Swami Vivekananda Quotes

In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone's door.

You will be nearer to Heaven through foot ball than through study of Gita.

It is fear that is the greatest cause of misery in the world.

We shall have to work like lions, keeping the ideal before us, without caring whether "the wise ones praise or blame us".

When we suffer, it is because of our own acts; God is not to be blamed for it.

The root of evil is in the illusion that we are bodies. This, if any, is the original sin.

Paris is the fountain-head of European civilisation, as Gomukhi is of the Ganga.

National prosperity is another name for death and degradation to millions of other races.

How absurd to take the credit of doing the good act on oneself and lay the blame for the evil act on the Lord!

No one is to blame for our miseries but ourselves.

It is a constant change. Not one body is constant.

It is the want that creates the body.

The body is our enemy, and yet is our friend.

Excepting the infinite spirit, everything else is changing. There is the whirl of change.

As thou thinkest, so art thou.

The more we grow in Love, Virtue and Holiness, the more we see Love, Virtue and Holiness outside.

In spirituality the Americans are very inferior to us. But their society is very superior to ours.

Religion lies in being and becoming, in realization.

Pay no attention whatsoever to newspaper nonsense or criticism. Be sincere and do your duty. Everything will come all right. Truth must triumph.

Every step I take in light is mine forever.

Everything must be sacrificed, if necessary, for that one sentiment: universality.

By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in our hands, we make ourselves stronger

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

The Jivanmukta ('the living free' or one who knows) alone is able to give real love, real charity, real truth, and it is truth alone that makes us free.

The very idea of an infinite in place would be a contradiction in terms, as a place must begin and continue in time.

I must remark that what I mean by our religion working upon the nations outside of India comprises only the principles, the background, the foundation upon which that religion is built.

It is contrary to our principles to multiply organizations, since, in all conscience, there are enough of them. And when organizations are created they need individuals to look after them.

Nothing can be produced without a cause, and the effect is but the cause reproduced.

The progress of the world through all its evils making it fit for the ideals, slowly but surely.

There is implanted in every man, naturally, a strong desire for progress.

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

Ignorance is death, knowledge is life. Life is of very little value, if it is a life in the dark, groping through ignorance and misery.

The atom cannot disobey the law. Whether it is the mental or the physical atom, it must obey the law. "What is the use of [external restraint]?"

The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can any real good come about for the country, for India.

The Hindus have a peculiar slovenliness in business matters, not being sufficiently methodical and strict in keeping accounts etc.

I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread. The other system has been tried and found wanting

Sincerity of conviction and purity of motive will surely gain the day; and even a small minority, armed with these, is surely destined to prevail against all odds.

My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

The world sympathizes only with strong and powerful.

Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.

Satisfied is no test of truth. Actuality is steadily far from idiosyncratic secure.

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.

Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it.

Perfection is always infinite.

This perfection must come through the practice of holiness and love.

To be more free is the goal of all our efforts, for only in perfect freedom can there be perfection.

Cowardice is no virtue.

A man must not only have faith but intellectual faith too. To make a man take up everything and believe it, would be to make him a lunatic.

Faith is not belief, it is the grasp on the Ultimate, an illumination.

Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.