"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it"
About this Quote
Gandhi is warning you about the oldest political technology on earth: repetition. Long before we had algorithms and engagement metrics, empires, parties, and newspapers understood that if you say something often enough, it starts to feel like the weather - inevitable, ambient, beyond dispute. This line refuses that seduction. It draws a hard line between popularity and validity, separating what circulates from what is true.
The sentence is built like a moral balancing scale. “Multiplied propagation” is not just gossip; it’s organized amplification, the machinery of consensus-making. Gandhi’s choice of almost bureaucratic language matters: it strips romance from mass opinion and treats it as a process that can be engineered. On the other side, “nobody sees it” names a quieter danger: truth’s vulnerability to social neglect, especially in moments when fear, convenience, or hierarchy make people look away.
Context sharpens the edge. Gandhi led in a colonial world where “common sense” was often imported as doctrine: racial theories, civilizational rankings, the supposed necessity of British rule. Those ideas weren’t true because they were everywhere; they were everywhere because power had printing presses, courts, and classrooms. The quote is also inward-facing, aimed at movements that can confuse crowd energy with moral clarity. Nonviolence, after all, depends on a stubborn faith that an unpopular right is still right.
The subtext is bracing: you don’t get to outsource judgment to the majority. If you want truth, you may have to hold it alone, withstand mockery, and resist the comfort of being agreed with.
The sentence is built like a moral balancing scale. “Multiplied propagation” is not just gossip; it’s organized amplification, the machinery of consensus-making. Gandhi’s choice of almost bureaucratic language matters: it strips romance from mass opinion and treats it as a process that can be engineered. On the other side, “nobody sees it” names a quieter danger: truth’s vulnerability to social neglect, especially in moments when fear, convenience, or hierarchy make people look away.
Context sharpens the edge. Gandhi led in a colonial world where “common sense” was often imported as doctrine: racial theories, civilizational rankings, the supposed necessity of British rule. Those ideas weren’t true because they were everywhere; they were everywhere because power had printing presses, courts, and classrooms. The quote is also inward-facing, aimed at movements that can confuse crowd energy with moral clarity. Nonviolence, after all, depends on a stubborn faith that an unpopular right is still right.
The subtext is bracing: you don’t get to outsource judgment to the majority. If you want truth, you may have to hold it alone, withstand mockery, and resist the comfort of being agreed with.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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