Swami Vivekananda Quotes

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While real perfection is only one, relative perfections must be many.

Swami Vivekananda
A man may be the greatest philosopher in the world but a child in RELIGION. When a man has developed a high state of spirituality he can understand that the kingdom of heaven is within him.

Swami Vivekananda
Learn Everything that is Good from Others, but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others.

Swami Vivekananda
There cannot be a cause without an effect, the present must have had its cause in the past and will have its effect in the future.

Swami Vivekananda
Faith, sympathy - fiery faith and fiery sympathy! Life is nothing, death is nothing, hunger nothing, cold nothing. Glory unto the Lord - march on, the Lord is our General. Do not look back to see who falls - forward - onward! Thus and thus we shall go on, brethren. One falls, and another takes up the work

Swami Vivekananda
This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.

Swami Vivekananda
We hear all around us about practical religion, and analysing all that, we find that it can be brought down to one conception - charity to our fellow beings.

Swami Vivekananda
Throw overboard all idea of jealousy and egotism, once for all. Come on to the practical field with tremendous energy; to work, in the fullness of strength! As to the rest, the Lord will point out the way.

Swami Vivekananda
Man's experience in the world is to enable him to get out of its whirlpool.

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
Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.

Swami Vivekananda
Give me few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world.

Swami Vivekananda
Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything.

Swami Vivekananda
First get rid of the delusion I am the body, then only will we want real knowledge.

Swami Vivekananda
To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

Swami Vivekananda
The happiest moments we ever know are when we entirely forget ourselves.

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
This Maya is everywhere. It is terrible. Yet we have to work through it. The man who says that he will work when the world has become all good and then he will enjoy bliss is as likely to succeed as the man who sits beside the Ganga and says, "I will ford the river when all the water has run into the ocean."

Swami Vivekananda
You are the makers of your own fortunes. You make yourselves suffer, you make good and evil, and it is you who put your hands before your eyes and say it is dark. Take your hands away and see the light.

Swami Vivekananda
Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.

Swami Vivekananda
The will is stronger than anything else. Everything must go down before the will, for it comes from God. A pure and strong will is omnipotent.

Swami Vivekananda
I am not talking about what every one of us means by love. Little namby-pamby love is lovely. Man rails in love with woman, and woman goes to die for man. The chances are that in five minutes John kicks Jane, and Jane kicks John. This is a materialism and no love at all. If John could really love Jane, he would be perfect that moment.

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
When the forces that hold it together go away, the body must fall.

Swami Vivekananda
Build up your health. Do not dwell in silence upon your sorrows.

Swami Vivekananda
You know your real nature [to be divine]. You are the king and play you are a beggar.... It is all fun. Know it and play. That is all there is to it. Then practice it. The whole universe is a vast play.

Swami Vivekananda
Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered by materialism.

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
We never want Him. We say, "Lord, give me a fine house." We want the house, not Him. "Give me health! Save me from this difficulty!" When a man wants nothing but Him, [he gets Him].

Swami Vivekananda
Our best work is done, our greatest influence is exerted, when we are without thought of self.

Swami Vivekananda