Help on Gandhi aphorism?

June 24, 2010 10:35 PM

Does anyone know the actual source for the much-quoted Gandhi line, "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet."

Looking to properly cite this classic aphorism, but only results are inspirational web sites, not anything with an actual source worth citing. Anyone know the original publication/interview/whatever where this first appeared? Many many thanks.

posted by southvie to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

I'm beginning to think this is one of those things that was attributed to him that he never said. I've tried searching the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online for variations like ["walk through" mind] and ["dirty feet"] and nothing shows up. The Wikiquote page which seems to require references to original sources does not list the saying. All the hits for the phrase on Google Book search are folksy inspirational books that don't cite sources.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:38 PM on June 24, 2010

It's almost certainly apocryphal. Those fucking "inspirational" books/sites have no qualms about making shit up and attributing it to whoever sounds impressive. This is why the Yale Book of Quotations is so great—Fred Shapiro insists on ironclad sourcing before he'll include anything. (It's a huge advance on Bartlett's.) Sadly, many "famous quotes" are apocryphal; many people could care less, but for those of us who do, it's an annoying situation.
posted by languagehat at 6:12 AM on June 25, 2010