“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”

“[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.”

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge,aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“This is the unusual thing about nonviolence -- nobody is defeated, everybody shares in the victory.”

“I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”