SATYAGRAHA

Quote for Today - January 19, 2013

"The term Satyagraha was coined by me ... in order to distinguis it from the movement then going on ... under the name of Passive Resistance.

"Its root meaning is 'holding on to truth,' hence 'force of righteousness.'  I have also called it love force or soul force. In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not permit violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by the infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on one's self."

Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma] Gandhi [1869-1948] in Defense against charge of sedition [March 23, 1922]. 

I found the above quote in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. It's  from Mahatma [Great Soul] Gandhi and has a footnote that points the following words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"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."

Martin Luther King Jr. in his Speech Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize [December 11, 1964]