' Let Noble Thoughts Come To Us From Every Side ' Rigveda 1-89-1
Gandhi Centre Of Science and Human Values
' Let Noble Thoughts Come To Us From Every Side ' Rigveda 1-89-1
"China followed Sun Yat Sen, took up the sword and fell into the armsof Japan. India, weaponless, accepted as her leader one of the strangestfigures in history, and gave to the world the unprecedented phenomenon of a revolution led by a saint, and waged without a gun…… He did not mouth the name of Christ, but acted as if he accepted every word of the Sermon on the Mount. Not since St. Francis of Assisi has any life known to history been so marked by gentleness, disinterestedness, simplicity andforgiveness of enemies.”
Will Durant
"Gandhi was an experimenter in the development of “war without violence’.His work was pioneering and not always adequate, but it represents a major development of historic significance both in ethics and in politics.....Many problems in its further development and application remain. But in words and action Gandhi pointed toward what may be the key to the resolution of the dilemma of how one can behave peacefully and at the same time actively, and effectively oppose oppression and injustice.”
Professor Gene Sharp
“The fragility of modern civilization is exposed by the frighteningly ineffective way in which our world approaches conflict resolution. In international relationships, neither conventional diplomacy nor various uses of military deterrence have improved the thin margin on which the world exists. This somewhat pessimistic reading of history is challenged by one major exception, Mahatma Gandhi’s application of policies and techniques of non-violence in India. Gandhi’s success both redeems human nature from the inevitability of its historical experience and also suggests the viability of non-violence in modern situations.”
Prof. Ralph Bultjens
“Gandhi waded into the slough, showed how the slough could be purified and remained personally uncontaminated by his immersion in it. This gives the measure both of Gandhi’s own spiritual stature and the magnitude of his service to mankind at a turning point in human history.”
Arnold Toynbee
”Mahatma Gandhi was the first person in human history to lift the ethic of love of Jesus Christ, above mere interaction between individuals and make it into a powerful and effective social force on a large scale If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable."
Martin Luther King.
“Most revolutions create enormous aspirations and never really fulfill them; some betray them utterly. The American Revolution quickly drew boundaries around notions of freedom that were its inspiration, excluding African Americans, native Americans, and to a considerable degree women.The French Revolution produced a frenzy of murderous rage, followed by nearly another century of monarchies. The Russian and Chinese Revolutions created tyranny, oppression and stagnations. Gandhi has been so mythologized since his assassination in 1948, the real man has almost disappeared. But he deserves his position as a resonant symbol of one of the most important phenomena of modern history: the simultaneous assault on colonialism and the oppression of individuals, which has transformed much of the 20th century world.”
Prof. Alan Brinkley
“ Gandhi was certainly a revolutionary, much more revolutionary than the piecemeal revolutionaries of Western civilization….. Gandhi revolutionized revolution itself.”
Prof. Johan Galtung
“A leader of his people, unsupported by any outward authority, a victorious fighter who always scorned the use of force, a man of wisdom and humility who has confronted the brutality of Europe with the dignity of the simple human being and has at all times risen superior.......Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”
Albert Einstein
“As the new century begins, no question is more important than whether the world has now embarked on a new cycle of violence, condemning the 21st century to repeat or even outdo, the bloodshed of the 20th. The present dangers are not, as before, the massed conventional armies and systematized hatreds of rival great powers but the persistent and steady spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and the unappeased demons of national, ethnic, religious and class fury Notwithstanding the shock of September 11th and the need to take forceful measures to meet the threat of global terrorism, a new and promising path has opened up. For in 20th century history another complimentary lesson, less conspicuous than the first but just as important, has been emerging. It is that forms of non-violent action can serve effectively in the place of violence at every level of political affairs. This is the promise of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s resistance to the British Empire in India, of Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement in the United States, of the non-violent movements in Eastern Europe and Russia that brought down Communism and the Soviet Union”.
Jonathan Schell