English language Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

My attitude towards the British is one of utter friendliness and respect.

— Mahatma Gandhi

A smattering of English is worse than useless; it is an unnecessary tax on our women.

— Mahatma Gandhi

It was not through democratic methods that Britain bagged India.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The English language is so elastic that you can find another word to say the same thing.

— Mahatma Gandhi

What senseless violence does is to prolong the lease of life of the British or foreign rule.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Our nonviolence vis-а-vis the British Government has been the nonviolence of the weak.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Englishmen must learn to be Brahmins, not banias.

— Mahatma Gandhi

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

— Mahatma Gandhi

I refuse to put the unnecessary strain of learning English upon my sisters for the sake of false pride or questionable social…

— Mahatma Gandhi

My mission is to convert every Indian, every Englishman and finally the world to nonviolence for regulating mutual relations, whether political, economic,…

— Mahatma Gandhi

Of all the superstitions that affect India, none is so great as that a knowledge of the English language is necessary for…

— Mahatma Gandhi

Let us learn from the English rulers the simple fact that the oppressors are blind to the enormity of their own misdeeds.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so-called weaker races of the earth from the crushing heels of Western…

— Mahatma Gandhi

We Hindus and Mohamedans would have to blame our folly rather than the English, if we allowed them to put us asunder.

— Mahatma Gandhi

My personal religion enables me to serve my countrymen without hurting the English or, for that matter, anybody else.

— Mahatma Gandhi

It is derogatory to the dignity of mankind, it is derogatory to the dignity of India, to entertain for one single moment…

— Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer and Lokmanya Tilak a greater scholar if they had not to start with…

— Mahatma Gandhi

The British are weak in numbers, we are weak in spite of our numbers.

— Mahatma Gandhi

My love of the British is equal to that of my own people.

— Mahatma Gandhi

India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before.

— Mahatma Gandhi

To get rid of the infatuation for English is one of the essentials of Swaraj.

— Mahatma Gandhi

If you must kill English officials, why not kill me instead?

— Mahatma Gandhi

I claim to have been a lifelong and wholly disinterested friend of the British people.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The British power is the overlord without whom Indian princes cannot breathe.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The Britisher is the top dog and the Indian the underdog in his own country.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Boycott brought about anyhow of British cloth cannot yield the same results as such boycott brought about by hand-spinning and khaddar.

— Mahatma Gandhi

I am not anti-English, I am not anti-British, I am not anti-any Government, but I am anti-untruth, anti-humbug and anti-injustice.

— Mahatma Gandhi

However virile the English language may be, it can never become the language of the masses of India.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Non-co-operation is a movement intended to invite Englishmen to co-operate with us on honourable terms or retire from our land.

— Mahatma Gandhi

It would be a sad day for India if it has to inherit the English scale and the English tastes so utterly…

— Mahatma Gandhi

I may fight the British ruler, but I do not hate the English or their language. In fact, I appreciate their literary…

— Mahatma Gandhi

The collectors of revenue and the policeman are the only symbols by which millions in India's villages know British rule.

— Mahatma Gandhi

For my own part, I do not want the freedom of India if it means extinction of English or the disappearance of…

— Mahatma Gandhi

There is as much need for a change of heart among the Hindus and Mussalmans as there is among the British, before…

— Mahatma Gandhi

I am just not thinking of India's deliverance. It will come, but will it be worth if England and France fall, or…

— Mahatma Gandhi

The canker has so eaten into the society that in many cases the only meaning of education is a knowledge of English.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The Indian struggle is not anti-British, it is anti-exploitation, anti-foreign rule, not anti-foreigners.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Will Great Britain have an unwilling India dragged into war or a willing ally co-operating with her in the prosecution of a…

— Mahatma Gandhi

This belief in the necessity of English training has enslaved us. It has unfitted us for true national service.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Swaraj means, a state such that we can maintain our separate existence without the presence of the English.

— Mahatma Gandhi