Vivekananda's Quotes & Sayings

Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immortality, even those who are the weakest in manifestation. — Swami Vivekananda

Sometimes people fast for days. ... When the worst man has fasted for twenty days, he becomes quite gentle. Fasting and torturing themselves have been practiced by people all over the world. Krishna's idea is that this is all nonsense. He says that the senses will for the moment recede from the man who tortures himself, but will emerge again with twenty times more [power]. ... What should you do? The idea is to be natural - no asceticism. Go on, work, only mind that you are not attached. The will can never be fixed strongly in the man who has not learnt and practiced the secret of non-attachment. — Swami Vivekananda

Religion and religion alone is the life of India, and when that goes India will die, in spite of politics, in spite of social reforms, in spite of Kubera's wealth poured upon the head of every one of her children. — Swami Vivekananda

All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live. — Swami Vivekananda

There is a conflict in Arjuna's heart between his emotionalism and his duty. — Swami Vivekananda

When you have trained your mind and your nerves to realise this idea of the world's nondependence on you or on anybody, there will then be no reaction in the form of pain resulting from work. — Swami Vivekananda

people who have made India awesome aren't all politicians. Most of the people that did this are not from the government. Whether it is entrepreneurs like J.R.D. Tata and N.R. Narayana Murthy, sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar or musicians like A.R. Rahman, people from all walks of life have helped improve our nation. Not just celebrities, but E. Sreedharan, responsible for the Delhi Metro, and Dr Verghese Kurien, who created the Amul revolution, were all ordinary people doing their work extraordinarily well. Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, two of the most influential figures in India's history, never held political office. Aim to be one of those people who made India awesome. — Chetan Bhagat

Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery and would exist if all humanity forgets it, so it is with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery and would remain even if we forget them. — Swami Vivekananda

Man's free agency is not of the mind, for that is bound. There is no freedom there. — Swami Vivekananda

Two things control man's character; Strength and Pity — Swami Vivekananda

It is good to love God for hope of reward, but it is better to love God for love's sake; and the prayer goes: O Lord, I do not want wealth nor children nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth. But grant me this, that I may love thee without the hope of reward 'love' unselfishly for love's sake. — Swami Vivekananda

Yes, the words of the Mother can be heard as clearly as we hear one another. But one requires a fine nerve to hear Mother's words. — Swami Vivekananda

Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment. — Swami Vivekananda

Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavour to accomplish it. That is a surer way of progress than taking up other men's ideals, which he can never hope to accomplish. — Swami Vivekananda

Thought is like a bubble rising to the surface. When thought is joined to will, we call it power. That which strikes the sick person whom you are trying to help is not thought, but power. — Swami Vivekananda

It is not God's fault. It is our fault that we suffer. Whatever we sow we reap. — Swami Vivekananda

It is better not to love, if loving only means hating others. That is no love. That is hell! If loving your own people means hating everybody else, it is the quintessence of selfishness and brutality, and the effect is that it will make you brutes. Therefore, better die working out your own natural religion than following another's natural religion, however great it may appear to you — Swami Vivekananda

External motion we call action; internal motion is human thought. — Swami Vivekananda

The one eternal religion is applied to the opinions of various minds and various races. There never was my religion or yours, my national religion or your national religion; there never existed many religions, there is only the one. One infinite religion existed all through eternity and will ever exist, and this religion is expressing itself in various countries in various ways. — Swami Vivekananda

No one should be judged by their defects. The great virtues a person has are his or her especially. But their errors are the common weakness of humanity and should never be counted in estimating a person's character. — Swami Vivekananda

The Imitation of Christ is a cherished treasure of the Christian world. This great book was written by a Roman Catholic monk. "Written", perhaps, is not the proper word. It would be more appropriate to say that each letter of the book is marked deep with the heart's blood of the great soul who had renounced all for his love of Christ. — Swami Vivekananda

The very reason for nature's existence is for the education of the soul. — Swami Vivekananda

I am a very proud Hindu. The foundation of my personality is laid on the teachings of Swami Vivekananda or Sanatan Dharm or the Geeta. And if my religious practices or anybody's religious practices is given any kind of sadistic name, it instills fear about other person's religious practices. — Kangana Ranaut

Seeing a cat loving her kittens stand and pray. God has become manifest there; literally believe this. Repeat "I am Thine, I am Thine", for we can see God everywhere. Do not seek for Him, just see Him. — Swami Vivekananda

Real love is love for love's sake. I do not ask health or money or life or salvation. — Swami Vivekananda

I pity the Hindu who does not see the beauty in Jesus Christ's character. I pity the Christian who does not reverence the Hindu Christ. — Swami Vivekananda

I ask you all so earnestly to open girl's schools in every village and try to uplift them. If the Conditions of women are raised, then their children will, by their noble actions, glorify the name of the Country. — Swami Vivekananda

If you are angry, and then happy, the next moment the anger passes away. Out of that anger you manufactured the next state. These states are always interchangeable. Eternal happiness and misery are a child's dream. — Swami Vivekananda

This world is like a dog's curly tail, and people have been striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years; but when they let it go, it has curled up again. How could it be otherwise? One must first know how to work without attachment, then one will not be a fanatic. — Swami Vivekananda

Never try to follow another's path for that is his way, not yours. When that path is found, you have nothing to do but fold your arms and the tide will carry you to freedom. — Swami Vivekananda

you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave's work. — Swami Vivekananda

We are all the time, from our childhood, trying to lay the blame upon something outside ourselves. We are always standing up to set right other people, and not ourselves. If we are miserable, we say, "Oh, the world is a devil's world." We curse others and say, "What infatuated fools!" But why should we be in such a world, if we really are so good? If this is a devil's world, we must be devils also; why else should we be here? "Oh, the people of the world are so selfish!" True enough; but why should we be found in that company, if we be better? Just think of that. — Swami Vivekananda

By all means make a start - even if it's for the wrong reason. — Swami Vivekananda

If you want to be religious, enter not the gate of any organised religions. They do a hundred times more evil than good, because they stop the growth of each one's individual development. — Swami Vivekananda

Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists". — Swami Vivekananda

We want the education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet. — Swami Vivekananda

Losing faith in one's self means losing faith in God. — Swami Vivekananda

You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with immense practicality. You must be prepared to go into deep meditation now, and the next moment you must be ready to go and cultivate the fields. You must be prepared to explain the intricacies of the scriptures now, and the next moment to go and sell the produce of the fields in the market ... The true man is he who is strong as strength itself and yet possesses a woman's heart. — Swami Vivekananda

Where will you go to seek Brahman? He is immanent in all beings. Here, here is the visible Brahman! Shame on those who, neglecting the visible Brahman, set their minds on other things! Here is the visible Brahman before you as tangible as a fruit in one's hand! Can't you see? Here - here - is Brahman! — Swami Vivekananda

Religion in India must be made as free and as easy of access as is God's air. — Swami Vivekananda

IN THE HOURS OF MEDITATION You must keep the mind fixed on one object, like an unbroken stream of oil. The ordinary man's mind is scattered on different objects, and at the time of meditation, too, the mind is at first apt to wander. But let any desire whatever arise in the mind, you must sit calmly and watch what sort of ideas are coming. By continuing to watch in that way, the mind becomes calm, and there are no more thought-waves in it. Those things that you have previously thought deeply, have transformed themselves into a subconscious current, and therefore these come up in the mind in meditation. — Swami Vivekananda

The seeker's silence is the loudest form of prayer. — Swami Vivekananda

All progress and power are already in every man; perfection is man's nature, only it is barred in and prevented from taking its proper course. — Swami Vivekananda

Christ's public life extended only over eighteen months, and for this he had silently been preparing himself for thirty - two years. — Swami Vivekananda

Business is business, no child's play. — Swami Vivekananda

There is only one sin and it is: weakness. When I was a boy, I read Milton's Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is that person who never weakens, faces everything, and determines die game. — Swami Vivekananda

Stick to God! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else! Through the terrors of evil, say-my God, my love! Through the pangs of death, say-my God, my love! Through all the evils under the sun, say-my God, my love! Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. I am Thine, take me. I am not of the world's but Thine, leave not then me. — Swami Vivekananda

I am what I am, and what I am is always due to him; whatever in me or in my words is good and true and eternal came to me from his mouth, his heart, his soul. Sri Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the earth's religious life, of its impulses and activities. If I can show the world one glimpse of my Master, I shall not have lived in vain. — Swami Vivekananda

Have faith in yourself. You people were once the Vedic Rishis. Only, you have come in different forms, that's all. I see it clear as daylight that you all have infinite power in you. Rouse that up; arise, arise - apply yourselves heart and soul, gird up your loins. — Swami Vivekananda

Remember the words of Christ: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These words are literally true, not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart's blood of one of the greatest sons of God who have ever come to this world of ours; words which came as the fruit of realisation, from a man who had felt and realised God himself; who had spoken with God, lived with God, a hundred times more intensely than you or I see this building. — Swami Vivekananda

Language is the chief means and index of a nation's progress. — Swami Vivekananda

Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery we see. Let men have light, let them be pure and spiritually strong and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world, not before. We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist until man's character changes. — Swami Vivekananda

If you [can realise Brahman] by standing on your head, or on one foot, or by worshipping five thousand gods with three heads each - welcome to it! ... Do it any way you can! Nobody has any right to say anything. Therefore, Krishna says, if your method is better and higher, you have no business to say that another man's method is bad, however wicked you may think it. — Swami Vivekananda

We must be the masters, and not the slaves of nature; neither body nor mind must be our master, nor must we forget that the body is mine, and not I the body's. — Swami Vivekananda

Had I lived in Palestine, in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart's blood! — Swami Vivekananda

This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells-that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one's spiritual Self (atman). — Swami Vivekananda

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

This body is the boat which will carry us to the other shore of the ocean of life. It must be taken care of. Unhealthy persons cannot be Yogis. Mental laziness makes us lose all lively interest in the subject, without which there will neither be the will nor the energy to practise. Doubts will arise in the mind about the truth of the science, however strong one's intellectual conviction may be, until certain peculiar psychic experiences come, as hearing or seeing at a distance, etc. These glimpses strengthen the mind and make the student persevere. Falling away ... when obtained. Some days or weeks when you are practicing, the mind will be calm and easily concentrated, and you will find yourself progressing fast. All of a sudden the progress will stop one day, and you will find yourself, as it were, stranded. Persevere. All progress proceeds by such rise and fall. — Swami Vivekananda

He who does not depend on anything, who is pure and active, who does not care whether good comes or evil, and never becomes miserable, who has given up all efforts for himself; who is the same in praise or in blame, with a silent, thoughtful mind, blessed with what little comes in his way, homeless, for the whole world is his home, and who is steady in his ideas, such a one is My beloved Bhakta." Such alone become Yogis. — Swami Vivekananda

Man is the product of two forces, action and reaction, which make him think. — 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

The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me," say the Hebrew scriptures. — Swami Vivekananda

Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings. — Swami Vivekananda

Music is the highest art and to those who understand, is the highest worship — Swami Vivekananda

Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness — Swami Vivekananda

Wherever there is evil and wherever there is ignorance and want of knowledge, I have found out by experience that all evil comes, as our scriptures say, relying upon differences, and that all good comes from faith in equality, in the underlying sameness and oneness of things. This is the great Vedantic ideal. — Swami Vivekananda

There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, because people never went to the fountain-head; they were content only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same. — Swami Vivekananda

God is one the paths to reach him (religions) are many - just as different rivers, originating in different mountains, traverse different paths, flowing straight or crooked, and at last join the ocean. He is the one Lord of all, the one Soul of all souls. — Swami Vivekananda

when one talks on subjects in which one takes a few ideas that are familiar to everyone, and combines and recombines them, it is easy to follow because these channels are present in everyone's brain, and it is only necessary to recur to them. But whenever a new subject comes, new channels have to be made, so it is not understood readily. And that is why the brain (it is the brain, and not the people themselves) refuses unconsciously to be acted upon by new ideas. It resists. The Prana is trying to make new channels, and the brain will not allow it. This is the secret of conservatism. — 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 are for ever trying to make our weakness look like strength, our sentiment like love, our cowardice like courage, and so on. — Swami Vivekananda

All is bound by the law of causation — Swami Vivekananda

Hold on to your own ideal ... Above all, never attempt to guide or rule others, or, as the Yankees say, "boss" others. Be the servant of all. — Swami Vivekananda

I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance. — Swami Vivekananda

Man can become like God and acquire control over the whole universe if he multiplies infinitely his centre of self-consciousness. — Swami Vivekananda

Thought ceases in meditation; even the mind's elements are quite quiet. Blood circulation stops. His breath stops, but he is not dead. — Swami Vivekananda

You nourish your minds by reading books. There is no good in doing that unless you hold it also as a sacrifice to the whole world. For the whole world is one; you are rated a very insignificant part of it, and therefore it is right for you that you should serve your millions of brothers rather than aggrandise this little self — 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

In art, interest must be centred on the principal theme. — Swami Vivekananda

There can be no love so long as there is lust- even a speck of it, as it were, in the heart. None but men of great renunciation, none but mighty giants among men, have a right to that Love Divine. If that highest ideal of love is held out to the masses, it will indirectly tend to stimulate its worldly which dominates the heart of man- for, meditating on love to God by thinking of oneself as His wife or beloved, one would very likely be thinking most of the time of one's own wife- the result is too obvious to point out ... — Swami Vivekananda

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

I love my nation, I cannot see you degraded, weakened any more than you are now. Therefore I am bound for your sake and for truth's to cry, "Hold!" and to raise my voice against this degradation of my race. Give up these weakening mysticism and be strong ... — Swami Vivekananda

It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one's own good — Swami Vivekananda

He who was Shri Rama, whose stream of love flowed with resistless might even to the Chandala (the outcaste); Oh, who ever was engaged in doing good to the world though superhuman by nature, whose renown there is none to equal in the three worlds, Sita's beloved, whose body of Knowledge Supreme was covered by devotion sweet in the form of Sita. (part of A Hymn To Shri Ramakrishna) — Swami Vivekananda

Don't give any chance for others to stole your smile.Because,it's the most valuable asset than anything in your life! — 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

Let people say whatever they like, stick to your own convictions, and rest assured, the world will be at your feet. They say, "Have faith in this fellow or that fellow", but I say, "Have faith in yourself first", that's the way. Have faith in yourself-all power is in you-be conscious and bring it out. Say, "I can do everything." — Swami Vivekananda

It's the coward who says, 'This is fate' ... It's the strong who stands up & says 'I will make my fate' — 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

Free thyself from the mighty attraction-
The maddening wine of love, the charm of sex.
Break the harp! Forward, with the ocean's cry! ... — Swami Vivekananda

Never even attempt to disturb anyone's tendencies. — Swami Vivekananda

This is the central idea of the Gita- to be calm and steadfast in all circumstances, with one's body, mind, and soul centered at His hallowed feet! — Swami Vivekananda

He works for work's sake. Work for work's sake. Worship for worship's sake. — Swami Vivekananda

Do you share my belief in Swami Vivekananda's dream that India will be a Jagad Guru once again? I see no reason for India to be left behind. — Narendra Modi

As all the rivers of the world constantly pour their waters into the ocean, but the ocean's grand, majestic nature remains undisturbed and unchanged, — Swami Vivekananda

All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody's property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls. — Swami Vivekananda

Even now, when you get love, you see Radha. Become Radha and be saved. There is no other way, Christians do not understand Solomon's song. They call it prophecy symbolising Christ's love for the Church. They think it nonsense and father some story upon it. — Swami Vivekananda

What is the use of talking of one's mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only with the strong and the powerful. — Swami Vivekananda

If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man's head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature. — Swami Vivekananda

Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates. — Swami Vivekananda