QuotesQuotes from Gandhi and the freedom movement
Words from India's struggle for freedom: Mahatma Gandhi (1869 to 1948), Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856 to 1920), Subhas Chandra Bose (1897 to 1945) and Bhagat Singh (1907 to 1931). Gandhi is among the most misquoted people in history, so every line of his below names the journal, book or speech and its date.
Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
Mahatma Gandhi, statement at his trial, Ahmedabad, 18 March 1922Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 11 August 1920The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 2 April 1931I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.
Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1 June 1921To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages.
Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 13 October 1921"Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised.
Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927 to 1929)The mantra is: "Do or Die". We shall either free India or die in the attempt.
Mahatma Gandhi, Quit India speech, Bombay, 8 August 1942My life is my message.
Mahatma Gandhi, message written in 1947
Tilak, Bose and Bhagat Singh
Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 1916Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom!
Subhas Chandra Bose, speech to the Indian National Army, Burma, 4 July 1944Bombs and pistols do not make revolution. The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting-stone of ideas.
Bhagat Singh, statement in court, 1930
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Where Gandhi's words can be checked
Gandhi wrote and spoke an enormous amount over fifty years: books, weekly journals, letters and speeches. Nearly all of it has been gathered into The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, a set of about a hundred volumes published by the Government of India. A genuine Gandhi quotation can be traced there, to his autobiography, or to one of his journals such as Young India and Harijan. That is why each line on this page carries a source and often a date.
The occasions
- The trial of 1922: charged with sedition for his articles in Young India, Gandhi pleaded guilty and asked for the highest penalty. His statement to the court is the source of the line on non-violence.
- "Do or Die": spoken in Bombay on 8 August 1942, at the launch of the Quit India Movement. He and other leaders were arrested within hours.
- "I do not want my house to be walled in": written in Young India in 1921. The sentence ends with his refusal "to be blown off my feet by any". It is an argument for being open to the world while standing on one's own ground.
- "Swaraj is my birthright": Tilak's declaration, first made in Marathi, from the years of the Home Rule movement.
- Bose's call for blood: made in Burma in 1944 to the Indian National Army.
- Bhagat Singh's line on ideas: from the statement he and his comrades made in court, explaining that their revolution was a matter of thought and not of violence for its own sake.
Using these lines
For 2 October, 15 August, 26 January and Martyrs' Day, quote exactly and give the occasion. An audience that hears "as Gandhiji said at his trial in 1922" knows that the speaker has done the reading. The well-known historic slogans of the movement, with who gave each, are on our sister site at Slogans: historic slogans.
Lines Gandhi did not say
Several of the most shared "Gandhi quotes" cannot be found in his works in those words. They are explained on our page of famous quotes that were never said.
Good to know
- "Be the change you wish to see in the world" has not been found in Gandhi's writings in those words. See our page on misattributed quotes.
- Young India was the weekly journal Gandhi edited from 1919 to 1931.