Swami Vivekananda - Religion Quotes

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All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.

Swami Vivekananda
Mark, therefore, the ordinary theory of practical religion, what it leads to. Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism. It is not religion. It is no better than atheism - a little less.

Swami Vivekananda
The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God.

Swami Vivekananda
Religion is the peculiarity of the growth of the Indian mind.

Swami Vivekananda
Religion for a long time has come to be static in India. What we want is to make it dynamic. I want it to be brought into the life of everybody.

Swami Vivekananda
One point of difference between Hinduism and other religions is that in Hinduism we pass from truth to truth-from a lower truth to a higher truth-and never from error to truth.

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

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

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

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

Swami Vivekananda
We must be bright and cheerful. Long faces do not make religion. Religion should be the most joyful thing in the world, because it is the best.

Swami Vivekananda
Here in this blessed land, the foundation, the backbone, the life-centre is religion and religion alone.

Swami Vivekananda
It is clear to us that, for good or for evil, our vitality is concentrated in our religion. You cannot change it. You cannot destroy it and put in its place another.

Swami Vivekananda
BY the study of different RELIGIONS we find that in essence they are one.

Swami Vivekananda
Religion is not an imitation of Jesus or Mohammed. Even if an imitation is good, it is never genuine. Be not an imitation of Jesus, but be Jesus, You are quite as great as Jesus, Buddha, or anybody else. If we are not... we must struggle and be. I would not be exactly like Jesus. It is unnecessary that I should be born a Jew.

Swami Vivekananda
We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.

Swami Vivekananda
If Jesus Christ was not perfect, then the religion bearing his name falls to the ground.

Swami Vivekananda
The Vedas give information on various subjects. They have come together and form one book. And in later times, when other subjects were separated from religion - when astronomy and astrology were taken out of religion - these subjects, being connected with the Vedas and being ancient, were considered very holy.

Swami Vivekananda
It is here that Indians build temples for Mohammedans and Christians; nowhere else. If you go to other countries and ask Mohammedans or people of other religions to build a temple for you, see how they will help. They will instead try to break down your temple and you too, if they can.

Swami Vivekananda
Religion as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have.

Swami Vivekananda
From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hinduism religion.

Swami Vivekananda
The present Hindu society is organised only for spiritual men, and hopelessly crushes out everybody else. Why? Where shall they go who want to enjoy the world a little with its frivolities? Just as our religion takes in all, so should our society. This is to be worked out by first understanding the true principles of our religion and then applying them to society. This is the slow but sure work to be done.

Swami Vivekananda
I have come to this conclusion that there is only one country in the world which understands religion - it is India.

Swami Vivekananda
Each nation has a theme: everything else is secondary. India's theme is religion.

Swami Vivekananda
All sectarian religions take for granted that all men are equal. This is not warranted by science. There is more difference between minds than between bodies. One fundamental doctrine of Hinduism is that all men are different, there being unity in variety. Even for a drunkard, there are some Mantras-even for a man going to a prostitute!

Swami Vivekananda
Here in India, it is religion that forms the very core of the national heart. It is the backbone, the bed-rock, the foundation upon which the national edifice has been built. Politics, power, and even intellect form a secondary consideration here. Religion, therefore, is the one consideration in India.

Swami Vivekananda