“My nonviolence does recognize different species of violence, defensive and offensive.”
Source: Collected Works
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Famous Mahatma Gandhi Quotes
Source: Gandhi on Non-violence
“The nation cannot be kept on the nonviolent path by violence.”
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
Source: Socialism of My Conception
Source: All Religions are True
“Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.”
Source: Gandhi: Selected Political Writings
“It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.”
Source: The Essential Writings
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
Source: Young India
“Not violence, nor untruth but non-violence and Truth are the laws of our being.”
“My experience teaches me that truth can never be propagated by doing violence.”
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
“I hold that the world is sick of armed rebellions.”
Source: Collected Works
“My dictionary has no such expression as a violent fight.”
Source: Collected Works
“Violence can only be effectively met by nonviolence. This is an old established truth.”
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
“I do believe that ideas ripen quickly when nourished by the blood of martyrs.”
Source: Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace
Source: Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
“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.”
Source: Collected Works
Source: All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections
Source: All Men Are Brothers
“I do not regard killing or assassination or terrorism as good in any circumstances whatsoever.”
Source: Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace
“What is gained by violence must be lost before superior violence.”
Source: The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Non-Violent Resistance and Social Transformation
“Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation.”
Source: Collected Works
Source: Collected Works
Source: Collected Works
“Violence always thrived on counter violence.”
Source: Collected Works
“Our aim is not to do things by violence to opponents.”
Source: The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas
“Naked violence repels like the naked skeleton shorn of flesh, blood and the velvety skin.”
Source: Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace
“Violence is bound sooner or later to exhaust itself but peace cannot issue out of such exhaustion.”
Source: Collected Works
Source: Collected Works
“A successful bloody revolution can only mean further misery for the masses.”
Source: Collected Works
“Armed conspiracies against something satanic is like matching Satans against Satan.”
Source: Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace
“Peace through superior violence inevitably leads to the atom bomb and all that it stands for.”
Source: Gandhi on Nehru
“We do want to drive out the beast in man, but we do not want on that account to emasculate him.”
Source: Collected Works
“The state represents violence in a concentrated and organize form.”
Source: India of My Dreams
Source: Collected Works
“By using violence to subjugate one another we are using violence against our own souls.”
Source: Collected Works
“The socialistic conception of the West was born in an environment reeking with violence.”
Source: The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
Source: Collected Works
“The consumption of vegetables involves himsa, but I cannot give them up.”
Source: All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections
Source: India of My Dreams
Source: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
Source: Gandhi: 'Hind Swaraj' and Other Writings
Source: The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Non-Violent Resistance and Social Transformation
“The bomb-throwers have discredited the cause of freedom, in whose name they threw the bombs.”
Source: Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace
“The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.”
Source: The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas