It is easier to bridge the oceans that lie between continents than it is to bridge the gap between individuals or the peoples.

I reject violence, because the good that it appears to produce does not last long; in contrast the badness that it produces is long-lasting.

Violence is the weapon of the weak; non-violence the weapon of the strong.

For the nonviolent person, the whole world is one family. He will fear none, nor will others fear him.

There is only one way of achieving independence through non-violence: when we die, we live, when we kill, never.

I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness

In its most dynamic form non-violence means conscious suffering. It does not mean submitting in humiliation to the will of the wrongdoer, rather matching oneself up against the tyrant's will with one's entire soul.

It is a fundamental principle of Satyagraha that the tyrant whom the Satyagrahi seeks to resist has power over his body and material possessions but he can have no power over the soul. The soul can remain unconquered and unconquerable even when the body is imprisoned.

Wherein is courage required--in blowing others to pieces from behind a cannon, or with a smiling face to approach a cannon and be blown to pieces? Who is the true warrior--he who keeps death always as a bosom-friend, or he who controls the death of others?

The Satyagrahi strives to reach the reason through the heart. The method of reaching the heart is to awaken public opinion. Public opinion for which one cares is a mightier force than that of gunpowder.

Nonviolence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but it means the pitting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, 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 regeneration.

The pledge of no-violence does not require us to cooperate in our humiliation. It, therefore, does not require us to crawl on our bellies or to draw lines with our noses or to walk to salute the Union Jack or to do anything degrading at the dictation of officials. On the contrary our creed requires us to refuse to do any of these things even though we should be shot.

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapons of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

Before one can be fit for the practice of civil disobedience one must have rendered a willing and respectful obedience to the State laws...It is only when a person has thus obeyed the laws of society scrupulously that he is in a position to judge s to which particular rules are good and just and which unjust and iniquitous.

Every state puts down criminal disobedience by force. It perishes, if it does not. But to put down civil disobedience is an attempt to imprison conscience.

Love is never demanding, but only giving. Love only suffers, never regrets and never seeks revenge.

One thing became deeply rooted within me: the belief that morality is the basis of all things and that truth is the substance of all morality. Truth became my only goal. It became more important with each passing day and my understanding of it became ever wider.

I regard myself as being incapable of hating any form of life on earth. On a long journey of discipline of prayer, I stopped hating anyone over forty years ago. I know that this is a great demand. Yet I hold it in all humbleness.

My life is a inseparable whole, and all my actions blend into one; and they all have their origins in my love to people that cannot be saturated.

The fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. Therefore, the greatest and most unimpeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in spite of the wars of the world, it still lives on.

One is obtained by fear of punishment and the other by arts of love.  Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment.

Even the smallest untruth spoils man like a drop of poison spoils an entire lake.

Three quarters of all disagreement and misunderstandings would disappear from the world, were we able to put ourselves in the shoes of our opponents and understand their views. Either we would come to an agreement with them or we would think charitably of them.

I once went to an English barber in Pretoria. He refused to cut my hair. I was deeply insulted, but decided to buy a pair of scissors and cut my own hair in front of the mirror. I more or less managed to cut the front of my hair, but made a real mess of the back. My friends in court almost doubled up with laughter. "What on earth has happened to your hair Gandhi? Have rats been at it? "No", I said, "the white barber did not want to stoop so low as to handle my black hair. I decided, therefore, to cut it myself, regardless of the results." My answer didn't surprise my friends. The barber couldn't be criticized for refusing to cut my hair. He would have lost customers, had he cut the hair of coloreds. We (Indians) also do not allow our barbers to touch the hair of our untouchable brothers. I paid the price for this in South Africa, not once, but often, and the belief that this was the punishment for our own sins prevented me from being annoyed.

To disregard a single creature means disregarding God's power and therefore to harm this single creature means harming the entire world.