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.
Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the power of truth, love, and self-suffering to counter negative emotions and actions.
Mahatma Gandhi's quote illustrates a profound belief in the transformative power of truth, love, and personal sacrifice. It suggests that these virtues can effectively extinguish various forms of negativity, such as untruth, anger, and violence. Importantly, Gandhi asserts that this principle is universal and applicable to everyone, not just those who are considered holy or virtuous. In essence, it invites all individuals to adopt these ideals in their daily lives to foster peace and harmony.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on conflict resolution, one could use this quote to emphasize non-violent approaches.
More from Mahatma Gandhi
All quotes βLove never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
The real test of nonviolence lies in its being brought in contact with those who have contempt for it.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
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.
Similar quotes
To see a world in a grain of sand_x000D_ And a heaven in a wild flower,_x000D_ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,_x000D_ And eternity in an hour.
What WE represent is the nexus of concrescent novelty that has been moving itself together, complexifying itself, folding itself in upon itself for billions and billions of years. There is, so far as we know, nothing more advanced than what is sitting behind your eyes. The human neocortex is the most densely ramified complexified structure in the known universe.
Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.
Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.
A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.
It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity.