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War Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

69 War quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

All War quotes Mahatma Gandhi’s page

Mahatma Gandhi calls war a degrading display of brute force. He believes love can win where weapons fail and that non‑violent actions need more courage than soldiers. He also says daily gentle pressure from goodwill can push harder than violent force.

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“Morality is a contraband in war.”

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As in laws or in war, the longest purse finally wins.

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To lose patience is to lose the battle.

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An eye for an eye makes us all blind.

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Morality is contraband in war.

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I believe all war to be wholly wrong.

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Nonviolence requires more courage than the soldier of war.

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Freedom battles are not fought without paying heavy prices.

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People engaged in a war do not lose temper over matters which affect the fortunes of war.

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The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.

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According to the letter of the Gita, it is possible to say that warfare is consistent with renunciation of fruit.

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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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Exploitation and domination of one nation over another can have no place in a world striving to put an end to all…

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War with all its glorification of brute force is essentially a degrading thing.

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Indeed, one perfect resister is enough to win the battle of Right against Wrong.

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We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.

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The author of the Mahabharata has not established the necessity of physical warfare; on the contrary he has proved its futility.

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Once one assumes an attitude of intolerance, there is no knowing where it will take one. Intolerance, someone has said, is violence…

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A straight fight in an equal battle takes some bravery, but braver is he who, knowing that he would have to sacrifice…

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Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one…

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Truth and non-violence are not cloistered virtues but applicable as much in the forum and the legislatures as in the market place.

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Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity, and therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered and conducted wars,…

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I contend that non-violent acts exert pressure far more effective than violent acts, for the pressure comes from goodwill and gentleness.

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War is an unmitigated evil. But it certainly does one good thing. It drives away fear and brings bravery to the surface.

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Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith…

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So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained for ages. There used to…

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If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily exisitance. Wherever there are wars, wherever we are…

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In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war]…

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If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war,…

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What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity, and, therefore, were not all those who…

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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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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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War knows no law except that of might.

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I believe that it is impossible to end hatred with hatred.

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I believe in the capacity of India to offer nonviolent battle to the English rulers.

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Nothing in the Shastras, which is capable of being reasoned, can stand if it is in conflict with reason.

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

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When there is war, the poet lays down the lyre, the lawyer his law reports, the schoolboy his books.

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You cannot stop big wars if you carry on little wars yourselves.

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History is a record of perpetual wars, but we are now trying to make new history.

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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.