Tributes to Mahatma Gandhi

"At Gandhi's call India blossomed forth to new greatness, just as once before in earlier times, when Buddha proclaimed the Truth of fellow feeling, and compassion among all living creatures"

-Rabindranath Tagore

"The light that has illuminated this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years; and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country and the world and it will give solace to innumerable hearts; for that light represented the living Truth.

-Jawaharlal Nehru

"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 will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth".

-Albert Einstein

"Mahatma Gandhi was the first person in human history to lift the Ethic of Love of Jesus Christ above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale."

-Martin Luther King

"The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi is not only vested in the Independence of India and her position as one of the world's great democracies. His abiding greatness lies in the fact that the whole world needs Gandhian philosophy as much today as it did during his lifetime."

-Lord Attenborough

"China followed Sun Yat Sen, took up the sword and fell into the arms of Japan. India, weaponless, accepted as her leader one of the strangest figures 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 on the Sermon on the Mount. Not since St. Francis of Assissi has any life known to history been so marked by gentleness, disinterestedness, simplicity and forgiveness of enemies."

-Will & Ariel Durant, (in their 12 vol 'Story of Civilization')

"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 brought in new dimensions into our lives. When he spoke of non violence he meant not merely the avoidance of violent action but of action for cleansing our hearts of hatred and bitterness. He unveiled the spiritual political power of illiterate and humble have nots. He said that every decision and programme should be judged from the view point of the poorest and the weakest"

-Indira Gandhi