Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma—applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa,—is now used worldwide. He is also called Bapuin India. In common parlance in India he is often called Gandhiji. He is unofficially called the Father of the Nation...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth2 October 1869
CityPortbandar, India
CountryIndia
Poverty is the greatest violence.
A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.
Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.
Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.
If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.
In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the natives. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?
If you think the world is all wrong, remember that it contains people like you.
Men should do their actual living and working in communities small enough to permit of genuine self-government and the assumption of personal responsibilities, federated into larger units in such a way that the temptation to abuse great power should not arise.
I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it.
I well remember how the thoughts I had up to the time of my discharge from the jail on every occasion were modified immediately after discharge, and after getting first-hand information myself. Somehow or other the jail atmosphere does not allow you to have all the bearings in your mind.
"Be the change you want to see in the world"...and, if you can't be that change, then either get out of the way of the person who wants to be that change or support the individual with your financial resources.
[It] is impossible for us to establish a living vital connection with the masses unless we will work for them, through them and in their midst, not as their patrons but as their servants.
The mind may wander, but let not the senses wander with it. If the senses wander where the mind takes them, one is done for.
Mental violence has no potency and injures only the person whose thoughts are violent. It is otherwise with mental non-violence. It has potency which the world does not yet know.