“Well, India is a country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat with thirst when a kindly Mahomedan is ready to offer pure water to drink. And yet thousands of Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink water from a Mahomedan household.”
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Source: Gandhi, 'Third Class in Indian Railways' (1917) — a primary Gandhi essay.
About this quote
Prejudice can grow so rigid that people harm themselves rather than accept help from someone outside their group. The absurdity is plain from the outside: a wall built to keep others away ends up trapping the one who built it, turning a plain kindness into an impossible offer.
When to use it
- A traveler refuses a stranger's phone charger over the stranger's accent, then misses an urgent call.
- Feuding neighbors let a shared fence rot because neither will accept the other's offer to split the cost.
- A team ignores a rival department's better process out of pride and repeats avoidable mistakes for months.