My implicit faith in nonviolence does mean yielding to minorities when they are really weak.

It is said about Lord Buddha sadaya-hrdaya darsita-pasu-ghatam. He saw the whole human race going to hell by this animal killing. So he appeared to teach ahimsa, nonviolence, being compassionate on the animals and human beings. In the Christian religion also, it is clearly stated, 'Thou shall not kill'. So everywhere animal killing is restricted. In no religion is the unnecessary killing of animals allowed. But nobody is caring. The killing process is increasing, and so are the reactions. Every ten years you will find a war. These are the reactions.

Is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater courage? Without her, man would not be. If nonviolence is to be the law of our being, the future is with women.

The essence of nonviolence is love.

The cry for peace will be a cry in the wilderness, so long as the spirit of nonviolence does not dominate millions of men and women.

Unless you go on discovering new applications of the law of nonviolence, you do not profit by it.

Nonviolence or soul force does not need physical aids for its propagation of effect.

Truth stands for the fact, nonviolence negates the fact.

Enter with me into the sufferings, not only of the people of India but of the whole world. Nonviolence is a more active and real fight against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. It is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest.

It never helps to draw a line and dismiss some people as enemies, even those who act violently. We have to approach them with love in our hearts and do our best to help them move in a direction of nonviolence. If we work for peace out of anger, we will never succeed. Peace is not an end. It can never come about through non-peaceful means.

A sadhak (one who does spiritual practice) will not have time to indulge in gossip. They will not feel like talking to anyone in a harsh manner. Those who always indulge in faultfinding will never achieve spiritual progress. Do not harm anyone by thoughts, words or deeds. Be compassionate towards all beings. Ahimsa (nonviolence) is the highest dharma (duty).

I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight. I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.

Anyone can practice some nonviolence, even soldiers. Some army generals, for example, conduct their operations in ways that avoid killing innocent people; this is a kind of nonviolence. To help soldiers move in the nonviolent direction, we have to be in touch with them. If we divide reality into two camps - the violent and the nonviolent - and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact.

Truth and nonviolence demand that no human being may debar himself from serving any other human being, no matter how sinful he may be.

The first condition of nonviolence is justice all round, in every department of life.

Truth and nonviolence are both the means and the end, and given the right type of men, the legislatures can be the means of achieving the concrete pursuit of truth and nonviolence.

A little of true nonviolence acts in a silent, subtle, unseen way and leavens the whole society.

To practice nonviolence in mundane matters is to know its true value.

I learnt the lesson on nonviolence from my wife, when I tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering my stupidity involved on the other, ultimately made me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her.

You can return blow for blow if you are not brave enough to follow the path of nonviolence.

My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. . . . In a gentle way you can shake the world.

India has an unbroken tradition of nonviolence from times immemorial.

For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.