We are born in a free democratic country, fully aware of our rights and equally nonchalant about our duties. It is very difficult for our generation to feel the miseries that the people fighting for freedom must have gone through.
Freedom struggle was a collective movement supported and nurtured by an average Indian. The fact remains that Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most significant leaders who successfully mobilized the masses on the way to freedom struggle. Sadly, it has become fashionable these days to criticize Gandhiji especially by young and naïve who haven’t read a single word of what Gandhji believed in. His thoughts were really worth applause, here I have just compiled ten of them with a hope that our generation understands and apply them…..
1. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; even if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
2. Whatever you do may be soon insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
3. There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.
4. 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.
5. Non-violence does not signify that man must not fight against the enemy, and by enemy is meant the evil which men do, not the human beings themselves.
6. I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.
7. It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
8. The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.
9. Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
10. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent because what difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
