Mahatma Gandhi Violence Quotations

Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.

Whether one or many, I must declare my faith that it is better for India to discard violence altogether even for defending her borders

With God as witness, I want to proclaim this truth, that the way of violence cannot bring Swaraj, it can only lead to disaster.

Not violence, nor untruth but non-violence and Truth are the laws of our being.

I hold that the world is sick of armed rebellions.

My dictionary has no such expression as a violent fight.

Violence can only be effectively met by nonviolence. This is an old established truth.

I condemn, for all climes and for all times, secret murders and unfair methods even for a fair cause.

My opposition to the socialist and the other consists in attacking violence as a means of effecting any lasting reform.

I would risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of the whole race.

For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence.

To kill these (rabid) dogs, in my opinion, amount to himsa, but I believe it to be inevitable if we are to escape much greater himsa.

I do not want to live at the cost of the life even of a snake. I should let him bite me to death rather than kill him.

I do not regard killing or assassination or terrorism as good in any circumstances whatsoever.

Violence becomes imperative when an attempt is made to assert rights without any reference to duties.

What is gained by violence must be lost before superior violence.

Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation.

Civil disobedience does not admit of any violence or countenancing of violence directly or indirectly.

Violence always thrived on counter violence.

Our aim is not to do things by violence to opponents.

Violence is bound sooner or later to exhaust itself but peace cannot issue out of such exhaustion.

If there is violence, it will certainly be crushed because violence can only end in a disgraceful rout.

A successful bloody revolution can only mean further misery for the masses.

Armed conspiracies against something satanic is like matching Satans against Satan.

Peace through superior violence inevitably leads to the atom bomb and all that it stands for.

We do want to drive out the beast in man, but we do not want on that account to emasculate him.

The state represents violence in a concentrated and organize form.

To prevent the workers from going to their work by standing in front of them is pure violence and must be given up.

By using violence to subjugate one another we are using violence against our own souls.

The socialistic conception of the West was born in an environment reeking with violence.

It is difficult to judge, when both sides are employing weapons of violence, which side 'deserves' to succeed.

The consumption of vegetables involves himsa, but I cannot give them up.

None, while in flesh, can be entirely free from himsa, because one never completely renounces the will to live.

Any act of injury done from self-interest, whether amounting to killing or not, is doubtless himsa.

For me to dominate the Congress in spite of these fundamental differences is almost a species of violence which I must refrain from.

The bomb-throwers have discredited the cause of freedom, in whose name they threw the bombs.

The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.

The moral to be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is that it will not be destroyed by counter bombs even as violence cannot be by counter-violence.

True ahimsa lay in running into the mouth of himsa.

Our nonviolence in respect of the Government is a result of our incapacity for effective violence.

The difficulty one experiences in meeting himsa arises from weakness of mind.

When the panchayat raj is established, public opinion will do what violence can never do.

The truth is that cowardice itself is violence of a subtle type and therefore dangerous and far more difficult to eradicate than the habit of physical violence.

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence.

An unjust law in itself is an act of violence.

When faced with a choice between violence and cowardice, always choose violence

Nothing enduring can be built on violence.

We no longer have a choice between violence and non-violence. The choice of today stands between nonviolence or non-existence.

A civilization based on nonviolence must be different from that organized for violence.

My experience teaches me that truth can never be propagated by doing violence.

The Koran says that there can be no heaven for one who sheds the blood of an innocent neighbour.

The reaction that a ruthless dictator sets up in us either that of awe or pity according respectively as we react to him violently on nonviolently.

Is it not possible for us all to realize that the masses will never mount to freedom through murder?

India's freedom will not be won by violence but only by the purest suffering without retaliation.

I must declare that it is better for India do discard violence altogether even for defending her borders.

The fragrance of nonviolence was never sweeter than it was today amidst the stink of violence of the most cowardly type that was being displayed in the cities of India.

Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence.

I have recognized that the nation has the right, if it so wills, to vindicate her freedom even by actual violence.

I isolate this non-co-operation from Sinn Feinism, for it is so conceived as to be incapable of being offered side by side with violence.

Non-co-operators will make a serious mistake if they seek to convert people to their creed by violence.

True nonviolence is mightier than the mightiest violence.

Nonviolence of the strong is infinitely braver than their violence.

Nonviolence in the sense of mere non-killing does not appear to me, therefore, to be of any improvement on the technique of violence.

Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.

Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute.

If it is by force that we wish to achieve Swaraj, let us drop nonviolence and offer such violence as we may.

The votaries of nonviolence cannot harbour violence even in thought, let alone the question of doing it.

The rishis, who discovered the law of nonviolence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton.

My nonviolence does recognize different species of violence, defensive and offensive.

If intellect plays a large part in the field of violence, I hold that it plays a larger part in the field of nonviolence.

The nation cannot be kept on the nonviolent path by violence.

A nonviolent occupation is that occupation which is fundamentally free from violence and which involves no exploitation or envy of others.

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.

It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.

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

Conquer the heart of the enemy with truth and love, not by violence.

Violence is the weapon of weak, non-violence that of the strong.

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence

As the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacity...If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior...If non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with women.

The man who coerces another not to eat fish commits more violence than he who eats it.

The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary.

Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.

However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.

Violence is the fear to other's ideals.

If India won her freedom through truth and non-violence, India would not only point the way to all the exploited Asiatic nations, she would become a torch-bearer for the Negro races.

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

Non -violence is infinitely superior to violence , forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness is the ornament.

Non-violence is the article of faith.

If we were to drive out the English with the weapons with which they enslaved us, our slavery would still be with us even when they have gone.

That which looks for mercy from an opponent is not non-violence.

Non-violence ... is the only thing that the atom bomb cannot destroy.

Courtesy towards opponents and eagerness to understand their view-point is the ABC of non-violence.

Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth & violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion.

Better than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle.

Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle.

It is through truth & non-violence that I can have some glimpse of God. Truth & non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.