“When we change our nature, the world around should also inevitably change.”
Documented source
Every quote here is traced to a documented source. How we verify →
About this line
In 1913 Gandhi wrote a series of columns on health, in Gujarati, for Indian Opinion, the paper he ran in South Africa. In 1921 they were published in English as A Guide to Health, translated by A. Rama Iyer. The line sits in Part II, in the chapter on snakebite.
The sentence before it: “we are but the reflection of the world around us; all the features of the external world are found reflected in the inner world of our mind.” The sentence after: “Our happiness or otherwise rests entirely upon what we are; we have no need to depend on other people at all in this matter.”
A later English translation, published in 1964, renders the line differently and is still under copyright. We print the 1921 wording.
Why we carry this line
We knew “Be the change” wasn’t really Gandhi’s. Searching for verified Gandhi lines, nothing hit the mark, and many had the same problem: they couldn’t be verified. “When we change our nature” was the line I felt carried the same thought, even if I didn’t get the story surrounding it at first.
What happened next
“Be the change you want to see in the world” is the line everyone knows. Gandhi never wrote it. The earliest close match in print is from Arleen Lorrance, in 1974: “be the change you wish to see happen.” Gandhi’s name and the words “in the world” were attached by 1989.
For a while we carried that line and said plainly that it wasn’t his. Now we carry the one he wrote. The story of the other line is here.
