Because he [man] ruled matter without understanding it, he faced his bodily self as an object which he could not comprehend though he could analyze and tamper with it’s every part.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton, p. 1

Wisdom without science is unable to penetrate the full sapiential meaning of the created and material cosmos. Science without wisdom leaves man enslaved to a world of unrelated objects in which there is no way of discovering (or creating) order and deep significance in man’s own pointless existence.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton, p. 1

It is a crisis of sanity first of all. The problems of the nations are problems of mentally deranged people, but magnified a thousand times because they have the full, straight-faced approbation of a schizoid society, schizoid national structures, schizoid military and business complexes, and, need one add, schizoid religious sects.
Gandhi on Non-ViolenceIntroduction by Thomas Merton, p.3

One of the marks of catholicity is precisely that values which are everywhere natural to man are fulfilled on the highest level in the Law of the Spirit. And in Christian charity. A “charity” that excludes these values cannot claim the title of Christian love.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton, p.5

When the practice of ahimsa becomes universal, God will reign on earth as He does in heaven.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Gandhi p.7

It is no accident that Hitler believed firmly in the unforgivableness of sin. This is indeed fundamental to the whole mentality of Nazism, with its avidity for final solutions and its concern that all uncertainties be eliminated…Even the arguments of an Eichmann pleading obedience, suggest deep faith in an irreversible order which could not be changed but only obeyed…It is clear that Hitler was in one thing a brilliant sucecss: everything he did bears the stamp of complete and paranoid finality.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton

”…sin itself is already a punishment…those who consider themselves happy and whose sense of power depends on the idea that they are beyond suffering any evil are not able to have mercy on others.”
Gandhi on Non-ViolenceSt. Thomas Aquinas p.12

Only the admission of defect and fallibility in oneself makes it possible for one to become merciful to others.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.12

…love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil once for all but by resisting and overcoming it anew every day.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.13

In the use of force, one simplifies the situation by assuming that the evil to be overcome is clear-cut, definite, and irreversible.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.13

By reducing necessities to simple and irreversible forms it simplifies existence, eliminating questions that tend to embarrass minds and slacken the “progress” of the relentless and intolerant apparatus…The greatest of tyrannies are all therefore based on the postulate that there should never be any sin...Since sin is what should never be, then it must never be, therefore it will never be.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.14

The freedom contained in Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness in the freedom from vengeance, which encloses both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process, which by itself need never come to an end.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.14

True freedom is…inseparable from…inner strength.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.14

It is better that you be enriched with the advantage of patience than to render evil for evil.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.15

A man ends by becoming what he thinks.
Gandhi on Non-Violence Gandhi p.19

Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance…There can be no peace on earth without the kind of inner change that brings man back to his “right mind.”
Gandhi on Non-Violence Introduction by Thomas Merton p.20

My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop non-violence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.26God may be called by any other name so long as it connotes the living Law of Life – in other words, the Law and the Lawgiver rolled into one.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.31

There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent. .
I know…giggle giggle…but you know what he means.Gandhi on Non-Violence p.37

Inaction…is rank cowardice and unmanly. It must be shunned at all cost.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.39

Non-violence in the sense of mere non-killing does not appear to me to be any improvement on the technique of violence. It means slow torture, and when slowness becomes ineffective we shall immediately revert to killing and the atom bomb.
.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.40

If we remain non-violent, hatred will die as everything else does, from disuse.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.45

It is the law of love the rules mankind. Had violence, i.e., hate ruled us, we should have become extinct long ago. And yet the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.45

Truth and non-violence are not possible without a living belief in God, meaning a self-existent, all-knowing, living Force which inheres in every other force known to the world and which depends on none, and which will live when all other forces may conceivably perish or cease to act. I am unable to account for my life without belief in this all-embracing living Light.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.49

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?
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.55

I do not appreciate underground activity. Millions cannot go underground. Millions need not.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.58

Mankind is at the crossroads. It has to make its choice between the law of the jungle and the law of humanity.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p. 58

To benefit by others’ killing and delude oneself into the belief that one is being very religious and non-violent is sheer self-deception.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.58

The essence of true religious teaching is that one should serve and befriend all. It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.62

There is no such thing as shooting out of love.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.64

I have no feeling in me to save the life of these animals who devour or cause hurt to man.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.70

But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.72

My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents, and I lay them both at His feet.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.73

I am not vain enough to think that the divine purpose can only be fulfilled through me…May it not be that a man purer, more courageous, more far-seeing is wanted for the final purpose? This is all speculation. No one has the capacity to judge God. We are drops in that limitless ocean of mercy.
Gandhi on Non-Violence p.75

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