To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that one that must be loved is not a friend. There is not merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.
Mahatma GandhiRead
You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilisation to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the superficial treatment of sacred texts and emphasizes their transformative potential.
Mahatma Gandhi highlights the immense power and significance of religious texts, suggesting that they contain transformative ideas capable of changing the world. He critiques the way these texts are often disregarded, viewed merely as literature rather than as sources of potential peace and civilization's renewal.
Themes
ReligionPhilosophyTransformationPeaceLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on the role of religion in society.
More from Mahatma Gandhi
All quotes →Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mahatma GandhiRead
The real test of nonviolence lies in its being brought in contact with those who have contempt for it.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Mahatma GandhiRead
The devotion of such titans of spirit as Lenin to an Ideal must bear fruit. The nobility of his selflessness will be an example through centuries to come, and his Ideal will reach perfection.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Similar quotes
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Samuel AdamsRead
Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean, nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere in the world is there a place where one may escape from the results of evil deeds.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Jacob did not cease to be a Saint because he had to attend to his flocks.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
John DonneRead
Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.
George SantayanaRead
I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.
Muhammad AbduhRead