Mahatma Ghandi
Mahatma Gandhi, was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha—a philosophy that is largely concerned with truth and ‘resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance’—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known in India and across the world as the Mahatma (Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā — “Great Soul” - an epithet given by Tagore) and as Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ bāpu—”Father”). In India, he is officially accorded the honour of Father of the Nation. 2 October, his birthday, is commemorated each year as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. On 15 June 2007, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution declaring 2 October to be the “International Day of Non-Violence.”[1][2]
Gandhi first employed peaceful civil disobedience in the Indian community’s struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Upon his return to India from Africa, he organized poor farmers and labourers to protest against oppressive taxation and widespread discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty, for the liberation of women, for brotherhood amongst different religious and ethnic groups, for an end to untouchability and caste discrimination, and for the economic self-sufficiency of the nation, but above all for Swaraj—the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led his nation in the disobedience of the British salt tax imposed in India with the 400 kilometre (250 miles) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and in an open call for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years on numerous occasions in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi practised and advocated non-violence and truth in all situations. He lived simply, organizing an ashram that was self-sufficient in its needs. Making his own clothes—the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with the handspun yarn he spun on a charkha—he lived on a simple vegetarian and, later, fruitarian diet. He underwent long (at times over a month) fasts, for both self-purification and protest.
MAHATMA GHANDI QUOTES
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
“My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.”
“God has no religion”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed”
“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”
“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
“Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.”
“The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives”
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems”
“Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it”
More Mahatma Ghandi Quotes to come…