would have been heroism."
• A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
• Action expresses priorities.
• A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
• A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
• A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
• Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
• An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
• An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
• Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
• An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
• There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e., the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.
  
• The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that too, unconditional assistance. Co-operation which needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which does not bind.
  
• Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realize that they need not fear brute force, if they would but know the soul within.
• Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
  Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
  It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
  Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy.
• They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.
  I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
• Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
• Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy.
• 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.
• An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it.
• Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
  Fear is not a disease of the body; fear kills the soul.
• The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
• An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
• Weeding is as necessary to agriculture as sowing.
• Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.

More at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mohandas_gandhi.html

Re Truth:

• Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
• Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
• My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
• Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
• Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it.
• The freedom from all attachment is the realization of God as Truth.
• Search for Truth is search for God. Truth is God. God is because Truth is.
• I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but another name for God.
• The fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. Therefore, the greatest and most unimpeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in spite of the wars of the world, it still lives on.
• Even the smallest untruth spoils man like a drop of poison spoils an entire lake.
• “Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.”
• “In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”
• “Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it.”
• “He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa [non-violence]. He who is angry is guilty of Himsa.”
• “Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for the confession.”
• “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.”
• “The only virtue I want to claim is truth and non-violence. I lay no claim to super-human powers. I want none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that the weakest of my fellow beings wears, and am therefore as liable to err as any. My services have many limitations, but God has up to now blessed them in spite of the imperfections.”
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