Mahatma Gandhi was one extraordinary human being whose views and speeches were always unmatched and unparalleled from the crowd. With his non-violence principle during India’s freedom struggle from British rule and in turn inspiring civil rights and freedom across the world, Gandhi was indeed one of the greatest leaders the world could witness. He was a lawyer and he is also known as anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist. Mahatma Gandhi was the kind of man like whom no one was born before or like whom no one can be found today. He chose not to succumb to racial discriminations he and others faced. Through his experiences he learned about the unchanged attitudes and perceptions of British towards people of color, despite all his efforts to change it, thus eventually transforming him into an “uncompromising non-cooperator”. However, instead of adopting or inciting violence, Gandhi always chose to walk on the path of Ahimsa and peace and encouraged the masses to do the same. He is always inspirational and the quotes by Gandhi are enlightening and inspiring.
Here are the 18 Greatest Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi:
1. 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.
2. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
3. For me the different religions are beautiful flowers from the same garden, or they are branches of the same majestic tree. Therefore they are equally true, though being received and interpreted through human instruments equally imperfect.
4. Man should learn to give place to women and a community or country in which women are not honored cannot be considered as civilized.
5. My life is my message.
6. A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
7. I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent.
8. To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior.
9. 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.
10. But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment, forgiveness adorns a soldier.
11. Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.
12. If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence.
13. I believe in advaita [nonduality], I believe in the essential unity of man and for that matter of all that lives.
14. Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
15. Always believe in your dreams, because if you don’t, you’ll still have hope.
16. Selfishness is blind.
17. I regard myself as a soldier, though a soldier of peace.
18. Impure means result in an impure end… One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach Truth.