Reply #9: Your wish is my command . . . [View All]

[enlightenment]

Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep.

I would far rather that India perished than that she won freedom as the sacrifice of truth.

Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today.

The science of war leads one to dictatorship pure and simple. The science of nonviolence can alone lead one to pure democracy.

and, finally --

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj (freedom) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi
1948

on edit - lost a word because I put it in brackets -- that darn HTML!