Sourced
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Source: Young India (2 April 1931)
Authors / Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi quotes
1869–1948 · Indian lawyer and leader of non-violent resistance
Gandhi wrote almost every day for decades — his Collected Works run to about a hundred volumes — so real sources exist for most of his ideas. The most famous "Gandhi quotes", oddly, are mostly paraphrases written by other people.
4 real · 5 not theirs
Really theirs
4 quotes traced to Mahatma Gandhi's own work or a reliable witness.
Sourced
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Source: "The Doctrine of the Sword", Young India (11 August 1920)
Attributed
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Source: Attributed to Young India (1927)
Attributed
My life is my message.
Source: Reported reply to a journalist, Bengal (1947)
Not theirs
5 famous lines credited to Mahatma Gandhi that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.
Misquoted
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
The real words: A modern condensation. What Gandhi wrote (Indian Opinion, 1913) is longer: "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change… We need not wait to see what others do."
Not theirs
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Actually: No record of Gandhi saying it. A close version appears in a 1918 speech by US union organiser Nicholas Klein.
Not theirs
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
Actually: Never found in Gandhi's writings; it became famous through the 1982 film Gandhi. Similar lines appear earlier from others.
Not theirs
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Actually: An old proverb, attributed to medieval writers and printed in English in 1867 — two years before Gandhi was born.
Not theirs
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Actually: Not in Gandhi's Collected Works. A similar idea comes from the German theologian David Strauss (1872).