Swami Vivekananda Quotes

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Wherever there has been expansion in love or progress in well-being, of individuals or numbers, it has been through the perception, realisation, and the practicalisation of the Eternal Truth-the oneness of all beings

Swami Vivekananda
The body and mind are continually changing, and are, in fact, only names of series of changeful phenomena, like rivers whose waters are in a constant state of flux, yet presenting the appearance of unbroken streams. Every particle in this body is continually changing; no one has the same body for many minutes together, and yet we think of it as the same body.

Swami Vivekananda
If the whole responsibility is thrown upon our own shoulders, we shall be at our highest and best; when we have nobody to grope towards, no devil to lay our blame upon, no Personal God to carry our burdens, when we are alone responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best. I am responsible for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil.

Swami Vivekananda
The guiding motive of mankind should be charity towards men, charity towards all animals.

Swami Vivekananda
Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.

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

Swami Vivekananda
Let me draw your attention to one thing which unfortunately we always forget: that is - "O man, have faith in yourself."

Swami Vivekananda
All motion in this universe is in the form of waves, successively rising and falling.

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

Swami Vivekananda
There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened.

Swami Vivekananda
They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe, and the more we concentrate our lives on limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.

Swami Vivekananda
If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man's head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.

Swami Vivekananda
The cause being finite, the effect must be finite. If the cause is eternal the effect can be eternal, but all these causes, doing good work, and all other things, are only finite causes, and as such cannot produce infinite result.

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
Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is in God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.

Swami Vivekananda
Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies; but the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality.

Swami Vivekananda
Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people....

Swami Vivekananda
Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment.

Swami Vivekananda
We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God.

Swami Vivekananda
Our religion teaches that anger is a great sin, even if it is "righteous".

Swami Vivekananda
This is the ancient land, where wisdom made its home before it went into any other country... Here is the same India whose soil has been trodden by the feet of the greatest sages that ever lived... Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that look forward, march forward, and make India brighter, greater, much higher, than she ever was.

Swami Vivekananda
But on the heights of the Himalayas I have a place where I am determined nothing shall enter except pure truth. There I want to work out this idea about which I have spoken to you today. There are an Englishman and an Englishwoman in charge of the place. The purpose is to train seekers of truth and to bring up children without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus - none of these.

Swami Vivekananda
This earth is higher than all the heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe.

Swami Vivekananda
Eka-Nishtha or devotion to one ideal is absolutely necessary for the beginner in the practice of religious devotion.

Swami Vivekananda
The world has seen thousands of prophets, and the world has yet to see millions

Swami Vivekananda