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Democracy Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

61 Democracy quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

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Gandhi says a true democracy cannot be built while terrorism rages, because fear blocks the people’s voice. He also believes that learning how democracy works comes before making laws, so citizens study first. He calls nonviolence a weapon of the strongest, showing that peace can hold power in a democratic society.

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Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep.

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Democracy can only represent the average if not less than the average.

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Democracy and violence can ill go together.

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The only force at the disposal of democracy is that of public opinion.

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Performance of one's duties should be independent of public opinion.

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The science of nonviolence can alone lead one to pure democracy.

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Democracy demands patient instruction on it before legislation.

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In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.

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The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts - that is where the battle should be…

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

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The spirit of democracy... requires change of the heart... requires the inculcation of the spirit of brotherhood.

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Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today.

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Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

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To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.

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Democracy comes naturally to him who is habituated normally to yield willing obedience to all laws, human or divine.

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In a democratic scheme, money invested in the promotion of learning gives a tenfold return to the people even as a seed…

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“To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect and their oneness, and should insist upon choosing as…

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Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and…

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What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name…

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The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy.…

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My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest... no country in the…

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What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated? What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and…

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No perfect democracy is possible without perfect nonviolence at the back of it.

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Islam was nothing if it did not spell complete democracy.

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A democratic organization has to dare to do the right at all costs.

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Democracy, disciplined and enlightened, is the finest thing in the world.

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Democracy and dependence on the military and police are incompatible.

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Under democracy, individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded.

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A born democrat is a born disciplinarian.

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In a true democracy of India, the unit is the village.

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What is really needed to make democracy function is not knowledge of facts, but right education.

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The line of demarcation between democracy and monocracy is often thin, but rigid and stronger than unbreakable steel.

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I understand democracy as something that gives the weak the same chance as the strong.

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

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Democracy will break under the strain of apron strings. It can exist only on trust.

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True democracy is not inconsistent with a few persons representing the spirit, the hope and the aspirations of those whom they claim…

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The very essence of democracy is that every person represents all the varied interests which compose the nation.

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My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest.

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Democracy necessarily means a conflict of will and ideas, involving sometimes a war of the knife between different ideas.

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There is no reason to believe that there is one law for families and another for nations.

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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.