Mahatma Gandhi
Leader of India's independence movement, 1869–1948. 1 explained quote and 1 wrongly credited to them.
Gandhi did write that changing ourselves changes how the world treats us. The neat one-line slogan is a modern paraphrase that does not appear anywhere in his writings.
Read the full explanation →A line that sums up Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence, but it has not been found in anything he wrote or said. Martin Luther King Jr. used a close version in 1958, and the 1982 film Gandhi made it famous.
See who really said it →No quotes match these filters yet. New quotes are added every week.
About Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called Mahatma (“great soul”), trained as a lawyer in London, spent two decades fighting racial discrimination in South Africa, and then led India’s campaign for independence from Britain through mass nonviolent resistance, which he called satyagraha. India became independent in 1947; Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi in January 1948.
Gandhi wrote an enormous amount, mostly in newspapers he edited such as Indian Opinion, Young India and Harijan, and his Collected Works run to about a hundred volumes. That record makes it possible to check what he actually wrote, and it shows that several of the most popular “Gandhi quotes” are later simplifications or inventions.
More lines by Gandhi
Short quotes checked against their sources.
- “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”Young India, 1931