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
My doctrine means that I must identify myself with life, with everything that lives, that I must share the majesty of life in the presence of God. The sum-total of this life is God. .. Man is not at peace with himself until he has become like unto God. The endeavor to reach this state is the supreme, the only ambition worth having. And this is self-realisation. This self-realisation is the subject of the Gita, as it is of all scriptures... to be a real devotee is to realise oneself. Self-realisation is not something apart.
Civility does not ...mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.
The only true resistance to this Government... [is] to cease to co-operate with it.
Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.
I did once seriously think of embracing the Christian faith. The gentle figure of Christ, so full of forgiveness that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck, but to turn the other cheek - I thought it was a beautiful example of the perfect man.
He is lost who is possessed by carnal desire.
I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.
I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.
Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
I am in the world feeling my way to light 'amid the encircling gloom.'
Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.