Gandhi Quotes in The Blood of Heroes (1989)

Gandhi: They dress you in special clothing... in silk.

Kidda: Silk?

Gandhi: A cloth so fine it's like wind on your cheek.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Nehru: Bapuji, the whole country is moving.

Gandhi: Yes. but in what direction?

Soldier: Mr. Gandhi, sir. I have been instructed to inquire the subject of your speech tonight.

Gandhi: The value of goat's milk in daily diet. But you can be sure that I will also speak against war.

Gandhi: Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Gandhi: I want to change their minds. Not kill them for weaknesses we all possess.

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.

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.

Gandhi: There are no goodbyes for us, Charlie. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.

Conductor: [stopping Gandhi on the train in South Africa] What are you doing in here, coolie?

Gandhi: I reserved this car. I have a ticket.

Conductor: How did you get hold of it?

Gandhi: I sent for it by post. I am an attorney.

European Passenger: An attorney! There are no colored attorneys in South Africa - move your black ass into third class where it belongs!

Porter: I'll take your luggage, sir...

Gandhi: No, wait.

[he takes out his card and shows it]

Gandhi: You see? 'Mohandas K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law.' I am on my way to Pretoria to conduct a case...

European Passenger: Didn't you hear me? There are no colored attorneys in South Africa!

Gandhi: Sir, I was called to the bar in London, and enrolled in the High Court of Chancery. I am therefore an attorney. And since I am, in your eyes, 'colored,' I think we can deduce that there is at least one colored attorney in South Africa.

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]

Vince Walker: You're an ambitious man, Mr. Gandhi.

Gandhi: I hope not.

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.

Kahn: He has become quite good at this.

Gandhi: 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.

Gandhi: Where there's injustice, I always believed in fighting. The question is, do you fight to change things or to punish? For myself, I've found we're all such sinners, we should leave punishment to God. And if we really want to change things, there are better things than derailing trains or slashing someone with a sword.

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.

Hindu: Bapu! Bapu! Bapu, 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!

Gandhi: I, for one, have never advocated passive anything. We must never sumbit to such laws. And I think our resistance must be *active* and provocative!

Kasturba Gandhi: Sora was sent to tell me I must rake and cover the latrine.

Gandhi: Everyone takes his turn.

Kasturba Gandhi: It is the work of untouchables!

Gandhi: In this place, no work is beneath us.

Kasturba Gandhi: I am your wife!

Gandhi: [coldly] All the more reason.

Margaret Bourke-White: Do you really believe you could use non-violence against someone like Hitler?

Gandhi: [thinks] Not without defeats, and great pain. But are there no defeats in war? No pain? What you cannot do is accept injustice. From Hitler, or anyone. You must make the injustice visible, and be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.

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

Margaret Bourke-White: So you really are going to Pakistan then? You are a stubborn man.

Gandhi: I'm simply going to prove to Hindus here and Muslims there that the only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. And that is where all our battles ought to be fought.

Margaret Bourke-White: So what kind of warrior have you been in that warfare?

Gandhi: Not a very good one. That's why I have so much tolerance for the other scoundrels of the world.

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.

Gandhi: No Indian must be treated as the English treat us. We must remove untouchability from our hearts and from our lives.

Gandhi: I've traveled so far. And all I've done is come back... home.

Vince Walker: Now, wait a minute. You know what you're going to do, don't you?

Gandhi: It would have been very uncivil of me to let you make such a long trip for nothing!

[walks off]

Gandhi: I have friends who keep telling me how much it costs them to keep me in poverty.

Gandhi: We must defy the British... Not with violence that will inflame their will but with a firmness that will open their eyes. English factories make the cloth that makes our poverty. All those who wish to make the English see bring me the cloth from Manchester and Leeds that you wear today and we will light a fire that will be seen in Delhi, and in London!

Gandhi: You intend to walk all the way?

Vince Walker: It's the only way I can get the story. Besides, my name *is* Walker.

Gandhi: [to a group of South African bigots] You'll find there's room for all of us here.

Gandhi: You're a temptress.

Margaret Bourke-White: Just an admirer!

Gandhi: Nothing is more dangerous, especially for an old man.

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.

Gandhi: [his final words] Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

Movie Announcer: Next week on U62, he's back. And this time, he's mad. Gandhi II. No more mister passive resistance. He's out to kick some butt. This is one bad mother you don't wanna mess with.

Gandhi: Don't move, slimeball.

Movie Announcer: He's a one man wrecking crew. But he also knows how to party.

Gandhi: Give me a steak, medium rare.

Gangster: Hey, baldy!

Movie Announcer: There is only one law: his law. Gandhi II.