Swami Vivekananda Quotes

They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe, and the more we concentrate our lives on limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.

Put God behind everything-human beings, animals, food, and work. Make this a habit.

Every one is struggling for freedom-from the atom to the star. The ignorant man is satisfied if he can get freedom within a certain limit-if he can get rid of the bondage of hunger or of being thirsty. But that sage feels that there is a stronger bondage which has to be thrown off. He would not consider the freedom of the Red Indian as freedom at all.

I am neither man nor angel. I have no sex nor limit. I am knowledge itself. I am He. I have neither anger nor hatred. I have neither pain nor pleasure. Death or birth I never had. For I am Knowledge Absolute, and Bliss Absolute. I am He, my soul, I am He!

Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry.

Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is in God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.

Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things! Let not the barks of puppies frighten you, no, not even the thunderbolts of heaven, but stand up and work!

Jnana, bhakti, yoga and karma - these are the four paths which lead to spiritual freedom. One must follow the path for which one is best suited. But in this age, special stress should be laid on karma yoga.

If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

Think day and night, I am of the essence of that Supreme Existence, Knowledge, Bliss-what fear and anxiety have I? This body, mind, and intellect are all transient, and That which is beyond these is myself.

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.

I hear, Western people say, "The world was created for us." If tigers could write books, they would say, man was created for them and that man is a most sinful animal, because he does not allow him (the tiger) to catch him easily. The worm that crawls under your feet today is a God to be.

Help and not fight. Assimilation and not destruction. Harmony and Peace and not dissension.

The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.

The sum total or Ishwara may be said to be All-good, Almighty, and Omniscient. These are obvious qualities, and need no argument to prove, from the very fact of totality.

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.

The body is the external coating and the mind is the internal coating of the Atman who is the real perceiver, the real enjoyer, the being in the body who is working the body by means of the internal organ or the mind.

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

Our own selfishness makes us the most arrant cowards; our own selfishness is the great cause of fear and cowardice.

Marriage is an institution very safely guarded.

Who cares for your bhakti and mukti? Who cares what your scriptures say? I will go into a thousand hells cheerfully if I can rouse my countrymen, immersed in tamas, to stand on their own feet and be men inspired with the spirit of karma-yoga. I am a follower only of he or she who serves and helps others without caring for his own bhakti and mukti!

Every step I take in light is mine forever.

Avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.

The Upanishads do not reveal the life of any teacher, but simply teach principles.

Impurity is a mere superimposition under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong.

Advaita is the only system that gives us complete control over ourselves, takes off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run, attain to absolute freedom.

This faith in themselves was in the hearts of our ancestors, this faith in themselves was the motive power that pushed them forward and forward in the march of civilisation, and if there has been degeneration, if there has been defect, mark my words, you will find that degeneration to have started on the day our people lost faith in themselves.

Tremendous purity, tremendous renunciation, is the one secret of spirituality. “Neither through wealth, nor through progeny, but through renunciation alone is immortality to be reached,” say the Vedas. “Sell all that thou hast and give to poor, and follow me,” says the Christ. So all great saints and prophets have expressed it, and have carried it out in their lives. How can great spirituality come without renunciation?

Motion is always a relative thing. I move in relation to something else. Any particle in this universe can change in relation to any other particle; but take the whole universe as one, and in relation to what can it move? There is nothing besides it. So this infinite Unit is unchangeable, immovable, absolute, and this is the Real Man.

Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection.

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.

We do not progress from error to truth, but from truth to truth

Do not stand on a high pedestal and take 5 cents in your hand and say, here, my poor man, but be grateful that the poor man is there, so by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.It is not the reciever that is blessed, but it is the giver.Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.

Everything that has name and form must begin in time, exist in time, and end in time. These are settled doctrines of the Vedanta, and as such the heavens are given up.

If you can get rid of your attachment to a single thing, you are on the way to liberation.

Man can think of divine things only in his own human way, to us the Absolute can be expressed only in our relative language.

As thou thinkest, so art thou.

Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all these processes purification of the elements - making the one melt the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit.

The sign of vigour, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, the sign of everything that is good, is strength. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, [and strength] in the hand.

Marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the welfare of the nation and the caste.

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. .

All progression is in the relative world.

Practice makes us what we shall be.

So long as even a single dog in my country is without food, my whole religion will be to feed it.

As soon as we identify ourselves with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we do not identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery.

If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.

Never allow weakness to overtake your mind. Remember Mahavira, remember the Divine Mother! And you will see that all weakness, all cowardice will vanish at once.

Let the end and the means be joined into one.