“If I stop sleeping together for all time it will mean that I have been mistaken. Otherwise why should I stop it? There is a limit to abstaining from it for the sake of my friends”
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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: Reported remark from Gandhi's 1946-47 brahmacharya 'experiments', documented in biographies; not from a polished Gandhi work.
About this quote
A personal commitment is only worth reversing when your own reasoning proves it was a mistake — not because the people around you have grown uneasy with it. The real work is telling those two motives apart before you cave, so you change course for truth rather than for comfort or approval.
When to use it
- Someone sticking to an early-morning study routine even when friends razz them for skipping late nights out.
- A person keeping a strict savings plan through a year of teasing, dropping it only when the math finally proves it too tight.
- A parent holding a screen-time rule at home despite relatives calling it excessive, revising it only when the kids show it isn't working.