Quotes from Mahatma Gandhi

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

It is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour, his religion, his soul, and lay the foundation for that empire's fall or its regeneration.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.

Morality is contraband in war.

A warrior lives on his wars, whether offensive or defensive. And he suffers a collapse if he finds that his warring capacity is unwanted.

War is an unmitigated evil. But it certainly does one good thing. It drives away fear and brings bravery to the surface.

When a man vowed to nonviolence as the law governing human beings dares to refer to war, he can only do it so as to strain every nerve to avoid it.

As in laws or in war, the longest purse finally wins.

Whoever is victor, there should be, after the war, a commonwealth of all nations.

Democracy necessarily means a conflict of will and ideas, involving sometimes a war of the knife between different ideas.

The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.

War knows no law except that of might.

History is a record of perpetual wars, but we are now trying to make new history.

I believe all war to be wholly wrong.

You cannot stop big wars if you carry on little wars yourselves.

No Swaraj government with any pretension to being a popular government can possibly be organised and maintained on a war-footing.

Truth and non-violence are not cloistered virtues but applicable as much in the forum and the legislatures as in the market place.

I believe that it is impossible to end hatred with hatred.

I cannot give active support in the war effort without denying a life-time of practice.

Nonviolence requires more courage than the soldier of war.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act which deprived a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.