Swami Vivekananda - Work Quotes

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Each one of us pray, day and night, for the downtrodden millions in India, who are held fast by poverty, priest craft, and tyranny - pray day and night for them. I am no meta physician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor, I love the poor.... Let these people be your God - think of them, work for them, pray for them incessantly - the Lord will show you the way.

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
When we come to nonattachment, then we can understand the marvelous mystery of the universe: how it is intense activity and at the same time intense peace, how it is work every moment and rest every moment.

Swami Vivekananda
Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

Swami Vivekananda
What makes a man stand up and work? Strength. Strength is goodness, weakness is sin.

Swami Vivekananda
It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.

Swami Vivekananda
Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.

Swami Vivekananda
Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.

Swami Vivekananda
Even books are nurses, medicines are nurses. But we must work to bring about the time when man shall recognise his mastery over his own body. Herbs and medicines have power over us as long as we allow them; when we become strong, these external methods are no more necessary.

Swami Vivekananda
No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through love, a passion for truth, and tremendous energy, that all undertakings are accomplished.

Swami Vivekananda
In these days of intellectual awakening and steadily asserting public opinion, the holy places of the Hindus, their condition, and method of work have not escaped tile keen eye of criticism; and this city, being the holy of holies to all Hindus, has not failed to attract its full share of censure.

Swami Vivekananda
There is another way in which this idea of mercy and selfless charity can be put into practice; that is, by looking upon work as "worship" in case we believe in a Personal God. Here we give up all the fruits our work unto the Lord, and worshipping Him thus, we have no right to expect anything from man kind for the work we do.

Swami Vivekananda
Every time you think of doing some charity, you think there is some beggar to take your charity. If you say, "O Lord, let the world be full of charitable people!" - you mean, let the world be full of beggars also. Let the world be full of good works - let the world be full of misery. This is out-and-out slavishness!

Swami Vivekananda
It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work's sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one's labour....

Swami Vivekananda
Renunciation - non-resistance - non-destructiveness - are the ideals to be attained through less and less worldliness, less and less resistance, less and less destructiveness. Keep the ideal in view and work towards it. None can live in the world without resistance, without destruction, without desire. The world has not come to that state yet when the ideal can be realised in society.

Swami Vivekananda
A man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world - his heart to God and his hands to work.

Swami Vivekananda
When the last moment arrives, praise and blame will be the same to you, to me, and to others. We are here to work, and will have to leave all when the call comes.

Swami Vivekananda
Have fire and spread all over. Work, work. Be the servant while leading, be unselfish, and never listen to one friend in private accusing another. Have infinite patience, and success is yours.

Swami Vivekananda
Each nation has its own peculiar method of work. Some work through politics, some through social reforms, some through other lines. With us, religion is the only ground along which we can move.

Swami Vivekananda
We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.

Swami Vivekananda
Religion has become to many merely a means of doing a little charity work, just to amuse them after a hard day's labour - they get five minutes religion to amuse them. This is the danger with the liberal thought.

Swami Vivekananda
We have not faith, we have not patience to see this. We trust the man in the street; but there is one being in the universe we never trust and that is God. We trust Him when He works just our way. But the time will come when, getting blow after blow, the self - sufficient mind will die. In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up. We are glad that there are so many thorns on the path. They strike the hood of the cobra.

Swami Vivekananda
We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light.

Swami Vivekananda
Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.

Swami Vivekananda
Every work has got to pass through hundreds of difficulties before succeeding. Those that persevere will see the light, sooner or later.

Swami Vivekananda
It will not do merely to listen to great principles. You must apply them in the practical field, turn them into constant practice. What will be the good of cramming the high - sounding dicta of the scriptures? You have first to grasp the teachings of the Shastras, and then to work them out in practical life. Do you understand? This is called practical religion.

Swami Vivekananda
You know it already that each one of us is the effect of the infinite past; the child is ushered into the world not as something flashing from the hands of nature, as poets delight so much to depict, but he has the burden of an infinite past; for good or evil he comes to work out his own past deeds

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
To work with undaunted energy! What fear! Who is powerful enough to thwart you.

Swami Vivekananda
You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results. Work incessantly, but see something behind the work. Even good deeds can find a man in great bondage. Therefore be not bound by good deeds or by desires for name and fame.

Swami Vivekananda