Mahatma Gandhi Spiritual Quotations

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home

Live simply so that others may simply live.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him.

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.

The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.

There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.

I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.

I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian.

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.

Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.

God has no religion.

Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak.

I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.

The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see Truth in fragment and from different points of vision.

I learned from Hussain how to be wronged and be a winner, I learnt from Hussain how to attain victory while being oppressed.

The deepest spiritual truths are always unutterable.

By spiritual training I mean education of the heart.

Great causes cannot be served by intellectual equipment alone, they call for spiritual effort of soul-force.

Spiritual force is like any other force at the service of man.

Spiritual instruments suffer in their potency when their use is taught through non-spiritual messages which are self-propagating.

Temples are like spiritual hospitals, and the sinful, who are spiritually diseased, have the first right to be ministered to by them.

Mortification of the flesh has been held all the world over as a condition of spiritual progress.

One's everyday life is never capable of being separated from his spiritual being.

Let not the spirit wander while the words of prayer run on out of our mouth.

Tolerance gives us spiritual insight, which is as far from fanaticism as the north pole is from the south.

I do not believe that the spiritual law works on a field of its own. On the contrary, it expresses itself only through the ordinary activities of life. It thus affects the economic, the social and the political fields.

For the poor, the economic is spiritual.

If India is not to declare spiritual bankruptcy, religious instruction of its youth must be held to be at least as necessary as secular instruction.

Whatever else India may not be, she is at least one thing, She is the greatest storehouse of spiritual knowledge.

Khaddar delivers the poor from the bonds of the rich and creates a moral and spiritual bond between the classes and the masses.

A man who would interpret the scriptures must have the spiritual discipline.

The fragrance of religious and spiritual life is much finer and subtler than that of the rose.

Satyagraha is a purely spiritual weapon.

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.

There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!

We often confuse spiritual knowledge with spiritual attainment. Spirituality is not a matter of knowing scriptures and engaging in philosophical discussions. It is a matter of heart culture, of unmeasurable strength.

One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole

Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.

There is no 'way to peace,' there is only 'peace.

I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but each step upwards makes me feel stronger and fit for the next.

If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly.

They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.

What barrier is there that love cannot break?

Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.

The path is the goal.

True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.

All your scholarship would be in vain if at the same time you do not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.

The various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination?

True beauty lies in purity of the heart.

True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.

I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.

It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.

There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.

If I were asked to define the Hindu creed, I should simply say: Search after truth through non-violent means. A man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu. Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth... Hinduism is the religion of truth. Truth is God. Denial of God we have known. Denial of truth we have not known.

Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the material progress that Western science has made. Ancient India has survived because Hinduism was not developed along material but spiritual lines.

I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.

The only difference between man and man all the world over is one of degree, and not of kind, even as there is between trees of the same species. Where in is the cause for anger, envy or discrimination?

No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.

I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am invincible.

Everyone holds a piece of the truth.

Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man's supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live.

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.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.

It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.

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.

But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.

I should love to satisfy all, if I possibly can; but in trying to satisfy all, I may be able to satisfy none. I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the best course is to satisfy one’s own conscience and leave the world to form its own judgment, favorable or otherwise.

Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state.

To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that one that must be loved is not a friend. There is not merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.

There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.

Don't talk about it. The rose doesn't have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth, and people are drawn to it. Live it, and people will come to see the source of your power.

A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness can be spread without diminishing that of yourself.

There are no good-byes, where ever you'll be, you'll be in my heart.

Just think out for yourselves, if a man who was good yesterday has become bad after having come in contact with me, is he responsible that he has deteriorated or am I? ... It is well to take the blame sometimes.

The ally we must cultivate is the part of our enemy which knows the truth.

The story of Ramakrishna is a story of religion in practice. His life enables us to see God face to face.... In this age of skepticism Ramakrishna presents an example of a bright and living faith which gives solace to thousands of men and women who would otherwise have remained without spiritual light.

Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment.

The ideal that marriage aims at is that of spiritual union through the physical. The human love that it incarnates is intended to serve as a stepping stone to diving or universal love.