First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his principles as we would expect others to have for ours. Non-violence demands that we should see every opportunity to win over opponents.
Indeed one’s faith in one’s plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
Honest disagreement is oftmen a good sign of progress.
Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realise thamt they need not fear brute force, if they but know the soul within.
Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.
Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will remain.
Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lies not in hatred but in justice if not in love.
Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practices untruth or injustice. Only then can love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one party disregards the obligation of friendship.
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.
Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold onto it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.
It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tatamount to resisting and attacking oneself, for we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being, is to slight those divine powers and thus to harm not only that Being, but with Him, the whole world.
If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically expedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse to do the master’s bidding. He may torture me, break my bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to do what he wanted done
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