Mahatma Gandhi Ice Quotations

A nation that is capable of limitless sacrifice is capable of rising to limitless heights. The purer the sacrifice the quicker the progress.

I believe in the absolute oneness of God and, therefore, also of humanity. I have always believed God to be without form. What I did hear was like a Voice from afar, and yet quite near.

Is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater courage? Without her, man would not be. If nonviolence is to be the law of our being, the future is with women.

I refuse to buy from anybody anything however nice or beautiful if it interferes with my growth or injures those whom Nature has made my first care.

The State is the sum total of the sacrifice, on its behalf, of its members.

An ideal sanctified by the sacrifices of such master spirits as Lenin cannot go in vain, the noble example of their renunciation will be emblazoned for ever and quicken and purify the ideal as time passes.

Even the dog is described by the poet to have received justice under Ramarajya.

Liberty never meant the license to do anything at will.

The voice of the people may be said to be God's voice, the voice of the Panchayat.

It was the cowards who died many times before their death.

No police or military in the world can protect people who are cowards.

Cowardice is incompatible with divine wisdom.

It is a first class human tragedy that people of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus, whom they describe as the Prince of Peace, show little of that belief in actual practice.

A straight fight in an equal battle takes some bravery, but braver is he who, knowing that he would have to sacrifice ninety-five as against five of the enemy, faces death.

Active nonviolence of the brave puts to flight thieves, dacoits, murderers, and prepares an army of volunteers ready to sacrifice themselves in quelling riots, in extinguishing fires and feuds, and so on.

For thousands to do to death a few hundreds is no bravery. It is worse than cowardice. It is unworthy of nationalism, of any religion.

The art of producing good music from a cultivated voice can be achieved by many, but the art of producing that music from the harmony of a pure life is achieved very rarely.

In the Gita continuous concentration on God is the king of sacrifices.

Cowardice is not a sign of belief in God.

All of us with one voice call one God differently as Parmatma, Ishwara, Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Allah, Khuda, Dada-Hormuzda, Jehova, God and an infinite variety of names.

My firm belief is that he reveals Himself daily to every human being but we shut our ears to the still small Voice.

For me the Voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth or the Inner Voice or the still small Voice mean one and the same thing.

God, who is the embodiment of Truth and Right and Justice, can never have sanctioned a religion or practice which regards one - fifth of our vast population as untouchables.

God of Truth and Justice can never create distinctions of high and low among His own children.

God is always the upholder of justice.

God has enabled me to affect the life of the country since 1920 without the necessity of office.

God accepts the sacrifice of the pure in heart.

For the courage of self-sacrifice, woman is any time superior to man, as I believe man is to woman for the courage of the brute.

Woman is the embodiment of sacrifice and suffering and her advent to public life should, therefore, result in purifying it, in restraining unbridled ambition and accumulation of property.

Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion.

My Swaraj will be not be a result of murder of others but a voluntary act of continuous self-sacrifice.

No police officer could compel a satyagrahi to give evidence against a person who has confessed to him. A satyagrahi would never be guilty of a betrayal of trust.

The satyagrahi general has to obey his inner voice, for over and above the situation outside he examines himself constantly and listens to the dictates of the inner self.

To change one's religion under the threat of force is no conversion but rather cowardice.

To practice nonviolence in mundane matters is to know its true value.

If fighting for the legislatures meant a sacrifice of truth and nonviolence, democracy would not be worth a moment's purchase.

The practice of truth and nonviolence melted religious differences, and we learnt to see beauty in each religion.

Appreciation of nonviolence means patient research and still more patient and difficult practice.

Nonviolence is not an easy thing to understand, still less to practice, weak as we are.

Complete independence will be complete only to the extent of our approach in practice to truth and nonviolence.

Nonviolence and cowardice go ill together. True nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.

It is nonviolent non-co-operation which evokes the highest spirit of self-sacrifice that will wean one from the error of one's ways.

Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self-sacrifice.

It is for you and me to show that no vice is inherent in man.

Truth is what the voice within tells you.

There are unjust laws as there are unjust men.

If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef-tea or mutton, even under medical advice, I would prefer death.

Woman, I hold, is the personification of self-sacrifice, but unfortunately today she does not realize what a tremendous advantage she has over man. As Tolstoy used to say, they are laboring under the hypnotic influence of man. If they would realize the strength of non-violence they would not consent to be called the weaker sex.

The music of life is in danger of being lost in the music of the voice.

The willing sacrifice of the innocents is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet to be conceived by God or man.

Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others.

Retreat itself is often a plan of resistance and may be a precursor of great bravery and sacrifice. Every retreat is not cowardice which implies fear to die.

We have to make truth and non-violence not matters for mere individual practice but for practice by groups and communities and nations. That at any rate is my dream. I shall live and die in trying to realize it. My faith helps me to discover new truths every day.

The still small voice within you must always be the final arbiter when there is a conflict of duty.

Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not of cowardice.

Bullies are always to be found where there are cowards.

Even a believer in nonviolence has to say between two combatants which is less bad or whose cause is just.

You have the choice to create the life your heart is yearning to live.

Ahimsa is the highest duty. Even if we cannot practice it in full, we must try to understand its spirit and refrain as far as is humanly possible from violence.

No man could be actively nonviolent and not rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred.

The only true resistance to this Government... [is] to cease to co-operate with it.

Civility does not ...mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.

No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and, instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal.

To forgive and accept injustice is cowardice.

If one does not practice nonviolence in one's own personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken.

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 world is touched by sacrifice. It does not then discriminate about the merits of a cause. No so God - He is all seeing. He insists on the purity of the cause and on adequate sacrifice thereof.

For me the present is merged in eternity. I may not sacrifice the latter for the present.

I care so deeply about this matter that I'm willing to take on the legal penalties, to sit in this prison cell, to sacrifice my freedom, in order to show you how deeply I care. Because when you see the depth of my concern, and how civil I am in going about this, you're bound to change your mind about me, to abandon your rigid, unjust position, and to let me help you see the truth of my cause.

The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.

A non-violent revolution is not a program of seizure of power. It is a program of transformation of relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power.

Non-cooperation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it demands respect for the opposite views.

A principle is a principle and in no case can it be watered down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious, deliberate and hard.

It is not that I do not get angry. I don't give vent to my anger. I cultivate the quality of patience as angerlessness, and generally speaking, I succeed. But I only control my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant practice.

The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognise this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.

I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.

Nonviolence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice - nonviolence springs from love, cowardice from hate.

When you practice a life of non-violence you no longer need seek the truth, the truth finds you.

Just as one must learn the art of killing in the training for violence, so one must learn the art of dying in the training for non-violence. Violence does not mean the emancipation from fear, but discovering the means of combating the cause of fear. Nonviolence, on the other hand, has no cause for fear. The votary of nonviolence has to cultivate the capacity for sacrifice of the highest type in order to be free from fear. He recks not if he should lose his land, his wealth, his life.

Sacrifice that causes pain is no sacrifice at all. True sacrifice is joy-giving and uplifting.

I am not anti-English, I am not anti-British, I am not anti-any Government, but I am anti-untruth, anti-humbug and anti-injustice.

No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is 'making sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice.

To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.

The sacrifice which causes sorrow to the doer of the sacrifice is no sacrifice. Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy. The Buddha gave up the pleasures of life because they had become painful to him.

Justice does not help those who slumber but helps only those who are vigilant.

A life of sacrifice is the pinnacle of art, and is full of true joy.

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

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. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?

Vaccination is a barbarous practice and one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time. Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.

Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless gems. The deeper you dive the more treasures you find.

I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.

Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.

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

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.