QUOTES
Nonviolence
is something very powerful, and the power behind it is not weapons, but the support
of the people.
Nonviolence,
therefore, can be described as an honest and diligent pursuit of truth. It could
also mean the search for the meaning of life or the purpose of life, questions
that have tormented humankind for centuries. The fact that we have not been able
to find satisfactory answers to these questions does not mean there is no answer.
It only means we have not searched with any degree of honesty. The search has
to be both external and internal. We seek to ignore this crucial search because
the sacrifices it demands are revolutionary. It means moving away from greed,
selfishness, possessiveness, and dominance to love, compassion, understanding,
and respect.
So
many people around the world have used nonviolence as a way to resolve a conflict
that they faced in their lives. And they continue to use it everywhere all over
the world there. And I think, in a way, nonviolence is our nature. Violence is
not really our nature. If violence was our nature, we wouldn’t need military academies
and martial arts institutes to teach us how to kill and destroy people. We ought
to have been born with those instincts. But the fact that we have to learn the
art of killing means that it’s a learned experience. And we can always unlearn
it.
People
need to realize that they need to take the initiative."
"The
ultimate object of education should be, Gandhi said, to help create not only a
balanced and harmonious individual but also a balanced and harmonious society
where true justice prevails, where there is no unnatural division between the
"haves" and the "have-nots," and where everybody is assured of a living wage and
the right to live and the right to 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.
...violence
is destroying us. You know, we’re seeing violence growing every day in our streets,
in our homes, in our towns, in our cities, in the world itself. Everywhere we
turn, we see violence and hate and prejudice and anger and all of these negative
emotions that are destroying humanity. And we have to wake up and take note of
this and try to change our course, so that we can create a world of peace and
harmony where future generations can live happily together.
