Swami Vivekananda Quotes

1,114 Sourced Quotes

The awakening of the soul to its bondage and its effort to stand up and assert itself - this is called life.

Swami Vivekananda
There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of woman is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing.
There is no hope for that family or country where there is no estimation of women, where they live in sadness. For this reason, they have to be raised first.

Swami Vivekananda
The one who actually succeeds in making himself believe that he is having a good time is the man of splendid physical health.

Swami Vivekananda
Your way is the best for you, but that is no sign it is the best for another.

Swami Vivekananda
Every one wants to command, and no one wants to obey; and this is owing to the absence of that wonderful brahmacharya system of yore. First, learn to obey. The command will come by itself. Always first learn to be a servant, and then you will be fit to be a master.

Swami Vivekananda
Every wave of passion restrained is a balance in your favor. It is therefore good policy not to return anger for anger, as with all true morality.

Swami Vivekananda
When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for the time being.

Swami Vivekananda
Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps!

Swami Vivekananda
Many of us get many messages in our lives, or think we get them. As long as the message is regarding our own selves, go on doing what you please. But when it is in regard to our contact with and behavior to others, think a hundred times before you act upon it-and then you will be safe.

Swami Vivekananda
Never forget that a man is made great and perfect as much by his faults as by his virtues. So we must not seek to rob a nation of its character, even if it could be proved that the character was all faults.

Swami Vivekananda
We must become free. We are free; the work is to know it. We must give up all slavery, all bondage of whatever kind. We must not only give up our bondage to earth and everything and everybody on earth, but also to all ideas of heaven and happiness.

Swami Vivekananda
Renunciation is always the ideal of every race; only other races do not know what they are made to do by nature unconsciously.

Swami Vivekananda
All the forces that we see in nature, such as gravitation, attraction, and repulsion, or as thought, feeling, and nervous motion - all these various forces resolve into that Prana, and the vibration of the Prana ceases. In that state it remains until the beginning of the next cycle. Prana then begins to vibrate, and that vibration acts upon the Akasha, and all these forms are thrown out in regular succession.

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

Swami Vivekananda
The Absolute cannot be worshipped, so we must worship a manifestation.

Swami Vivekananda
When death is so certain, it is better to die for a good cause.

Swami Vivekananda
One atom in this universe cannot move without dragging the whole world along with it. There cannot be any progress without the whole world following in the wake, and it is becoming every day dearer that the solution of any problem can never be attained on racial, or national, or narrow grounds.

Swami Vivekananda
The disciple must have great power of endurance. Bear all evil and misery without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance, and that you must acquire.

Swami Vivekananda
My son, hold fast! Do not care for anybody to help you. Is not the Lord infinitely greater than all human help? Be holy--trust in the Lord, depend on him always, and you are on the right track. Nothing can prevail against you.

Swami Vivekananda
Nobody has a right now to say that the Hindus are not liberal to a fault.

Swami Vivekananda
Just as man must have liberty to think and speak, so he must have liberty in food, dress, and marriage, and in every other thing, so long as he does not injure others.

Swami Vivekananda
We want today that bright sun of intellectuality joined with the heart of Buddha, the wonderful infinite heart of love and mercy. This union will give us the highest philosophy.

Swami Vivekananda
He who asserts he is free, shall be free. He who says he is bound, bound he shall remain.

Swami Vivekananda
The finer the instrument, the greater the power. The mind is much finer and more powerful than the body.

Swami Vivekananda
A nation is not to be judged by its weaklings called the wicked, as they are only the weeds which lag behind, but by the good, the noble, and the pure, who indicate the national life current flowing clear and vigorous.

Swami Vivekananda
All work is simply to bring out the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. The power is inside every man, so is knowing; the different works are like blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.

Swami Vivekananda
You cannot take away one atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. You cannot add to the universe one atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. As such, evolution does not come out of zero; then, where does it come from? From previous involution.

Swami Vivekananda
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe.

Swami Vivekananda
Doing good to others is the # one great Universal Religion

Swami Vivekananda
Oh, to live even for a day in the full light of freedom, to breathe the free air of simplicity! Isn't that the highest purity?

Swami Vivekananda