Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind [is the ideal of education].

It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.

You never hear of a mother cursing the child; she is forgiving, always forgiving.

We have to keep the body in good health; we have to take care of what we eat and drink, and what we do.

If you intend to study the mind, you must have systematic training; you must practice to bring the mind under your control.

You must keep a strict eye on your health; let everything else be subordinated to that.

Take any path you like; follow any prophet you like; but have only that method which suits your own nature, so that you will be sure to progress.

We, we, and none else, are responsible for what we suffer. We are the effects, and we are the causes.

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.

Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life.

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

All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.

Do one thing at a Time, and while doing it put your whole Soul into it to the exclusion of all else.

A man could be in a throne and have no attachment at all; another one could be in rags and have many attachments.

First of all, our young must be strong. Religion will come afterwards.

It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm.

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

It is the duty of all to support and side with Dharma. All must fight and support Dharma regardless of their personality, background, status.

Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.

You must have an iron will, if you would cross the ocean. You must be strong enough to pierce mountains.

He who always thinks himself as weak will never become strong, but he who knows himself to be a lion, rushes out from the worlds meshes, as a lion from its cage.

Practice is absolutely necessary. You may sit down and listen to me by the hour every day, but if you do not practice, you will not get one step further. It all depends on practice.

Accumulate power in silence and become a dynamo of spirituality.

I loved my motherland dearly before I went to America and England. After my return, every particle of dust of this land seems sacred to me.

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.

He who has infinite patience and infinite energy at his back, will alone succeed.

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.

I hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense.

Every idea has to become broad till it covers the whole of this world, every aspiration must go on increasing till it has engulfed the whole of humanity, nay, the whole of life, within its scope.

Work hard, be steady, and have faith in the Lord. Set to work.

This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love.

This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.

How can there be any progress of the country without the spread of education, the dawning of knowledge?

All power is within you. Believe in that,do not believe that you are weak... Stand up and express the Divinity within you.

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

Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.

The nearer we are to God, the less we will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from God, the more will long faces come. The more we know God, the more misery vanishes.

To the person who desires nothing and does not get entangled in desires, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.

Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind...what we sow is what we reap.

Things do not grow better; they remain as they are. It is we who grow better, by the changes we make in ourselves.

Love conquers in the long run. It won't do to become impatient - wait, wait - patience is bound to give success. . . .

The greatest sin is to think that you are weak. No one is greater: realize that you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it.

When once you consider an action, do not let anything dissuade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates.

Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion.

The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present.

Never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.

Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself.

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