Swami Vivekananda Quotes

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

Swami Vivekananda
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.

Swami Vivekananda
God is very merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for spiritual realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

Swami Vivekananda
Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. Those who have no faith in themselves can never have faith in God.

Swami Vivekananda
A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.

Swami Vivekananda
The main feature should be the teaching of principles through stories. Don't make it metaphysical at all.

Swami Vivekananda
Anything that is in space has form. Space itself has form. Either you are in space, or space is in you. The soul is beyond all space. Space is in the soul, not the soul in space.

Swami Vivekananda
The Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to save man. With you it is belief in a doctrine, and this belief constitutes your salvation. With us doctrine has nothing whatever to do with salvation. Each one may believe in whatever doctrine he likes; or in no doctrine.

Swami Vivekananda
My Master used to say, when a pitcher is being filled (by immersion), it gurgles, but when full, it is noiseless.

Swami Vivekananda
Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came.

Swami Vivekananda
Comfort is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being comfortable.

Swami Vivekananda
Take courage and work on. Patience and steady work- this is the only way.

Swami Vivekananda
What is salvation? To live with God. Where? Anywhere. Here this moment. One moment in infinite time is quite as good as any other moment.

Swami Vivekananda
This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.

Swami Vivekananda
The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith, death comes.

Swami Vivekananda
Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness.

Swami Vivekananda
Form and formless are intertwined in this world. The formless can only be expressed in form and form can only be thought with the formless.

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

Swami Vivekananda
In everything, there are two kinds of development-analytical and synthetical. In the former the Hindus excel other nations. In the latter they are nil.

Swami Vivekananda
If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.

Swami Vivekananda
The power which works through the formative principles of every religion in every country is manifested in the forms of religion...

Swami Vivekananda
One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth.

Swami Vivekananda
Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

Swami Vivekananda
Everything, both mental and physical, is rigidly bound by the law of causation.

Swami Vivekananda
We must not forget that what I mean by the conquest of the world by spiritual thought is the sending out of the life-giving principles, not the hundreds of superstitions that we have been hugging to our breasts for centuries.

Swami Vivekananda
Neither numbers nor powers nor wealth nor learning nor eloquence nor anything else will prevail, but purity, living the life, in one word, anubhuti, realisation. Let there be a dozen such lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth nor power nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.

Swami Vivekananda
Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

Swami Vivekananda
Society is an organism which obeys the immutable law of progress; and change, judicious and cautious change, is necessary for the well being, and indeed the preservation of the social system.

Swami Vivekananda
Some men, who begin by saying that the world is a hell, often end by saying that it is a heaven when they succeed in the practice of self-control.

Swami Vivekananda