Swami Vivekananda Quotes

1,114 Sourced Quotes

What is meant by cause? Cause is the fine state of the manifested state.

Swami Vivekananda
Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom—physical, mental, and spiritual—and help others to do so.

Swami Vivekananda
I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance.

Swami Vivekananda
The person is only a phenomenon, the principle is behind it. Thus from both sides, simultaneously, we find the breaking down of personalities and the approach towards principles, the Personal God approaching the Impersonal, the personal man approaching the Impersonal Man.

Swami Vivekananda
Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?

Swami Vivekananda
Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection.

Swami Vivekananda
Religion, in India, means realisation and nothing short of that.

Swami Vivekananda
Work hard, be steady, and have faith in the Lord. Set to work.

Swami Vivekananda
These practices - non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity, and non-receiving - are to be practised by every man, woman, and child; by every soul, irrespective of nation, country, or position.

Swami Vivekananda
All forms are transitory, that is why all religions say, "God has no form".

Swami Vivekananda
The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man; neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten His divinity, that Christ can help us, in Him there is no imperfection.

Swami Vivekananda
TO worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other reward is equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Give your love unto to God, but do not ask anything in return even from Him through pray.

Swami Vivekananda
Despondency is not religion, whatever else it may be.

Swami Vivekananda
The Tapas and the other hard Yogas that were practiced in other Yugas do not work now. What is needed in this Yuga is giving, helping others.

Swami Vivekananda
Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.

Swami Vivekananda
To be unselfish, perfectly selfless, is salvation itself; for the man within dies, and God alone remains.

Swami Vivekananda
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all good things will be added unto you." Follow God and you shall have whatever you desire.

Swami Vivekananda
Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all these processes purification of the elements - making the one melt the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit.

Swami Vivekananda
We have seen that our vigour, our strength, nay, our national life is in our religion.

Swami Vivekananda
Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you every felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.

Swami Vivekananda
No study has taken so much of human energy, whether in times past or present, as the study of the soul, of God, and of human destiny.

Swami Vivekananda
Is there any sex-distinction in the Atman (Self)? Out with the differentiation between man and woman—all is Atman! Give up the identification with the body, and stand up!

Swami Vivekananda
Live for an ideal and leave no place in the mind for anything else.

Swami Vivekananda
How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leave them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves. Plants always remain small under a big tree.

Swami Vivekananda
The power of concentration is the only key to the treasure-house of knowledge.

Swami Vivekananda
The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present.

Swami Vivekananda
It is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous.

Swami Vivekananda
Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the thought-waves and the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate you will keep your growth.

Swami Vivekananda
All these disciplines are for the purification of the heart. And as soon as it is pure, all truths flash upon it in a minute; all truth in the universe will manifest in your heart, if you are sufficiently pure.

Swami Vivekananda
I am neither the mind, nor the intellect, nor the ego, nor the mind-stuff

Swami Vivekananda