Philosopher
Last reviewed:
1869–1948 · Moral and political thought · Modern
Mohandas K. Gandhi was a lawyer and a leader of Indian independence whose political ethics centred on nonviolence and swaraj, self-rule of the community and of the self. Hind Swaraj, written in 1909 and put into English by him, argues that means and ends are not separable. The means are a seed and the end a tree.
That image is his, in Hind Swaraj, chapter 16, 'Brute Force'. He wrote a great deal, in newspapers, letters, and the autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He did not write 'Be the change you wish to see in the world', and he did not write the proverb about an eye for an eye leaving the world blind.
A longer 1913 passage about changing oneself is the text quotation researchers point to when the seven-word slogan is challenged. The Collected Works are the test. A moral celebrity attracts lines that sound like the reputation. Fit is not a source. The real argument about means is stricter than the poster, and it is a political argument, not a private pep talk.
Hind Swaraj, especially the pages on means and ends.
It is short, it is his English, and it is the argument the posters replaced.
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi · Moral and political thought
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi · Moral and political thought
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi · Moral and political thought
“The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi · Moral and political thought
“Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi · Moral and political thought
Ahimsa
Nonviolence as a disciplined political ethic, with arguments and limits, not a proverb about blindness.
Swaraj
Self-rule of the person and of the community together. One without the other is not his aim.
Means and ends
The seed and the tree. You do not get an end the means could not grow.
Hind Swaraj (1909)
His English. Means and ends, and a critique of modern civilisation.
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927–1929)
Experiments, not a book of maxims.
Collected Works (ongoing edition)
The test for any sentence attributed to him.
Misattributed means the library does not treat the sentence as theirs. Questionable means there is a real doubt, which is not the same as a proof they never wrote it. Both are listed here.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
The seven-word line does not appear in the Collected Works. A longer 1913 passage about changing yourself, and the world changing its attitude, is the text people compress. That passage is included separately and is not this slogan.
Open the card“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Researchers have not found this sentence in Gandhi. It fits a popular picture of his nonviolence, which is why it stuck. A similar thought is much older as a criticism of retaliation, but this wording is not his.
Open the cardHind Swaraj, especially the pages on means and ends. It is short, it is his English, and it is the argument the posters replaced.
This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Mohandas K. Gandhi that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, volume 13; a 1913 formulation widely identified by quotation researchers, Paraphrase or translation).
The library marks this as Misattributed: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The seven-word line does not appear in the Collected Works. A longer 1913 passage about changing yourself, and the world changing its attitude, is the text people compress. That passage is included separately and is not this slogan.
Ahimsa: Nonviolence as a disciplined political ethic, with arguments and limits, not a proverb about blindness.