In this article we’ll make a collection of Swami Vivekananda‘s quotes on good or goodness. Here “good” may be translated as Hindi: सत or अच्छा, Bengali: সৎ or ভালো.
- Anything that titillates our nerves for a moment we think; as the highest good, and plunge into it immediately, but find, when it is too late, that it has given us a tremendous blow.[Source]
- Contact with holy men is good. If you go near holy men, you will find holiness overflowing unconsciously in everything there.[Source]
- Disease and misfortune come to do us good in the long run, although at the time we feel that we are submerged for ever.[Source]
- Doing good is not always smooth![Source]
- Good and evil thoughts are each a potent power, and they fill the universe.[Source]
- Goodness is strength.[Source]
- I can secure my own good only by doing you good. There is no other way, none whatsoever….[Source]
- In doing good we do good to ourselves and to others as well; and, like all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside.[Source]
- It is also the experience of my life that the heart and core of everything here is good, that whatever may be the surface waves, deep down and underlying everything, there is an infinite basis of goodness and love; and so long as we do not reach that basis, we are troubled; but having once reached that zone of calmness, let winds howl and tempests rage.[Source]
- It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one’s own good, and it is by leading others to Bhakti and Mukti that one attains them oneself.[Source]
- It is preferable to live on grass for the sake of doing good to others.[Source]
- More of goodness, less of artificial laws.[Source]
- No good will come of sitting idle and having princely dishes, and saying “Ramakrishna, O Lord!” — unless you can do some good to the poor.[Source]
- Only one kind of work I understand, and that is doing good to others; all else is doing evil.[Source]
- The greatest goodness is the highest freedom.[Source]
- The highest good is the realisation of the Self.[Source]
- The result of every work is mixed with good and evil. There is no good work that has not a touch of evil in it. Like smoke round the fire, some evil always clings to work. We should engage in such works as bring the largest amount of good and the smallest measure of evil.[Source]
- The road to the Good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed, no wonder that so many fall.[Source]
- The Vedanta says that you are pure and perfect, and that there is a state beyond good and evil, and that is your own nature. It is higher even than good. Good is only a lesser differentiation than evil.[Source]
- The worker’s practical religion consists in doing good works.[Source]
- There is no good, and there is no evil. God is all there is . . . . How do you know what is good? You feel [it]. [How do you know what is evil ? If evil comes, you feel it. . . . We know good and evil by our feelings. There is not one man who feels only good, happy feelings. There is not one who feels only unhappy feelings. . . .[Source]
- There is no good in store so long as malice and jealousy and egotism will prevail.[Source]
- There is nothing absolutely good or evil; it is good to one and evil to another, evil today, good tomorrow, and vice versa. .[Source]
- There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.[Source]
- Truth is infinitely more weighty than untruth; so is goodness. If you possess these, they will make their way by sheer gravity.[Source]
- What is good for you may not be good for others.[Source]
- When this world goes, good and evil go with it; but when we can transcend this world, we get rid of both good and evil and have bliss.[Source]