Memorable quotes for
Gandhi (1982) More at IMDbPro »

Gandhi: Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.

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Nehru: Bapuji, the whole country is moving.
Gandhi: Yes. but in what direction?

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Gandhi: An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

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Nahari: I'm going to Hell! I killed a child! I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi: Why?
Nahari: Because they killed my son! The Muslims killed my son!
[indicates boy's height]
Gandhi: I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed and raise him as your own.
[indicates same height]
Gandhi: Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.

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Gandhi: They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me, then they will have my dead body. NOT MY OBEDIENCE!

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Gandhi: We think it is time that you recognized that you are masters in someone else's home. Despite the best intentions of the best of you, you must, in the nature of things, humiliate us to control us. General Dyer is but an extreme example of the principle... it is time you left.

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Kinnoch: With respect, Mr. Gandhi, without British administration, this country would be reduced to chaos.
Gandhi: Mr. Kinnoch, I beg you to accept that there is no people on Earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power.
Brigadier: My dear sir! India *is* British. We're hardly an alien power!
[silence]

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Vince Walker: I met him once.
Collins: You mean Gandhi?
Vince Walker: Yeah, in South Africa, a long time ago. I wonder if he'll recognize me.
Collins: What was he like?
Vince Walker: He had a full head of hair then. We were a bit like college students, trying to figure everything out.
Collins: Well, he must have found some of the answers!

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Gandhi: You're a temptress.
Margaret Bourke-White: Just an admirer!
Gandhi: Nothing is more dangerous, especially for an old man.

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Gandhi: I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you.

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Colonel: [moments before the Amritsar Massacre] Should we issue a warning, sir?
Gen. Dyer: They've had their warning. No meetings.
[pause]
Gen. Dyer: *Fire!*

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Gandhi: The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are.

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Vince Walker: You're an ambitious man, Mr. Gandhi.
Gandhi: I hope not.

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Gandhi: [in South Africa] You mean you can appoint Mr. Baker as your attorney but you can't walk down the street with him?
Kahn: Well, I can, but I risk being kicked into the gutter by someone less holy than Mr. Baker.

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Lord Irwin, Viceroy: Mr. Gandhi will find that it takes a great deal more than a pinch of salt to bring down the British Empire.

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Edward R. Murrow: [at Gandhi's funeral] The object of this massive tribute died as he had always lived - a private man without wealth, without property, without official title or office. Mahatma Gandhi was not a commander of great armies nor ruler of vast lands. He could boast no scientific achievements or artistic gift. Yet men, governments and dignitaries from all over the world have joined hands today to pay homage to this little brown man in the loincloth who led his country to freedom. Pope Pius, the Archbishop of Canterbury, President Truman, Chiang Kai-shek, The Foreign Minister of Russia, the President of France... are among the millions here and abroad who have lamented his passing. In the words of General George C. Marshall, the American Secretary of State, "Mahatma Gandhi had become the spokesman for the conscience of mankind, a man who made humility and simple truth more powerful than empires." And Albert Einstein added, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

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Gandhi: If you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

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[first lines]
Gandhi: [Godse shoots Gandhi in the chest] Oh God!

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Vince Walker: Whatever moral ascendancy the West once held was lost here today. India is free, for she has taken all that steel and cruelty can give and she has neither cringed nor retreated.

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Government advocate: General Dyer, is it correct that you ordered your troops to fire at the thickest part of the crowd?
Gen. Dyer: [righteous tone] That is so.
Government advocate: One thousand five hundred and sixteen casualties with one thousand six hundred and fifty bullets.
Gen. Dyer: My intention was to inflict a lesson that would have an impact throughout all India.
Indian barrister: General, had you been able to take in the armored car, would you have opened fire with the machine gun?
Gen. Dyer: I think, probably, yes.
Lord Hunter: General, did you realize there were children, and women, in the crowd?
Gen. Dyer: I did.
Government advocate: But that was irrelevant to the point you were making?
Gen. Dyer: That is correct!
Government advocate: Could I ask you what provision you made for the wounded?
Gen. Dyer: I was ready to help any who applied.
Government advocate: General, how does a child shot with a 303 Lee-Enfield "apply" for help?
Gen. Dyer: [silence]

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Brigadier: You don't think we're just going to walk out of India!
Gandhi: Yes. In the end, you will walk out. Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.

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Margaret Bourke-White: [to Gandhi] You're the only man I know who makes his own clothes.

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Hindu: Babu! Babu! Babu, please don't do it!
Gandhi: What do you want me not to do? Not to meet with Mr. Jinnah? I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian, and a Jew, and so are all of you. When you wave those flags and shout, you send fear into the hearts of your brothers. That is not the India I want! Stop it! For God's sake stop it!

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Gandhi: I want to welcome you all. Every one of you. We have no secrets. Let us begin by being clear... about General Smuts' new law. All Indians must now be fingerprinted... like criminals. Men and women. No marriage other than a Christian marriage is considered valid. Under this act our wives and mothers are whores. And every man here is a bastard. He has become quite good at this. And a policeman passing an Indian dwelling, I will not call them homes, may enter and demand the card of any Indian woman whose dwelling it is.

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Nehru: Think of what you can do by living, that you cannot do by dying... What do you want?
Gandhi: That the fighting will stop. That you make me believe it will never start again.

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