“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.”

Page 446. An autobiography: the story of my experiments with truth
By Gandhi (Mahatma), Mahadev Haribhai Desai

I love this quote. Gandhi, the iconic pacifist, recognized that free people require arms to defend themselves and their ideals. He did not believe arms were inherently evil or that the world would be better without them.

Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 and would have turned 140 this year.

The above image comes from Ecorazzi.com, a “green” blog.