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Civil disobedience Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

40 Civil disobedience quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

All Civil disobedience quotes Mahatma Gandhi’s page

Gandhi says civil disobedience must be open and non‑violent, like a shaking earthquake that challenges authority. He notes it prepares people for mute suffering and can only be used when peaceful options fail. Before large‑scale action, he argues, people need to learn the art of civil obedience first.

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Civil disobedience and excitement and intoxication go ill together.

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Civil disobedience can never be in general terms, such as for independence.

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Civil disobedience can only lead to strength and purity.

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Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.

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Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent.

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Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering.

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Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

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Non-co-operation and civil disobedience are but different branches of the same tree called satyagraha.

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Non-co-operation and civil disobedience in terms of Swaraj are not to be thought of without substantial constructive effort.

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Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government,…

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The Charkha, which is the embodiment of willing obedience and calm persistence, must therefore succeed before there is civil disobedience.

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Without proper, careful organisation of the spinning wheel and khaddar, there is absolutely no civil disobedience.

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Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke.

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Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a…

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Civil disobedience is a stimulation for the fighters and a challenge to the opponent, in the present instance, authority.

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The privilege of resisting or disobeying a particular law or order accrues only to him who gives willing and unswerving obedience to…

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The only safe and honorable course for a self-respecting man is to do what I have decided to do, that is, to…

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Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As…

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An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says…

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Indeed, a civil resister offers resistance only when peace becomes impossible.

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Mass civil disobedience is like an earthquake, a sort of general upheaval on the political plane.

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Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering, without the intoxicating excitement of killing.

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Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open.

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Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.

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Civil disobedience does not admit of any violence or countenancing of violence directly or indirectly.

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Disobedience, to be civil, implies discipline, thought, care, attention.

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Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation.

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Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen.

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Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies.

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Mass civil disobedience was for the attainment of independence.

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Unless nonviolence of the strong is really developed among us, there should be no thought of civil disobedience for Swaraj, whether within…

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Individual civil disobedience was everybody's inherent right, like the right of self-defence in normal life.

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There is no "playing with truth" in the Charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible…

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Active nonviolence is necessary for those who will offer civil disobedience but the will and proper training are enough for the people…

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Aggressive civil disobedience should be confined to a vindication of the right of free speech and free association.

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Ours is a civil fight, and imprisonment as a civil prisoner has got to be earned by the strict observance of the…

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In placing civil disobedience before constructive work I was wrong and I did not profit by the Himalayan blunder that I had…

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Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful rebellion, a refusal to obey every single state-made law.

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If they are truly nonviolent, they must also realize that civil disobedience is an impossibility till the preliminary work of construction is…

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Before civil disobedience can be practised on a vast scale, people must learn the art of civil or voluntary obedience.

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Other authors on Civil disobedience

More by Mahatma Gandhi

I do not want to live at the cost of the life even of a snake. I should let him bite me to death…

Devotion required by the Gita is no soft-hearted effusiveness.

No nation being under another nation can accept gifts, and kick at the responsibility attached to those gifts, imposed by the conquering nation.

So long as we fear the outside world, we must cease to think of Swaraj.

I do not want a kingdom, or heaven; what I want is to remove the trouble of the oppressed, the poor, and the needy.

Religions are not for separating men from one another, they are meant to bind them.

I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it.

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to…

“Where there is life.”

If it was wrong to seek God in a stone, how was it right to seek Him in a book called the Gita, the…

The spirit of democracy cannot be established in the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or popular.

Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them-a desire, a dream, a vison.

My motto is "Unite now, today if you can; fight if you must. But in every case avoid British intervention."

I have no disciples, being myself an aspirant after discipleship and in search of a guru.

Man becomes not the lord and master of all creation but he is its servant.

More Civil disobedience Quotes by Authors:

Henry David Thoreau 29
Howard Zinn 12
Martin Luther King, Jr 10
Terry Tempest Williams 5
Gail Bradbrook 5
William Kunstler 4
Mehmet Murat ildan 4
Noam Chomsky 3
Michel Templet 3
Joshua Wong 3