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

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean, if a few drops of the ocean are dirty. The ocean is not dirty." 

"Prayer is not asking, it is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of ones weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words, than words without a heart."

"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon. My soul expands in the worship of the creator."

"You must be the change you wish to see in this world."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

"You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body. But you will never destroy this mind."

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

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

"If patience is worth anything, it must endure till the end of time. And a living faith will endure in the blackest storm."

"Action expresses priorities."

"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."

"I did once, seriously think of embracing the Christian faith. The gentle figure of Christ, so full of forgiveness, that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck, but to turn the other cheek - I thought it was a beautiful example of the perfect man."

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian activist who was the leader of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "high-souled", "venerable") was applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa and is now used worldwide. In India, he was also called Bapu, a term that he preferred which is Gujarati for father, and Gandhi ji.

Born and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in coastal Gujarat, India, and trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

Gandhi lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and political protest.

Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. The last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating. Among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest. Captured along with many of his co-conspirators and collaborators, Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were tried, convicted and executed while many of their other accomplices were given prison sentences.

 

Gandhi was inspirational on so many levels. His purest ideal, the ideal of self-law, was one for a kingdom not of this world. He, like Jesus, was part of a kingdom that was not of this world.

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

"Truth is by nature self evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it. It shines clear."

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

"If I had no sense of humour I would have commit suicide long ago."

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

"Anger and intolerance ar the enemies of correct understanding."

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

"Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory"

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

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