Swami Vivekananda Quotes

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Was there ever a sillier thing before in the world than what I saw in Malabar country? The poor Pariah is not allowed to pass through the same street as the high-caste man, but if he changes his name to a hodge-podge English name, it is all right; or to a Mohammedan name, it is all right.

Swami Vivekananda
What can be my highest idea of forgiveness? Nothing beyond myself. Which of you can jump out of your own bodies? Which of you can jump out of your own minds? Not one of you.

Swami Vivekananda
All objective pleasure in the long run must bring pain, because of the fact of change or death.

Swami Vivekananda
Be not in despair, the way is very difficult, like walking on the edge of a razor; yet despair not, arise, awake, and find the ideal, the goal.

Swami Vivekananda
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.

Swami Vivekananda
Throw aside your scriptures in the Ganga and teach the people first the means of procuring their food and clothing, and then you will find time to read to them the scriptures.

Swami Vivekananda
Suppose cats became philosophers, they would see a cat universe and have a cat solution of the problem of the universe, and a cat ruling it. So we see from this that our explanation of the universe is not the whole of the solution.

Swami Vivekananda
There is no motion in a straight line. A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle.

Swami Vivekananda
If I ask you to plunge into the Ganga or to jump from the roof of a house, meaning it all for your good, could you do even that without any hesitations Just think of it even now; otherwise don't rush forward on the spur of the moment to accept me as your Guru.

Swami Vivekananda
Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone lies the way to Devayana (the way to the gods). Those who think that a little sugar - coating of untruth helps the spread of truth are mistaken and will find in the long run that a single drop of poison poisons the whole mass... The man who is pure, and who dares, does all things.

Swami Vivekananda
Ordinary love is mere animal attraction. Otherwise why is the distinction between the sexes? If one kneels before an image, it is dreadful idolatry; but if one kneels before husband or wife, it is quite permissible!

Swami Vivekananda
It is too often believed that a person in his progress towards perfection passes from error to truth; that when he passes on from one thought to another, he must necessarily reject the first. But no error can lead to truth. The soul passing through its different stages goes from truth to truth, and each stage is true; it goes from lower truth to higher truth.

Swami Vivekananda
I reached Ghazipur three days ago. Here I am putting up in the house of Babu Satish Chandra Mukherji, a friend of my early age. The place is very pleasant. Close by flows the Ganga, but bathing there is troublesome, for there is no regular path, and it is hard work wading through sands.

Swami Vivekananda
To injure another creates bondage and hides the truth. Negative virtues are not enough; we have to conquer Maya, and then she will follow us. We only deserve things when they cease to bind us. When the bondage ceases, really and truly, all things come to us. Only those who want nothing are masters of nature.

Swami Vivekananda
He who has conquered the internal nature controls the whole universe; it becomes his servant.

Swami Vivekananda
Drama is the most difficult of all arts. In it two things are to be satisfied - first, the ears, and second, the eyes. To paint a scene, if one thing be painted, it is easy enough; but to paint different things and yet to keep up the central interest is very difficult. Another difficult thing is stage - management, that is, combining different things in such a manner as to keep the central interest intact.

Swami Vivekananda
Chârvâkas, a very ancient sect in India, were rank materialists.

Swami Vivekananda
How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret.

Swami Vivekananda
Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres.

Swami Vivekananda
Christians are always wanting God to give them something. They appear as beggars before the throne of the Almighty.

Swami Vivekananda
No more materialism, no more this egoism, I must become spiritual.

Swami Vivekananda
We must always bear in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already. Every idea that we are bound is a delusion.

Swami Vivekananda
As soon as a man stands up and says he is right or his church is right, and all others are wrong, he is himself all wrong. He does not know that upon the proof of all the others depends the proof of his own. Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness. I do not mean the sentimental statement that all men are brothers, but that one must feel the oneness of human life.

Swami Vivekananda
Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep?

Swami Vivekananda
Self-sacrifice, not self-assertion, is the law of the highest universe.

Swami Vivekananda
You yourself are to blame. This weeping and wailing and knocking your heads into corners [against brick walls, as it were] will not do you the least good.

Swami Vivekananda
We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light.

Swami Vivekananda
You and I and everything in the universe are that Absolute, not parts, but the whole. You are the whole of that Absolute, and so are all others, because the idea of part cannot come into it.

Swami Vivekananda
Body is the name of a stream of matter continuously changing.

Swami Vivekananda
May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and, above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.

Swami Vivekananda