Rabindranath Tagore

Bengali poet and Asia’s first Nobel Laureate

He stopped at the thresholds of the huts of the thousands of the dispossessed, dressed like one of their own.
He spoke to them in their own language; here was living truth at last, and not quotations form books.
For this reason ‘Mahatma’ the name given to him by the people of India, is his real name.
Who else has felt like him that all Indians are his flesh and blood?
In direct contact with truth, the crushed forces of the soul rise again; when love came to the door of India that door was opened wide…
At Gandhi’s call India blossomed forth to new greatness, just as once the truth of fellow-feeling and compassion among all living creatures.

William Rose Benet

American poet and critic

Gandhi

Violence killed good.
But Violence dies.
The pure martyred blood
Speaks to the skies.
Violence slew peace.
And through all ages hence
Men shall not cease
To Mourn this Violence.
The Silence knows.
The sacred river flows.
The light that was the Savior
Grows and grows and Grows…

Romain Rolland

French author

“There is an almost child-like simplicity about him. His manner is gentle and courteous even when dealing with adversaries, and he is of immaculate sincerity. He is modest and unassuming, to the point of sometimes seeming almost timid hesitant, in making an assertion. Yet you feel his indomitable spirit. He makes no compromises and never tries to hide a mistake. Nor is he afraid to admit having been wrong. Diplomacy is unknown to him; he shuns oratorical effect or, rather, never thinks about it; and he shrinks unconsciously from the great popular demonstrations organized in the honour”

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

First Prime Minister of India

“Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere and I do not quite know what to tell you and how to say it. Our beloved leader Bapu as we called him, the Father of the Nation, is no more…
The light has gone out, I said and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined 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 will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented something more than the immediate present. It represented the living truth and the eternal man was with us with his eternal truth reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom…”
January 30, 1948

Rajendra Prasad

First President of India

“Mahatma Gandhi is no more in flesh and blood to speak to us, to console us, to encourage us, to guide us. But did he not tell us often that the body is mortal and transient, that the atma alone is immortal and imperishable?... This is no time for anger of retaliation. In Gandhiji’s teaching there is never any time or room for either. What is needed is a firm determination to eradicate the narrow soul-killing sectarianism that has made the crime possible. … Communal distrust and discord must disappear and harmony and concord should be established. This was his last wish. We must and shall fulfil it.”
February 3, 1948

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

First Deputy Prime Minister of India

“Indeed Gandhi was a pillar of strength and a source of inspiration to the nation. And in his death, we who were his closest associates have suffered an irreparable loss. Gandhiji is gone, but Gandhiji will live in our hearts foe ever…Let us all solemnly pledge ourselves afresh to Gandhiji’s teachings and ideals”
January 30, 1948

Devdas Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi's youngest son

“Bapu would be entitled to call us greedy if we wished him to live in our midst for ever. We are now thrown on our own enterprise. I would not waste time or emotion in fruitless sorrow over God’s will. Bapu himself is in bliss. We no longer have his physical presence. But his spirit will guide and help us.”

Lord Mountbatten

British admiral

“Gandhi’s purely political power was on the wane. He was a modern day saint, really, and saints cannot thrive for ever in a political atmosphere.”
 

Albert Einstein

German Physicist

“Revolution without the use of violence was the method by which Gandhi brought about the liberation of India. It is my belief that the problem of brining peace to the world on a supranational basis will be solved only by employing Gandhi’s method on a large scale…
…It should not be forgotten that Gandhi’s development resulted from extraordinary intellectual and moral forces in combination with political ingenuity and a unique situation. I think that Gandhi would have been Gandhi even without Thoreau and Tolstoy.
Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”

Pearl S Buck

American writer

“He was right, he knew he was right, we all knew he was right. The man who killed him knew he was right. However long the follies of the violent continue, they but prove that Gandhi was right…Resist to the very end, he said, but without violence….
Of violence the world is sick…
Oh, India, dare to be worthy of your Gandhi!”

Will Durant

Philosopher

“Not since Buddha has India so revered any man… Not since St. Francis of Assisi has any life known to history been so marked by gentleness, disinterestedness, simplicity of soul, and forgiveness of enemies….We have the astonishing phenomenon of a revolution led by a saint.”

Field-Marshal Jan Smuts

Prime Minister of South Africa

“Gandhi was one of the great men of my time and my acquaintance with him over a period of more than 30 years has only deepened my high respect for him. I always found him ready to discuss in a reasonable and fair minded manner and always searching for solution along peaceful lines. Gandhi has left behind a name almost unequalled in the world today. He is outstanding leader of men”.

Nelson Mandela

Former President of South Africa

“I saw non-violence on the Gandhian model not as an inviolable principle but as a tactic to be used as the situation demanded. The principle was not so important that the strategy should be used even when it was self defeating, as Gandhi himself believed.”

Martin Luther King

Leader in the American cilvil rights movement

“Mahatma Gandhi never had more than one hundred persons absolutely committed to his philosophy. But with this small group of devoted followers, he galvanized the whole of India, and through a magnificent feat of non-violence challenged the might of the British empire and won freedom for his people.”
Martin Luther King

George Benard Shaw

Irish playwright

“It shows how dangerous it is to be too good”