Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi (Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā or “Great Soul“, an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore), and in India also as Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ, bāpu or “Father”). He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience while an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, during the resident Indian community’s struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he organized protests by peasants, farmers, and urban labourers concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination. After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women’s rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end untouchability, and increase economic self-reliance.

Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj or the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led his followers in the Non-cooperation movement that protested the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (240 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930. Later he campaigned against the British to Quit India. Gandhi spent a number of years in jail in both South Africa and India.

As a practitioner of ahimsa, he swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. Gandhi lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest.

Famous Sayings by Gandhi

1. A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

2. A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.

3. A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.

4. A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

5. Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

6. An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

7. An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

8. Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

9. Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.

10. As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

11. Be the change that you want to see in the world.

12. Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

13. Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

14. Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

15. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

16. I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

17. I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

18. I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.

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

20. If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

21. It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

22. It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

23. It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.

24. 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.

25. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

26. Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.

27. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

28. The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

29. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

30. There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.

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