“I believe that our copying of the European dress is a sign of our degradation, humiliation and our weakness, and that we are committing a national sin in discarding a dress which is best suited to the Indian climate and which, for its simplicity, art and cheapness, is not to be beaten on the face of the earth and which answers hygienic requirements. Had it not been for a false pride and equally false notions of prestige, Englishmen here would long ago have adopted the Indian costume.”
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Probable attribution
This saying is widely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but the attribution is not supported by a reliable primary source.
Likely origin: 'Third Class in Indian Railways' (1917); Gandhi on the degradation of copying European dress and the case for Indian costume.
About this quote
Trading something that genuinely suits you — practical, simple, tested by your own conditions — for an imitation of others usually springs from feeling second-rate, not from sound judgment. The borrowed style rarely fits better; it just carries the shine of whoever you copied, and that shine wears off fast.
When to use it
- A cook who drops a trendy foreign menu he can't execute and returns to the regional dishes his kitchen actually does best.
- A teenager who stops copying a classmate's whole wardrobe once he realizes the borrowed look never quite fit him.
- A startup that abandons the buzzword branding it lifted from bigger firms and describes its work in plain, honest terms.