You are a vain fellow. You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things. A hero!... I don't quite know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.

You are a vain fellow. You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things. A hero!... I don't quite know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.

His (Swami Vivekananda) words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books, at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!

I would rather have this life of combat than the moral calm and mournful stupor of these last years. God give me struggle, enemies, howling crowds, all the combot of which I am capable.

Every race, every art has its hypocrisy. The world is fed with a little truth and many lies.

Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day.

I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.