47 Mahatma Gandhi Quotes on Ethics

Mahatma Gandhi quotes on ethics

11. Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

13. Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

24. Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs.

26. I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed

30. Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.

31. We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.

32. I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time.

36. It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my experiments with truth...as my life consists of nothing but those experiments.

49. A man of truth must also be a man of care.

58. I learned at the onset not to carry on public work with borrowed money.

64. Justice can be won quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

74. Public worker should not accept no costly gifts.

76. Heavy is the toll of sins and wrongs that wealth, power and prestige extract from man.

78. Life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

82. A clean confession combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest of repentance.

90. Hate the sin and not the sinner.

94. A votary of truth must exercise the greatest caution.

106. I always gave first place to building of character.

109. A votary of truth is often obliged to grope in the dark.

113. Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.

119. Salvation of people depend upon themselves, upon their capacity for suffering and sacrifice.

124. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him.

126. Only when one sees one's own mistakes with a convex lens and does just the reverse in the case of others, that one is able to arrive at a just relative estimate of the two. A Scrupulous and conscientious observance of this rule is necessary for one who wants to be a satyagrahi.

128. Morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality.

131. A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

132. A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

133. A Satyagrahi loves his so-called enemy even as he loves his friend. He owns no enemy.

134. All my actions have their rise in my inalienable love of mankind.

136. Corruption ought not to be an inevitable product of democracy.

137. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not any man's greed.

139. Even If I am a minority of one, truth is still the truth.

145. Hate the sin and love the sinner.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

161. I can combine the greatest love with the greatest opposition to wrong.

163. I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all.

168. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

198. Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.

213. The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty.

217. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

220. The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives.

222. The Rich must live more simply so that the Poor may simply live.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

223. The sayings of Muhammed are a treasure of wisdom not only for Muslims but for all of mankind.

226. There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.

245. When the missionary of another religion goes to them, he goes like a vendor of goods. He has no special spiritual merit that will distinguish him from those to whom he goes. He does however possess material goods which he promises to those who will come to his fold.

253. The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.

258. I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence for fighting for our cause, but by non-participation of anything you believe is evil.

262. Gandhi was a pacifist, but we might suspect him to have been something of a 'militant pacifist' at heart: he would have used force to prevent those who sought to make war from carrying out their aims.

264. But, he was a bhakt not of Ram in his totality, that is of Ram the warrior also, but of Ram as Purushottam Purusha, that is, of Ram who set the ideal for ethical life.