Great Quotes from the “Great Soul”

Mohandas Gandhi, known as the Mahatma or "Great Soul," was the spiritual leader of India's movement for independence from the British Empire. Over his lifetime of public speaking and publishing books, he produced a number of much-beloved quotations.

Your task is to

I. Read all of the quotes.

II. Choose the four (4) quotes that most interest you.

III. Write the quotes down on a separate sheet of paper and for each quote:

a. Explain what the quote means in your own words. (What principles/ideas/methods are involved?)

b. How did we see Gandhi act out the idea in the film? How did it impact his actions?

c. State whether you agree with Gandhi’s idea or not, and explain why.

1) “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

2) “My life is my message.”

3) “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”

4) "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

5) "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

6) "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

7) "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind."

8) "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem."

9) "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

10) "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."

11) "You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result."

12) "I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world."

13) "God has no religion."

14) "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

15) "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

16) “It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

17) "Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth."

18) "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

19) "You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind."

20) “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

21) "The greatness of a nation and its moral development can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

22) “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

23) "The expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing."

24) "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it - always."

25) "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

26) "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."

27) "What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another."

28) "Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

29) "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

30) "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."

31) "The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace."

32) "To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior.”

33) "You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results."

34) "Seven Deadly Sins: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Science without humanity, Knowledge without character, Politics without principle, Commerce without morality, Worship without sacrifice."

35) "There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."

36) When asked what he thought of Western civilization: "I think it would be a good idea.