Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti: 100+ Quotes by the Father of India

India observes Gandhi Jayanti every year on October 2, to honor, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. He played a vital role in India’s Independence Day and he was a pioneer in the philosophy and strategy of non-violence. 

This day is one of the national holidays in India. In 2007, the United Nations of India declared this day as the International Day of Non-Violence. On this special day, here are the top 100 quotes by Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi Quotes: 100+ Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

1. “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.”
2. “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.”
3. “Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.”
4. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
5. “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
6. “Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.”
7. “Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”
8. “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”
9. “The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.”
10. “There is no god higher than truth.”
11. “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
12. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
13. “A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.”
14. “To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
15. “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.”
16. “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
17. “The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.”
18. “The true source of rights is duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek.”
19. “Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?”
20. “Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.”
21. “There is no path to peace; peace is the path.”
22. “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”
23. “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
24. “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
25. “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.”
26. “God has no religion.”
27. “The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.”
28. “I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.”
29. “Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.”
30. “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
31. On Leadership and Service
32. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
33. “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”
34. “The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one.”
35. “Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.”
36. “A leader is useless when he acts against the promptings of his own conscience.”
37. “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
38. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
39. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
40. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
41. “You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.”
42. “Simplicity is the essence of universality.”
43. “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
44. “The less you possess, the less you want, the better you are. And better for your fellow men.”
45. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
46. “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
47. “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”
48. “Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.”
49. “It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.”
50. “An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
51. “The best politics is right action.”
52. “Literacy in itself is no education. Literacy is not the end of education or even the beginning.”
53. “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.”
54. “The true education is one that draws out and stimulates the spiritual, intellectual, and physical faculties of the children.”
55. “By education, I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in the child and man—body, mind, and spirit.”
56. “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
57. “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
58. “It is the action, not the fruit of the action, that is important. You have to do what is right.”
59. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
60. “The future depends on what you do today.”
61. “Action expresses priorities.”
62. “Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities.”
63. “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman.”
64. “Women are special custodians of all that is pure and religious in life.”
65. “Man can never be a woman’s equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.”
66. “If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, woman is less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior.”
67. “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”
68. “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
69. “The rich must live more simply so that the poor may simply live.”
70. “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
71. “There is enough on this planet for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed.”
72. “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be.”
73. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
74. “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
75. “In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”
76. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
77. “The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
78. “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.”
79. “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
80. “Where there is love, there is life.”
81. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
82. “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be.”
83. “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
84. “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
85. “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
86. “It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.”
87. “Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.”
88. “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”
89. “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.”
90. “In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
91. “Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies.”
92. “The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.”
93. “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
94. “I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
95. “I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”
96. “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
97. “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
98. “Civilization is the encouragement of differences.”
99. “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
100. “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman.”
101. “Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency.”
102. “A leader is useless when he acts against the promptings of his own conscience.”
103. “True leaders are those who are open to self-correction.”
104. “Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.”
105. “The best politics is right action.”
106. “The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one.”