“I believe in absolute oneness of God and therefore also of humanity. What though we have many bodies? We have but one soul. The rays of the sun are many through refraction. But they have the same source. I cannot therefore detach myself from the wickedest soul (nor may I be denied identity with the most virtuous).”
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Source: Young India (25 September 1924); listed in the 1920s section of Gandhi's English Wikiquote page.
About this quote
The comfortable move is to draw a hard line between decent people and the wicked, placing yourself safely on the good side. This vision refuses that line: if everyone springs from one source, then even the worst person remains kin, and their fate is somehow bound up with your own.
When to use it
- A volunteer teaches literacy inside a prison, treating men others have written off as still worth reaching.
- A woman refuses to dehumanize the rival group her neighbors curse, insisting they share the same daily struggles.
- After a betrayal, someone works to see the offender as a flawed human rather than a monster to cut off forever.