An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Not found in Gandhi’s writings. A search here of the OCR of Young India 1919–1922 (1924), the Collected Works vol. XLV, Freedom’s Battle and The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism found one ‘eye for an eye’, in ‘Among Christian Circles’ (Young India, 9 February 1922), where Gandhi says Moses restricted retaliation to equal measure, without the image of blindness (the passage shown). The Yale Book of Quotations (2006) reports that the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence says the Gandhi family believes it authentic, but that no example of its use by Gandhi has been discovered; Quote Investigator (2010, updated 2025) agrees that no conclusive evidence has been found. Wikiquote lists it under Misattributed, citing Jon Krampner’s profile of the screenwriter John Briley in Michigan Today (1993): ‘Gandhi never said it. Michigan graduate John Briley put those pithy words in his mouth.’ The trope is older: in 1914 George Perry Graham told the Canadian House of Commons, in a debate on capital punishment, that under ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ few members would not be ‘blind and toothless’; in 1944 Henry Powell Spring wrote of a world ‘peopled with the blind and the toothless’. Louis Fischer used it in his own voice when explaining Gandhi’s approach, in Gandhi and Stalin (1947: an ‘eye for an eye’ which ‘in the end, would make everybody blind’) and The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950: ‘an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye which ends in making everybody blind’); Quote Investigator suspects readers of Fischer took the words for Gandhi’s. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1958 that ‘the old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind’, and Fiddler on the Roof has Tevye answer ‘an eye for an eye’ with ‘the whole world will be blind and toothless’. The 1982 film then gave Gandhi the line. None of these items was seen here; they rest on Quote Investigator’s and Wikiquote’s citations.

1. 5 February 1914Earliest found · credited to George Perry GrahamGeorge Perry Graham, in a debate on capital punishment in the Canadian House of Commons: the earliest form of the trope found, with teeth as well as eyes.If in this present age we were to go back to the old time of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ there would be very few hon. gentlemen in this House who would not, metaphorically speaking, be blind and toothless.Official Report of the Debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, Third Session, Twelfth Parliament, vol. CXIII (Ottawa, 1914), 5 February 1914, Mr. Graham speaking, p. 496. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 1944Spread · credited to no oneHenry Powell Spring, in a book of aphorisms: if the Spirit exacted an eye for an eye, the world would be peopled with the blind and the toothless.(Henry) Powell Spring, What is Truth (Winter Park, Florida: The Orange Press, 1944), p. 10. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 1947Reworded · credited to no oneLouis Fischer, writing about Gandhi in Gandhi and Stalin, uses the eyes-only form in his own voice, not as Gandhi’s words: the earliest link to Gandhi found.nor can democracy be restored according to the Biblical injunction of an “eye for an eye” which, in the end, would make everybody blind.Louis Fischer, Gandhi and Stalin (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), p. 61. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 1950Spread · credited to no oneFischer again, in The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, explaining satyagraha, again in his own words.Satyagraha is the exact opposite of the policy of an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye which ends in making everybody blind.Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper, 1950), chapter 11, ‘Gandhi Goes to Jail’, p. 77. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
5. 1958Spread · credited to no oneMartin Luther King Jr., in Stride Toward Freedom, in his own words.The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 213. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
6. 1982Credited to Mahatma GandhiThe film Gandhi (screenplay by John Briley) gives the line to Gandhi, played by Ben Kingsley, after the Amritsar massacre: the form that made it his.An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough, screenplay by John Briley (Goldcrest Films and National Film Development Corporation of India, 1982), at 1:43:24. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
7. March 1993Spread · credited to John BrileyJon Krampner, profiling the screenwriter John Briley, writes that Gandhi never said it and that Briley put the words in his mouth.Jon Krampner, ‘John Briley ‘51: Epic Screenwriter’, Michigan Today (University of Michigan), March 1993, p. 12. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
8. 2006Spread · credited to Mahatma GandhiThe Yale Book of Quotations reports the Gandhi family’s belief, through the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, that the saying is his, and that no example of his using it has been found.The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 269–270. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

A line ‘frequently attributed’ to Gandhi, as The Yale Book of Quotations puts it, used against revenge and war. No one has found it in his writings, speeches or interviews. Its fame comes from Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi (1982), where Ben Kingsley as Gandhi answers an ally’s ‘It’s only an eye for an eye’ after the Amritsar massacre with ‘An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind’. The thought had been put in print long before: by a Canadian politician in 1914, and by Gandhi’s biographer Louis Fischer, in his own words, in 1947 and 1950.

Retaliation in kind, the old law of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’, does not settle a wrong but multiplies it, until everyone is harmed.

Quoted as Gandhi’s own words, often as if from a speech. Its wording is the film’s (screenplay by John Briley), built on a trope older than the film: the clearest early forms are a Canadian MP’s argument against capital punishment (1914) and Louis Fischer’s explanation of Gandhi’s satyagraha (1947, 1950), which do not quote Gandhi.

Not found in Gandhi’s words. If you need the thought with a sound source, King’s ‘The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind’ (Stride Toward Freedom, 1958) is documented (Quote Investigator, verified on paper); for Gandhi’s own words on punishment and forgiveness, see ‘The Doctrine of the Sword’ (Young India, 11 August 1920).

• A misquotationAn eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. Ben Kingsley as Gandhi in the film Gandhi (1982, screenplay by John Briley), at 1:43:24, as transcribed by Quote Investigator. Where it was seen
• The form on posters and social mediaAn eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. The wording under which The Yale Book of Quotations (2006, pp. 269–270) discusses the attribution, as quoted by Quote Investigator. Where it was seen
• The form on posters and social mediaAn eye for an eye will leave everyone blind. The form a reader put to Quote Investigator as Gandhi’s. Where it was seen

• Martin Luther King Jr., 1958: In Stride Toward Freedom: violence is impractical as ‘a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.’

Suffering, Society, Morality, Evil, Crime, Wisdom, War

• The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. (not found)
• There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for. (misattributed) Albert Camus
• Trust no one in whom the desire to punish is strong. (misattributed) Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. (not found) Fyodor Dostoevsky
• We must elect World Peace or World Destruction. Bernard Baruch

• quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/27/eye-for-eye-blind (Quote Investigator, ‘An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind’, 27 December 2010, updated 8 March 2025)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi (Misattributed: ‘An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind’)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Mahatma_Gandhi (section ‘Eye for an eye ... makes the whole world blind’, quoting Krampner on John Briley)
• The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro (2006), pp. 269–270, as quoted by Quote Investigator
• Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier (2006), pp. 74–75, as cited by Quote Investigator and Wikiquote

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. No. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/an-eye-for-an-eye-will-make-the-whole-world-blind/ (checked 23 October 2026).

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