MAHATMA GANDHI QUOTES

October 1 :

A large part of the miseries of today can be avoided, if we look at the relations between the sexes in a healthy and pure light, and regard ourselves as trustees for the moral welfare of the future generations.

YI, 27 Sept. 1928

October 2 :

What chiefly distinguishes man from to beast is that man from his age of discretion begins to practice a life of continual self-restraint. God has enabled man to distinguish between the sister, his mother, his daughter and his wife.

WGG, p. 84

October 3 :

Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality. If so, it must be based on ever increasing restraint upon the demands of the flesh. Thus, marriage must be considered to be a sacrament imposing discipline upon the partners, restriction them to the physical union only among themselves and for the purpose only of procreation when both the partners desire and are prepared for it.

YI, 16 Sept. 1926

October 4 :

Sex urge is a fine and noble thing. There is nothing to be ashamed of in it. But it is meant only for the act of creation. Any other use of it is a sin against God and humanity.

H, 28 March 1936

October 5 :

Absolute renunciation, absolute brahmacharya, is the ideal state. If you dare not think if it, marry by all means, but even then live a life of self-control.

H, 7 Sept. 1935

October 6 :

Marriage is a natural thing in life, and to consider it derogatory in any sense is wholly wrong. The ideal is to look upon marriage as a sacrament, and therefore, to lead a life of self-restraint in the married estate.

H, 22 March 1942

October 7 :

Brahmacharya is not mere mechanical celibacy, it means complete control over all the senses and freedom from lust in thought, word and deed. As such it is the royal road to self-realization or attainment of Brahman.

YI, 29 April 1926

October 8 :

Marriage is meant to cleanse the hearts of the couple of sordid passion and take them nearer god. Lust less love between husband and wife is not impossible. Man is not a brute. He has risen to a higher state after countless births in the brute creation. He is born to stand not to walk on all fours or crawl. Bestiality is as far removed from manhood as matter from spirit.

Ibid.

October 9 :

The wife is not the husband's bond slave but his companions and his help-mate and an equal partner in all his joys and sorrows as free as the husband to choose her own path.

Auto, p. 25

October 10 :

You will guard your wife's honour and be not her master, but her true friend. You will hold her body and her soul as sacred as I trust she will hold your body and your soul. To that end you will have to live a life of prayerful toil, and simplicity and self-restraint. Let not either of you regard another as the object of his or her lust.

YI, 2 Feb. 1928

October 11 :

Just as fundamentally man and woman are one, their problem must be one in essence. The soul in both is the same. The two live the same life, have the same feelings. Each is a complement of the other. The one cannot live without the other's active help.

H, 24 Feb. 1940

October 12 :

But somehow or other man has dominated from ages past, and so woman has developed an inferiority complex. She has believed in the truth of man's interested teaching that she is inferior to him. But seers among men have recognized her equal status.

H, 24 Feb. 1940

October 13 :

Nevertheless there is no doubt that is some point there is bifurcation. Whilst both are fundamentally one, it is also equally true that in that form there is a vital difference between the two. Hence the vocations of the two must also be different. The duty of motherhood, which the vast majority of women will always undertake, requires qualities which man need not, possess. She is passive, he is active. She is essentially mistress of the house. He is the bread-winner. She is the keeper and distributor of the bread. She is the caretaker in every sense of the term.

Ibid.

October 14 :

Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate in very minutest detail in the activities of man and she has an equal right of freedom and liberty with him.

SW, p. 425

October 15 :

Of all the evils which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity to me, the female sex, not the weaker sex. It is the nobler of the two, for it is even today the embodiment of sacrifice, silent suffering, humility, faith and knowledge.

YI, 15 Sept. 1921

October 16 :

Woman, I hold, is the personification of self-sacrifices, but unfortunately today she does not realize what a tremendous advantage she has over man. As Tolstoy used to say, they are labouring under the hypnotic influence of man. If they would realize the strength of non-violence they would not consent to be called the weaker sex.

YI, 14 Jan. 1932

October 17 :

Man has regarded woman as his tool. She has learnt to be his tool, and in the end found this easy and comfortable to be such, because when one drags another in his fall the descent is easy.

H, 25 Jan. 1936

October 18 :

Woman must cease to consider herself the object of man's lust. The remedy is more in her hands than man's. She must refuse to adorn herself for men, including her husband, if she will be an equal partner with man. I cannot imagine Sita ever wasting a single moment on pleasing Rama by physical charms.

Yi, 21 July 1921

October 19 :

Women are special custodians of all that is pure and religious in life. Conservative by nature, if they are slow to shed superstitions habits, they are slow to shed superstitious habits, they are also slow to give up all that is pure and noble in life.

H, 25 March 1933

October 20 :

Woman is the incarnation of Ahimsa. Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite love, which means infinite capacity for suffering. Who but woman, the mother of man, shows this capacity in the largest measure? She shows it is as she carries the infant and feeds it during nine months and derives joy in the suffering involved. What can beat the suffering involved by the pangs of labour? But she forgets them in the joy of creation. Who, again, suffers daily so that her babe may wax from day to day? Let her transfer that love to the whole of humanity, let  her forget that she was or can be the object of man's lust. And she will occupy her proud position by the side of man as his mother, maker and silent leader. It is given to her to teach the art of peace to the warring world thirsting for that nectar.

H, 24 Feb. 1940

October 21 :

There is as much reason for man to wish that the has born a woman as for woman to do otherwise. But the wish is fruitless. Let us be happy in the state to which we are born and do the duty for which nature has destined us.

Ibid.

October 22 :

Chastity is not a hot house growth. It cannot be protected by the surrounding wall of the purdah. It must grow from within, and to be worth anything it must be capable of withstanding unsought temptation.

YI, 3 Dec. 1927

October 23 :

And why is there all this morbid anxiety about female purity? Have women and say in the matter of male purity? We hear nothing of women's anxiety about men's chastity. Why should men arrogate to themselves the right to regulate female purity? It cannot be superimposed from without. It is a matter of evolution from within and therefore of individual self effort.

YI, 25 Nov. 1926

October 24 :

It is my firm conviction that a fearless woman who knows that her purity is her best shield can never be dis-honoured. However beastly the man, he will bow in shame before the flame of her dazzling purity.

H, 1 March 1942

October 25 :

Let it be man's privilege to protect woman, but let no woman of India feel helpless in the absence of man or in the event of his failing to perform the sacred duty of protecting her. One who knows how to die need never fear and harm to her of his honour.

YI, 15 Dec. 1921

October 26 :

Man must choose either of the two courses, the upward or the downward; but as he has the brute in him, he will more easily choose the downward course than the upward, especially when the down ward course is presented to him in a beautiful grab. Man easily capitulates when sin is presented in the grab of virtue.

H, 21 Jan. 1935

October 27 :

It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts. It is good for a person who overeats to have an ache and an ache and a fast. It is bad for him to indulge his appetite and then escape the consequence by taking tonics or other medicine. It is still worse for a person to indulge in animal passions and escape the consequences of his acts.

YI, 12 March

October 28 :

Nature is relentless and will have full revenge for any such violation of her laws. Moral results can only be produced by moral restraints. All other restraints defeat the very purpose for which they are intended.

Ibid.

October 29 :

The world depends for its existence on the act of generation, and as the world is the playground of God and reflection of His glory, the act of generation should be controlled for the ordered growth of the world.

Auto, P. 204

October 30 :

The conquest of lust is the highest endeavour of a man or woman's existence. Without overcoming lust man cannot hope to rule over self. And without rule over self there can be no Swaraj or Ramaraj. Rule of all without rule of oneself would prove to be as deceptive and disappointing as painted toy-mango, charming to look at outwardly but hollow and empty within.

H, 21 Nov. 1936

October 31 :

The ideal that marriage aims at is that of spiritual union through the physical. The human love that it incarnates is intended to serve as a stepping stone to divine or universal love.

YI, 21 May 1931

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