Epigrams from Gandhiji - L
Labour
Capital exploits the labour of a few to multiply itself. MM-339
Every labourer is worthy of his hire. No country can produce thousands of unpaid whole-time workers. XXV-485
Is not labour, like learning, its own reward? T-3-300
Labour has its unique place in a cultured human family. MM-373
Labour was priceless, not gold. T-8-97
Labour was a great leveller of all distinctions. T-8-97
No labour is too mean for one who wants to earn an honest penny. MM-204
There is a world-wide conflict between capital and labour, and the poor envy the rich. MM-199
The saving of labour of the individual should be the object and honest humanitarian considerations, and not greed, the motive. XXV-252
Unless our hands go hand in hand with our heads, we would be able to do nothing whatsoever. XXVI-302
Useful manual labour, intelligently performed, is the means par excellence for developing the intellect. MM-379
I do not regard capital to be the enemy of labour. T-2-257
I call myself a labourer because I take pride in calling myself a spinner, weaver, farmer and scavenger. XXVI-379
A labourer cannot sit at the table and write, but a man who has worked at the table all his life can certainly take to physical labour. T-2-63
A plea of the spinning wheel is a plea for recognizing the dignity of labour. T-2-63
A scavenger who works in His service shares equal distinction with a king who uses his gifts in His name and as a mere trustee. MM-202
A true and nonviolent combination of labour would act like a magnet attracting to it all the needed capital. T-8-97
A worker’s capital is inexhaustible, incapable of being stolen, and bound to pay him a generous dividend all the time. XIV-217
Each and every one of you should consider himself to be a trustee for the welfare of the rest of his fellow labourers and not be self-seeking. T-2-297
If everybody lives by the sweat of his brow, the earth will become a paradise. MM-200
It is a sad thing that our schoolboys look upon manual labour with disfavour, if not contempt.
EWE-20
Labour, because it chose to remain unintelligent, either became subservient, or insolently believed in damaging the capitalists’ goods and machinery or even in killing the capitalists. T-8-97
Mere mental, that is, intellectual labour is for the soul and is its own satisfaction. T-4-36
Nothing will demoralize the nation so much as that we should learn to despise labour. EWE-25
Our children should not be so taught as to despise labour. EWE-20
Obedience to the law of bread labour will bring about a silent revolution in the structure of society. MM-200
The employers ganging up against the workers is like raising an army of elephants gainst ants.
XX-333
The rich cannot accumulate wealth without the co-operation of the poor in society. MM-271
This mad rush for wealth must cease and the labourer must be assured not only of living wage but a daily task that is not a mere drudgery. T-2-161
What the two hands of the labourer could achieve, the capitalist would never get with all his gold and silver. T-7-33
Where there are millions upon millions of units of idle labour, it is no use thinking of the labour-saving devices. T-4-24
Language
A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers. EWE-13
Language is at best an imperfect medium of expression. No man can fully express in words what he feels or thinks. T-7-145
The language of a people who produce hard workers, literary experts, businessmen and enterprising persons spreads and is enriched. T-7-51
It is rarely that language succeeds as a vehicle of thought. More often than not it conceals thought. Always language circumscribes thought. XX-5
There never was a greater superstition than that a particular language can be incapable of expansion or expressing abstruse or scientific ideas. EWE-12
Man can only describe God in his own poor language. TIG-45
If we have listening ears, God speaks to us in our own language, whatever that language be.
T-7-110
What we start receiving education through our own language, our relations in the home will take on a different character. XIV-20
Law
The law which governs all life is God. T-2-313
The law is God. Anything attributed to Him is not a mere attribute. He is Truth, Love, Law and a million things that human ingenuity can name. T-3-250
The Law and the Lawgiver are one. T-2-313
Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. T-2-100
The laws of nature are changeless, unchangeable, and there are no miracles in the sense of infringement or interruption of Nature’s law. MM-77
A satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal wrong. XXV-163
Where death without resistance or death after resistance is the only way, neither party should think of resorting to law-courts or help from government. XXV-138
The recognition of the golden rule of never taking the law into one’s own hands has no exceptions. T-8-103
Independence meant voluntary restraint and discipline, voluntary acceptance of the rule of law.
T-8-100
When there is war, the poet lays down the lyre, the lawyer his law reports, the schoolboy his books. T-2-62
Leaders
An institution that suffers from a plethora of leaders is surely in a bad way. T-7-218
Learning
Learning takes us through many stages in life but it fails us utterly in the hours of danger and temptation. XXVI-28
Is not labour, like learning, its own reward? T-3-300
Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind. MM-377
In a democratic scheme, money invested in the promotion of learning gives a ten-fold return to the people, even as a seed sown in good soil returns a luxuriant crop. T-8-165
Legislatures
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. T-4-161
Liberation
All the India scriptures have certainly preached incessantly liberation as an immediate aim, but we know that "activity in the lower worlds" being abandoned. X-247
Liberty
Liberty is a dearly bought commodity and prisons are factories where it is manufactured. XXV-212
Liberty never meant the licence to do anything at will. T-8-100
A rose will smell as sweet by any other name, but it must be the rose of liberty that I want and not the artificial product. T-3-129
We dare not enter the kingdom of liberty with mere lip homage to truth and non-violence. T-2-85
No power on earth could resist the lovers of liberty who were ready not to kill opponents, but be killed by them. T-7-326
Individual liberty is allowed to man only to a certain extent. He cannot forget that he is a social being and his individual liberty has to be curtailed at every step. T-5-120
Individual liberty and interdependence are both essential for life in society. T-7-37
The one condition for fighting for peace and liberty is to acquire self-restraint. XXVI-45
In my dream, in my sleep, while eating, I think of the spinning wheel. The spinning wheel is my sword. To me it is the symbol of India’s liberty. XXV-351
Life
A life without vows is like a ship without an anchor or like an edifice that is built on sand instead of a solid rock. T-2-364
Life is greater than all art. MM-56
Life becomes livable only to the extent that death is treated as a friend, never as an enemy.
T-8-205
Life is an aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection which is self-realization. T-4-33
A life of sacrifice is the pinnacle of art, and is full of true joy. MOG-21
Human life is a series of compromises, and it is not always easy to achieve in practice what one has found to be true in theory. MM-39
Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth, and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height. TIG-61
The music of life is in danger of being lost in the music of the voice. T-7-27
A true life lived amongst the people is in itself an object-lesson that must produce its own effect upon immediate surroundings. MM-366
What is life worth without trials and tribulations which are the salt of life. T-3-4
The Enlightened one has told you in never-to-be-forgotten words that this little span of life is but a passing shadow, a fleeting thing. T-2-295
I believe in God, not as a theory but as a fact more real than that of life itself. XXVI-233
I want to realize brotherhood or identify not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such beings as crawl on earth. T-2-253
If I were over full of pity for the cow, I should sacrifice my life to save her but not take my brother’s. X-30
My dharma teaches me to give my life for the sake of others without even attempting to kill.
XXV-437
My faith in truth and nonviolence is ever going, and as I am ever trying to follow them in my life, I too am growing every moment. T-4-154
My religion and my patriotism derived from my religion embrace all life. T-2-353
Let the Gita be to you a mine of diamonds, as it has been to me, let it be your constant guide and friend on life’s way. T-2-307
Domestic matters are trifles for us. But they occupy the principal part of my life. They teach me to know my limitations. XXV-302
The only praise I would like and treasure is the promotion of the activities to which my life is dedicated. T-5-176
The first condition of nonviolence is justice all round, in every department of life. T-5-278
Absolute calm is not the law of ocean. And it is the same with the ocean of life. T-7-190
Healthy, well-informed, balanced criticism is the ozone of public life. T-4-206
If love was not the law of life, life would not have persisted in the midst of death. TIG-18
It is as clear to me as daylight that life and death are but phases of the same thing, the reverse and obverse of the same coin. T-3-4
Every single act of one who would lead a life of purity should be in the nature of yajna. MOG-19
The secret of happy life lies in renunciation. Renunciation is life. MM-192
Man is sent into the world to perform his duty even at the cost of his life. T-7-155
To know music is to transfer it to life. T-2-230
The whole existence of man is a ceaseless duel between the forces of life and death. T-7-143
Every calamity should lead to a thorough cleansing of individual as well as social life. T-3-258
Does not the history of the world show that there would have been no romance in life if there had been no risks? MM-166
This earthly existence of ours is more brittle that the glass bangles that ladies wear. TIG-23
Let us each one live our life, and if ours is the right life, where is the cause for hurry? It will react of itself? T-2-295
Let us give today first the vital things of life and all the grace and ornaments of life will follow.
T-2-162
Dignity of human nature requires that we must face the storms of life. T-3-130
Individual liberty and interdependence are both essential for life in society. T-7-37
Every reform means awakening. Once truly awakened, the nation will not be satisfied with reform only in one department of life. T-2-227
The truth is that God is the force. He is the essence of life. He is pure and undefiled consciousness. He is eternal. TIG-84
Ahimsa is no mere theory with me, but it is a fact of life based on extensive experience. T-7-402
Celibacy is a great help inasmuch as it enables one to lead a life of full surrender to God. XXV-2
That Law which governs all life is God. TIG-7
One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole. MM-440
Lions
Can it be ever dangerous for a lion to tell a number of other lions who in their ignorance consider themselves to be merely lambs that they, too, are not lambs but lions? X-249
Literacy
Literacy in itself is no education. MM-379
Literacy is not the end of education, nor even the beginning. EWE-22
Literacy must be one of the many means for intellectual development, but we have had in the past the intellectual giants who were unlettered. T-4-145
Literature
Literature, full of the virus of itself-indulgence, served out in attractive forms, is flooding this country from the West, and there is the greatest need for our youth to be on their guard. T-2-319
Lokamanya Tilak
The Lokmanya spoke more eloquently from the Mandalay fortress than through the columns of the printed Kesari. T-2-77
With Lokmanya (Tilak) alive, I had only him to convert or to be converted by him. T-2-145
I am but the heir of Lokmanya and if I do not add to the patrimony he has left me, I would not be a worthy son of a worthy father. T-2-263
Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer, and Lokmanya Tilak would have been a greater scholar, if they had not to start with the handicap of having to think in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English. EWE-9
Love
Love and ahimsa are matchless in their effect. TIG-57
Love and exclusive possession can never go together. T-4-11
Love based upon indulgence of animal passion is at best a selfish affair and likely to snap under the slightest strain. T-2-225
Love can never express itself by imposing sufferings on others. It can only express itself by self-suffering, by self-purification. T-3-221
Love in the sense of ahimsa had only a limited number of votaries in the world. T-3-144
Love is a rare herb that makes a friend even of a sworn enemy and this herb grows out of nonviolence. XIV-209
Love is no love which asks for a return. XIV-402
Love is the basis of our friendship as it is of religion. MM-404
The law of love knows no bounds of space or time. MM-398
Love is the subtlest force in the world. XXV-392
The law of love will work, just as the law of gravitation will work, whether we accept it or not.
T-3-112
Love is needed to strengthen the weak; love becomes tyrannical when it exacts obedience from an unbeliever. T-2-62
Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering. MM-295
Ahimsa and love are one and the same thing. TIG-19
If love was not the law of life, life would not have persisted in the midst of death. TIG-18
Where love is, there God is also. MM-418
Where there is love, there is life; hatred leads to destruction. MM-417
The only way love punishes is by suffering. T-2-87
Wherever there are wars, wherever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. MM-417
Though God may be Love, God is Truth, above all. T-3-144
Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment. MM-344
Mutual trust and mutual love are no trust and no love. MM-421
If light can come out of darkness, then alone can love emerge from hatred. MM-417
My fast is, among other things, meant to qualify me for achieving that equal and selfless love.
T-2-151
My freedom from hatred – I would even claim for myself individually, my love – of those who consider themselves to be my enemies does not make me blind to their faults. T-2-199
My goal is friendship with the world and I can combine the greatest love with the greatest opposition to wrong. MM-424
My love of nationalism is that my country may become free, that if need be the whole of the country die, so that the human race may live. T-2-200
My nonviolence demands universal love, and you are not a small part of it. T-5-295
My only sanction is the love and affection in which you hold me. But it has its weakness, as it has its strength. T-5-260
My religion teaches me to love all equally. XXV-202
I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man. MM-422
True ahimsa should wear a smile even in a death-bed state brought about by an assailant. It is only with that ahimsa that we can befriend our opponents and win their love. T-5-243
I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light, He is Love. He is the supreme Good. T-2-313
Having flung aside the sword, there is nothing except the cup of love which I can offer to those who oppose me. MM-422
It is my great misfortune that I have to measure your love by the money gifts you give for Daridranarayana. T-2-354
For me the only certain means of knowing God is non-violence, ahimsa, love. T-2-126
Free, open love I have looked upon as dog’s love. Secret love is, besides, cowardly. T-5-196
The path of bhakti, karma and love, as expounded in the Gita, leaves no room for the despising of many by man. T-2-278
Of what avail is my love if it be only so long as I trust my friend? MM-421
The Law is God. Anything attributed to Him is not a mere attribute. He is Truth, Love, Law and million things that human ingenuity can name. T-3-250
Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to Truth and Love. TIG-9
God is Light, not darkness. God is love, not hate. God is Truth, not untruth. God alone is Great.
XXV-479
Hatred can be overcome only be love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred. T-7-144
True ahimsa should mean a complete freedom from ill-will and anger and hate and an overflowing love for all. T-2-318
It is heavy downpour of rain which drenches the soil to fullness; likewise only a profuse shower of love overcome hatred. XIV-402
Jesus lived and died in vain if he did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal Law of Love. T-5-18
When you want to find Truth as God, the only inevitable means is love, that is nonviolence. T-3-144
One who hooks his fortune to ahimsa, the law of love, daily lessens the circle of destruction and to that extent promotes life and love. T-4-33
Our peaceful non-co-operation must need be constructive, non-destructive. Poison should not emerge from the throes of love. XXV-139
Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment. XXV-563
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. XXV-563
Retaliation is counter-poison, and poison breeds more poison. The nectar of love alone can destroy the poison of hate. T-5-241
A seeker after truth, a follower of the law of Love, cannot hold anything against tomorrow. MM-188
The call of the spinning wheel is the noblest of all. Because it is the call of love. And love is Swaraj. T-2-63
