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About this quote

What does it mean?
Test ideas with truth and nonviolence; reject those that fail.
In plain terms
Check ideas against truth and nonviolence before accepting them.
What can you take from it?
Reject ideas that fail truth and nonviolence tests.

Where it applies

  • decision making
  • ideology
  • policy

Putting it to work

  • evaluating ideas
  • applying standards

Questions to consider

  • What standards do you use to judge ideas?
  • When should you reject a belief?

Another view

Testing can slow down necessary actions.

More from Mahatma Gandhi

  1. Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to ac…

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  2. We cannot be speakers who do not listen. But neither can we be listeners who do not speak.

    Permalink to quote #239
  3. Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all

    Permalink to quote #236

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