Mahatma Gandhi Fighting Quotations

I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption.

Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.

Anything which is a hindrance to the fight of the soul is a delusion and a snare, even like the body which often does hinder you in the path of salvation.

The one condition for fighting for peace and liberty is to acquire self-restraint.

Far better than emasculation would be the bravery of those who use physical force. Far better than cowardice would be meeting one's death fighting.

Could there be a greater proof of our cowardice than fighting amongst ourselves?

Ours is a civil fight, and imprisonment as a civil prisoner has got to be earned by the strict observance of the programme.

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.

My dictionary has no such expression as a violent fight.

My fight against untouchability is a fight against the impure in humanity.

A satyagrahi, whilst he is ever ready to fight, must be equally eager for peace.

The fight of satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid. Satyagraha teaches us the art of living as well as dying.

The Congress fights not with violent but with nonviolent means, however imperfect, however crude the nonviolence may be.

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

A nation that is unfit to fight cannot, from experience, prove the virtue of not fighting.

Fight if you must on the path of righteousness and God will be with you.

Can a general fight on the strength of soldiers, who, he knows, have no faith in him?

I may fight the British ruler, but I do not hate the English or their language. In fact, I appreciate their literary treasures.

I must fight unto the death the unholy attempt to impose British methods and British institutions on India.

My motto is "Unite now, today if you can; fight if you must. But in every case avoid British intervention."

A soldier fights with an irresistible strength when he has blown up his bridges and burnt his boats. Even so, it is with a soldier of ahimsa.

I am not fighting machinery as such, but the madness of thinking that machinery saves labor. Men save labor until thousands of them are without work and die of hunger on the streets. I want to secure employment and livelihood not only to part of the human race, but for all. I will not have the enrichment of a few at the expense of the community. At present the machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses. The motive force of this minority is not humanity or love of their kind, but greed and avarice.

Non-violence does not signify that man must not fight against the enemy, and by enemy is meant the evil which men do, not the human beings themselves.

Enter with me into the sufferings, not only of the people of India but of the whole world. Nonviolence is a more active and real fight against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. It is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest.

Celebration of Independence Day with great pomp and show was quite appropriate when we were fighting for independence which we had neither seen nor handled. Now we have handled it and we seem to be disillusioned. At least - I am, even if you are not. What are we celebrating today? Surely, not our disillusionment.

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.

I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for.

Every fight is one between different angles of vision illuminating the same truth.

Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid. The Valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone.

When two nations are fighting, the duty of a votary of ahimsa is to stop the war.

It amazes me to find an intelligent person who fights against something which he does not at all believe exists.

Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself

Power invariably elects to go into the hands of the strong. That strength may be physical or of the heart or, if we do not fight shy of the word, of the spirit. Strength of the heart connotes soul-force. Let it be remembered that physical force is transitory, even as the body is transitory. But the power of spirit is permanent even as the spirit is everlasting.

Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.