Top 58 Satyagraha Quotes & Sayings

Satyagraha is a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and in the end makes itself irresistible.

In the dictionary of satyagraha, there is no enemy.

What I call the law of satyagraha is to be deduced from an appreciation of duties and rights flowing therefrom.

The insistence on truthfulness does not disturb the freedom of the individual. The social obligation implied in Satyagraha turns the freedom of the individual into moral freedom. An atheist is free to say or to do what he likes, provided he does what he says and says what he does. So, in the context of social relations, the freedom of the individual is moral freedom.

Satyagraha is the pursuit of truth. My grandfather believed that truth should be the cornerstone of everybody's life and that we must dedicate our lives to pursuing truth, to finding out the truth in our lives. And so his entire philosophy was the philosophy of life. It was not just a philosophy for conflict resolution, but something that we have to imbibe in our life and live it all the time so that we can improve and become better human beings.

Satyagraha, of which civil resistance is but a part, is to me the universal law of life.

There is a vital connection between satyagraha and charkha, and the more I find that belief challenged, the more I am confirmed in it.

Satyagraha is a law for universal application. Beginning with the family, its use can be extended to every other circle.

For us, not cooperating in the monopoly regimes of intellectual property rights and patents and biodiversity - saying "no" to patents on life, and developing intellectual ideas of resistance - is very much a continuation of Gandhian satyagraha. It is, for me, keeping life free in its diversity.

All satyagraha and fasting is a species of tyaga. It depends for its effects upon an expression of wholesome public opinion shorn of all bitterness.

Satyagraha is a purely spiritual weapon.

Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects. ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head.

The method of satyagraha requires that the satyagrahi should never lose hope, so long as there is the slightest ground left for it.

For me 'Satyagraha' is a big film as I am working with Amitabh Bachchan. It is a big opportunity.

Force that the performance of duty naturally generates is the non-violent and invincible force that satyagraha brings into being.

'Satyagraha' brought the actress out in me and I am proud to be a part of this film.

Satyagraha is a force that has come to stay. No force in the world can kill it.

Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience.

Undoubtedly, prayer requires a living faith in God. Successful satyagraha is inconceivable without that faith.

Jail-going is only the beginning, not the end of satyagraha. The acme of satyagraha for us would be to lay down our lives for the defence of India's just cause.

Satyagraha can rid society of all evils, political, economic and moral.

Satyagraha as conceived by me is a science in the making.

The fight of satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid. Satyagraha teaches us the art of living as well as dying.

Since satyagraha is a method of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest coercion.

Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within.

In satyagraha, a courted imprisonment carries its own praise.

A clear victory of satyagraha is impossible so long as there is ill will.

Satyagraha is search for Truth, and God is Truth.

Even as satyagraha is a weapon unique of its kind and not one of the ordinary weapons used by people, so is Khadi, a unique article of commerce which will not, cannot, succeed on terms common to other articles.

Not those who shout 'satyagraha', 'satyagraha' will do satyagraha, but those who will work for it.

A genuine satyagraha should never excite contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard or respect.

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.

Satyagraha is an opera which I wrote for the Netherlands Opera, so it uses an orchestra of around fifty, a chorus of forty, and there are about seven soloists. The opera ... Satyagraha means truthful, so it was a name [Mahatma] Gandhi used to describe his civil disobedience movement.

A satyagrahi has no other stay but God, and he who has any other stay or depends on any other help cannot offer satyagraha.

Without satyagraha carried out in the proper spirit, there is no victory, no Swaraj.

A satyagrahi exhausts all other means before he resorts to satyagraha.

Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth.

Satyagraha does not depend on outside help, it derives all its strength from within.

Non-co-operation and civil disobedience are but different branches of the same tree called satyagraha.

Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the repressor is tired of it and the object of satyagraha is gained.

There is no "playing with truth" in the Charkha programme, for satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of Truth.

For satyagraha and its offshoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering.

I regard the constituent assembly as the substitute ofsatyagraha. It is constructive satyagraha.

Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha.

I have repeatedly stated that satyagraha never fails and that one perfect satyagrahi is enough to vindicate Truth.

Satyagraha means insistence on what one knows to be the truth. The insistence implies the exercise of free will as the need of social obligation. If one is content to know the truth himself, he does not become a votary of Satyagraha. A Satyagrahi should not only know the truth but should insist upon it in social relations. So Satyagraha is activation of truthfulness.

There must be power in the word of a satyagraha general, not the power that the possession of limitless arms gives, but the power that purifies life which strict vigilance and a ceaseless application produce.

To be equitable, economic growth has to be sustainable. To be sustainable, economic growth has in turn to be all-inclusive. All-inclusive is no longer the greatest good of the greatest number. It is actually 'Sarvodaya' or the 'rise of all'. This Mahatma Gandhi saw as essential to Satyagraha itself.

Violence is a concession to human weakness, satyagraha is an obligation.

Final Satyagraha is inconceivable without an honorable peace between the several communities composing the Indian nation.

It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.

The mantra of independence was Satyagraha. And the warriors were Satyagrahis. The mantra of New Age India must be Swachhagrah. And the warriors will be Swachhagrahis.

Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open.

It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.

As a young man in South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, Gandhi developed satyagraha, a mode of political activism based upon moral persuasion, while mobilizing South Africa's small Indian minority against racial discrimination.

Satyagraha is itself an unmistakable mute prayer of an agonized soul.

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.

I have even seen the writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India's expense. I can only answer that Satyagraha is made of sterner stuff. There is nothing reserved and nothing secret in it.