MAHATMA GANDHI QUOTES

February 1 :

Where Love is, there God is also.

SSA, p.360

February 2 :

Love never claims, it never gives. Love ever suffers, never resents, never revenges itself.

YI, July 1925

February 3 :

I believe that the sum total of the energy of mankind is not to bring us down but to lift us up, and that is the result of the definite, if unconscious, working of the law of love. The fact that mankind persists shows that the cohesive force is greater than centrifugal.

YI, 12 Nov. 1931

February 4 :

Scientists tell us that without the presence of the cohesive force amongst the atoms that comprise this globe of ours, it would crumble to pieces and we would cease to exist; and even as there is cohesive force in blind matter, so must there be in all things animate and the name for that cohesive force among animate beings is Love.

YI, 5 May 1920

February 5 :

We notice it between father and son, between brother and sister, friend and friend. But we have to learn to use that force among all that lives, and in the use of it consists our knowledge of God. Where there is love there is life; hatred leads to destruction.

Ibid.

February 6 :

I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living.

YI, 1 Oct. 1931

February 7 :

If love was not the law of life, life would not have persisted in the midst of death. Life is a perpetual triumph over the grave.

H, 26 Sept. 1936

February 8 :

If there is a fundamental distinction between man and beast, it is the former's progressive recognition of the law and its application in practice to his own personal life. All the saints of the world, ancient and modern, were each according to his light and capacity a living illustration of that supreme Law of our Being.

Ibid.

February 9 :

The forms are many, but the informing spirit is one. How can there be room for distinctions of high and low where there is this all embracing fundamental unity under lying the out ward diversity? For that is a fact meeting you at every step in daily life. The final goal of all religions is to realize this essential oneness.

H, 15 Dec. 1933

February 10 :

We must widen the circle of our love till it embraces the whole village; the village in its turn must take into its fold the district, the district the province, and so on till the scope of our love becomes coterminous with the world.

YI, 27 June 1929

February 11 :

Not killing competition, but life giving co-operation, is the law of the human being. Ignoring the emotion is to forget that man has feelings. Not the good of the few, not even good of the many, but it is the good of all that we are made to promote, if we are made in His own image'.

SW, p.350

February 12 :

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 form different angles of vision.

YI, 23 Sept. 1926

February 13 :

A seeker after Truth a follower of the Law and Love, cannot hold any thing against tomorrow. God never provides for the morrow. He never cerates more than what is strictly needed from day to day. If therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we should rest assured that He will give us every day our daily bread, supplying enough that we require.

YI, Sept. 1930

February 14 :

We are either ignorant or negligent of the divine Law in virtue of which man has been given only his daily bread and no more, with the result that there arise inequalities with all the misery attendant upon them

Ibid.

February 15 :

The rich have a superfluous store of things which they do not need and which are, therefore, neglected and wasted; while millions starve and are frozen to death for want of them. If each retained possession only of what he needed, none would be in want and all would live in contentment.

Ibid.

February 16 :

As it is, the rich are discontented no less than the poor. The poor man would become a millionaire and the millionaire a multimillionaire. The poor are often not satisfied when they get just enough to fill their stomachs; but they are clearly entitled to it and society should make it a point to see 5that they get it.

Ibid.

February 17 :

Our civilization, our culture, our Swaraj depend not upon multiplying our wants self-indulgence, but upon restricting our wants self-denial.

YI, 6 Oct. 1921

February 18 :

We should be ashamed of resting, or having a square meal so long as there is one able-bodied man or woman without work or food.

YI, Feb. 1925

February 19 :

I suggest we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else.

SW, p. 384

February 20 :

I venture to suggest that it is the fundamental law of Nature, without exception, that Nature produces enough for our wants from day to day, and if only everybody took enough for himself and nothing more, there would be no pauperism in this world, there would be no man dying of starvation in this world.

Ibid

February 21 :

I am no socialist and I do not want to dispossess those who have got possessions; but I do say that personally those of us who want to see light out of darkness have to follow this rule. I do not want to dispossess anybody. I should then be departing from the rule of Ahimsa. If somebody else possesses more than I do, let him. But so far as my own life has to be regulated, I dare not possess anything which I do not want.

Ibid.

February 22 :

In India we have got three millions of people who have to be satisfied with one meal a day, and that meal consisting of a chapatti containing no fat in it and a pinch of salt. You and I have no right to anything that we really have until these three millions are clothed and fed better. You and I, who ought to know better, must adjust our wants, and even undergo voluntary starvation in order that they may be nursed, fed and clothed.

SW, p.385

February 23 :

The golden rule is resolutely to refuse to have what millions cannot. This ability to refuse will not descend upon us all of a sudden. The first thing is to cultivate the mental attitude that will not have possession or facilities denied to millions, arrange our lives as fast as possible in accordance with that mentality.

YI, 24 June 1926

February 24 :

One should eat not in order to please the plate, but just to keep body going. When each organ of sense sub serves the body and through the body the soul, its special relish disappears and then alone does it begin to function in the way nature intended it to do. Any number of experiments is too small and no sacrifice too great for attaining this symphony with nature.

Auto, p. 392

February 25 :

We want healers of souls rather than of bodies. The multiplicity of hospitals and medical men is no sign of true civilization. The less we and others pamper our bodies the better for us and the world.

YI, 29 Sept.1927

February 26 :

Instead of using the body as a temple of God we use it as a vehicle for indulgences and are not ashamed to run to medical men for help in our effort to increase them and abuse the earthly tabernacle.

YI, 8 Aug. 1929

February 27 :

Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.

H, 5 Nov.1938

February 28 :

Man's estate is one of probation. During that period he is played upon by evil forces as well as good. He is ever prey to temptations. He has to prove his manliness by resisting and fighting temptations.

H, 4 April 1936

February 29 :

It may be long before the law of Love will be recognized in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.

YI, 23 June 1919

---