Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Not found in Gandhi’s writings: Brian Morton in The New York Times (August 2011) found ‘no reliable documentary evidence’ for it, and Wikiquote lists it under Misattributed, noting that it is not in the 98-volume Collected Works. Quote Investigator (2017, updated 2024) traces the wording to Arleen Lorrance, a teacher who began the ‘Love Project’ at a high school in Brooklyn in 1970: in 1974 she wrote, in ‘The Love Project’ (in Richard Dean Kellough, ed., Developing Priorities and a Style, MSS Information Corporation), ‘One way to start a preventative program is to be the change you want to see happen.’ The Love Project’s principle, to be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change everyone else, then appears in newspapers and books from 1975 to 1978 (Reno Evening Gazette 1975; Diane Kennedy Pike, Life is Victorious!, 1976; St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1976), without Gandhi’s name. The earliest credit to Gandhi found by those sources is in The Santa Fe New Mexican in 1987: Wikiquote cites Hollis Engley, 11 January 1987, p. D-1 (‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’), and Quote Investigator cites Denise Kusel, 22 March 1987, quoting the organiser Mary Lou Cook, who said the idea came ‘from a statement by Gandhi’. The Yale Book of Quotations (2006) gives ‘We must be the change we wish to see in the world’ as Gandhi’s, citing the Los Angeles Times of 30 July 1989 and noting that it had not been traced in his writings. The same entry reports, from the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, the Gandhi family’s statement that he said it many times and their belief that it was original with him; no document of his has been found to bear this out. His grandson Arun Gandhi has attributed it to him since at least 2000 (Wikiquote). The nearest real passage is the one shown, from Gandhi’s article on snake-bite in Indian Opinion, 9 August 1913 (Collected Works, vol. XII, p. 158, translated from the Gujarati; shown here in the public-domain 1921 English version made from a Hindi translation). None of these 1970s or 1980s items, nor the Lorrance chapter, could be seen here directly: they rest on Quote Investigator’s and Wikiquote’s citations. Quote Investigator credits the expression to Lorrance; whether the 1987 credit to Gandhi grew from a vague memory of the 1913 thought is not known.

1. 9 August 1913Before itGandhi, in a Gujarati health article on snake-bite in Indian Opinion: when we change our own nature, the world around us changes too. The thought, not the wording.The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. XII (Publications Division, 1964), item 106, ‘General Knowledge About Health [-XXXII]: 12. Accidents: Snake-bite’, from Indian Opinion, 9 August 1913, p. 158. Checked on a page scan. Source
2. 1974Earliest found · credited to Arleen LorranceArleen Lorrance, a teacher who began the Love Project at a Brooklyn high school in 1970, in her report on it.One way to start a preventative program is to be the change you want to see happen.Arleen Lorrance, ‘The Love Project’, in Richard Dean Kellough (ed.), Developing Priorities and a Style (New York: MSS Information Corporation, 1974), p. 85. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 1975Spread · credited to no oneThe Love Project’s principle, to be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change everyone else, appears in newspapers and books from 1975 to 1978 (Reno Evening Gazette 1975; Diane Kennedy Pike, Life is Victorious!, 1976; St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1976).Reno Evening Gazette, 1975, and the later items named. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 11 January 1987Credited to Mahatma GandhiThe earliest credit to Gandhi that Wikiquote found, in a Santa Fe newspaper.You must be the change you wish to see in the world.Hollis Engley, ‘A Long List of Varied Accomplishments’, The Santa Fe New Mexican, 11 January 1987, p. D-1. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
5. 22 March 1987Credited to Mahatma GandhiThe same paper quotes the organiser Mary Lou Cook, who said the idea came ‘from a statement by Gandhi’.Denise Kusel, The Santa Fe New Mexican, 22 March 1987. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
6. 30 July 1989Reworded · credited to Mahatma GandhiIn the Los Angeles Times, the form the Yale Book of Quotations later cites.We must be the change we wish to see in the world.Los Angeles Times, 30 July 1989, as cited in The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro (2006). Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
7. 2000Spread · credited to Mahatma GandhiGandhi’s grandson Arun Gandhi attributes it to his grandfather in talks and interviews, from at least 2000 on.Arun Gandhi, talks and interviews from 2000 on. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
8. 2006Spread · credited to Mahatma GandhiThe Yale Book of Quotations gives it as Gandhi’s, citing the 1989 Los Angeles Times and noting that it had not been traced in his writings.The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

One of the most shared ‘Gandhi quotes’ (on Goodreads alone some 115,000 likes, under the tag ‘misattributed-to-gandhi’), on posters, classroom walls and activists’ banners. The sentence is not in his writings. What comes nearest is a turn in a weekly health article he wrote in Gujarati for Indian Opinion in South Africa in August 1913, on snake-bite: after the superstitions about snakes and the futility of killing them, he argues that hermits live unharmed among wild beasts because they bear them no enmity, asks whether the cruelty of snakes is not a reflection of our own, and says that we are a mirror of the world, so that when we change our own nature the world changes towards us. He then goes back to practical remedies: tourniquet, cut, potassium permanganate, a mud poultice.

The popular line tells the reader to live out the change they want in society instead of waiting for others to make it. Gandhi’s 1913 passage says something related but narrower: the outer world mirrors our inner nature, so whoever changes himself finds the world, even its snakes and tigers, changed towards him; and our happiness depends on what we are, not on what others do.

Quoted as Gandhi’s call to activism, a one-line summary of satyagraha. The words are an American motto of the 1970s. The kindred passage he did write is not about social or political change at all but about inner change and how the world answers it, written in an article on snake-bite in a health series.

Not Gandhi’s sentence. If you want his own words, cite the snake-bite article in Indian Opinion, 9 August 1913 (Collected Works, vol. XII, p. 158), and note that it is about changing oneself, not about changing society.

• The form on posters and social mediaBe the change that you wish to see in the world. The Goodreads wording, credited to Mahatma Gandhi, with about 115,000 likes (October 2026) and tagged ‘misattributed-to-gandhi’. Where it was seen
• A misquotationYou must be the change you wish to see in the world. The earliest form credited to Gandhi found by Wikiquote: Hollis Engley, ‘A Long List of Varied Accomplishments’, The Santa Fe New Mexican, 11 January 1987, p. D-1 (not seen here). Where it was seen
• A misquotationWe must be the change we wish to see in the world. As credited to Gandhi in The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro (2006), citing the Los Angeles Times of 30 July 1989, according to Quote Investigator; also in Stella Cornelius, ‘Partners in Conflict Resolution’, 1991, according to Wikiquote. Where it was seen

• Mahatma Gandhi, 1913: In a health article on snake-bite: we are but the reflection of the world around us, and when we change our nature the world around us changes too; our happiness rests on what we are, not on other people.

Society, Change, Wisdom

• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. (misattributed) C. S. Lewis
• Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. (not found) Oscar Wilde
• Play long-term games with long-term people. (paraphrase) Naval Ravikant
• Trust no one in whom the desire to punish is strong. (misattributed) Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (not found)

• quoteinvestigator.com/2017/10/23/be-change (Quote Investigator, ‘Be the Change You Wish To See in the World’, 23 October 2017, updated 17 December 2024)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi (1910s: the 1913 passage; Misattributed: ‘We need to be the change we wish to see in the world’)
• nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-never-spoken.html (Brian Morton, ‘Falser Words Were Never Spoken’, The New York Times, August 2011; cited via Wikiquote and Quote Investigator, not opened here)
• gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/MTI=?lid=en (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. XII, pp. 156–160, page images)
• archive.org/details/HindSwaraj-CWMG-012/page/158/mode/1up (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. XII, item 106, p. 158, open scan)
• archive.org/details/guidetohealth00gandrich (A Guide to Health, tr. A. Rama Iyer, 1921, pp. 135–136)
• gutenberg.org/ebooks/40373 (A Guide to Health, Project Gutenberg)

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. No. Arleen Lorrance wrote it, not Gandhi. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/be-the-change-you-wish-to-see-in-the-world/ (checked 21 October 2026).

Have a different wording, or a source we missed? Check it or submit it.

Do you hold the rights to anything on this page? Tell us.