I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.

The saying expresses a core Gandhian conviction: moral integrity is a person’s most valuable possession, and compromising it is a deeper defeat than any external setback. In Gandhi’s ethical framework, self-respect is tied to truth (satya) and nonviolence (ahimsa)—a disciplined refusal to gain advantage through fear, deceit, or humiliation of others. The line also resonates with his politics of swaraj (self-rule), where inner freedom and dignity are prerequisites for collective liberation. Read this way, the “greater loss” is not material deprivation or public disgrace, but the inward collapse that occurs when one betrays conscience and becomes complicit in one’s own moral diminishment.