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VivekaVani

Voice of Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda’s Quotes Mega Collection

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(One of the largest collections of Swami Vivekananda Quotes and utterances in the world wide web) This is a special article of this website. Generally we prefer not to cherry-pick quotes and try to provide context and related details. And that’s why, sometimes some of our articles and their quotes become too long.

But we understand that many readers do not want to read long quotes of Swami Vivekananda. Many readers want short quotes which can be easily sent by SMS or posted at Twitter. These are completely understandable.

In this page we’ll make a collection of best one-liner quotes of Swami Vivekananda. Quotes will be arranged alphabetically by theme. Main articles will be linked with wherever applicable.

Swami Vivekananda Quotes selection

While selecting, we’ll concentrate on the following quotes—

  • Motivational and inspirational quotes of Swami Vivekananda
  • Philosophical quotes of Swami Vivekananda
  • Though-provoking quotes of Swami Vivekananda
  • Quotes with universal appeal.

A

Abhih

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  1. Let us repeat, “I am It; I am It. I have no fear, nor doubt, nor death. I have no sex, nor creed, nor colour.[Source] 
  2. The Lord Himself will guide you, there is no fear.[Source] 

Absolute

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  1. If the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, It is no more Absolute; It has become finite.[Source] 
  2. Knowledge of the Absolute depends upon no book, nor upon anything; it is absolute in itself.[Source] 
  3. The Absolute cannot be divided.[Source] 
  4. The Absolute can never be thought of.[Source] 
  5. The Absolute cannot be worshipped, so we must worship a manifestation.[Source] 
  6. The Absolute does not change, or re-evolve.[Source] 
  7. The Absolute is the material of both God and man.[Source] 

Achievement

  1. Every great achievement is done slowly.[Source] 

Advaita

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Advaita

  1. It may take ages for all minds to receive monism, but why not begin now? If we have told it to twenty persons in our lives, we have done a great work.[Source] 
  2. The Advaita is the eternal mine of strength.[Source] 

Anger

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  1. As soon as we react, we become slaves. A man blames me, and I immediately react in the form of anger. A little vibration which he created made me a slave.[Source] 
  2. Give up all self, all egotism s get out of anger, lust, give all to God.[Source] 
  3. Through the senses, anger comes, and sorrow comes.[Source] 

Argument

  1. All argument and reasoning must be based upon certain perceptions. Without these, there cannot be any argument.[Source] 

Art

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  1. Art is — representing the beautiful. There must be Art in everything.[Source] 
  2. Every artist paints his Madonna according to his own pre-conceived ideas.[Source] 

Astrology

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  1. All these ideas such as astrology, although there may be a grain of truth in them, should be avoided.[Source] 
  2. Excessive attention to the minutiae of astrology is one of the superstitions which has hurt the Hindus very much.[Source] 

Attachment

  1. All misery and pain come from attachment.[Source] 
  2. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.[Source] 

Attempt

  1. Even our smallest attempts are not in vain.[Source] 

B

Baptism

  1. Baptism is the direct introduction into the life of the spirit.[Source] 
  2. If you receive the real baptism, you know you are not the body but the spirit.[Source] 
  3. The Gita is like a bouquet composed of the beautiful flowers of spiritual truths collected from the Upanishads.

Beef-eating and cow slaughter

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  1. In the midst of all these differences we note one point of unity among all Hindus, and it is this, that no Hindu eats beef.[Source] 

Belief

  1. Belief is no part of religion. We say religion is a superconscious state.[Source] 
  2. 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.[Source] 

Belur Math

  1. If the Lord wills, we shall make this Math a great centre of harmony.[Source] 
  2. It is my wish to convert this Math into a chief centre of spiritual practices and the culture of knowledge.

Bhagavad Gita

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  1. Knowledge of the Atman is the highest aim of the Gita.[Source] 
  2. The Gita is like a bouquet composed of the beautiful flowers of spiritual truths collected from the Upanishads.[Source] 
  3. The reconciliation of the different paths of Dharma, and work without desire or attachment — these are the two special characteristics of the Gita.[Source] 
  4. This is the central idea of the Gita — to be calm and steadfast in all circumstances, with one’s body, mind, and soul centred at His hallowed Feet![Source] 
  5. Work, work, work day and night, says the Gita.[Source] 

Bhakti (or Devotion)

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Bhakti

  1. Bhakti can be more easily practiced by persons in every condition of life.[Source] 
  2. Bhakti has been the one constant theme of our sages.[Source] 
  3. The great quality of Bhakti is that it cleanses the mind.[Source] 
  4. There is Bhakti within you, only a veil of lust-and-wealth covers it, and as soon as that is removed Bhakti will manifest by itself.[Source] 

Blame

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  1. Blame neither man, nor God, nor anyone in the world. When you find yourselves suffering, blame yourselves, and try to do better.[Source] 
  2. Each person tries to hold himself hss and lay the blame upon somebody or something else, or even on bad luck.[Source]

Body

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  1. Body is an unreal dream, and we think we are all bodies.[Source] 
  2. We have to keep the body in good health; we have to take care of what we eat and drink, and what we do.[Source]

Bondage

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  1. A golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one.[Source] 
  2. Desire, ignorance, and inequality — this is the trinity of bondage.[Source] 
  3. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage, and bondage brings only misery.[Source] 
  4. If you say you are bound, bound you will remain.[Source] (
  5. To weep is a sign of weakness, of bondage.[Source] 

Books

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  1. Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps![Source] 
  2. He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books.[Source] 

Brahmacharya

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  1. Brahmacharya should be like a burning fire within the veins![Source] 
  2. Every one wants to command, and no one wants to obey; and this is owing to the absence of that wonderful Brahmacharya system of yore.[Source] 
  3. Is there a greater strength than that of Brahmacharya—purity, my boy?[Source] 
  4. The modern system of education gives no facility for the development of the knowledge of Brahman. We must found Brahmacharya Homes as in times of old.[Source] 

Brahman

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  1. All that is real in nature is Brahman, only it appears to be this variety, or nature, through the superimposition of Maya.[Source] 
  2. If you have once known Brahman, never after can you be melancholy.[Source] 
  3. The Vedas cannot show you Brahman, you are That already; they can only help to take away the veil that hides the truth from our eyes.[Source] 
  4. When I think “I am Brahman”, then I alone exist. It is so also when you so think, and so on. Each one is the whole of that principle.[Source] 

Brahmin

  1. Brahmin is “for the protection of the treasury of religion”.[Source] 
  2. The plan in India is to make everybody a Brahmin, the Brahmin being the ideal of humanity.[Source] 

Brave

  1. Be brave, be brave! Man dies but once. My disciples must not be cowards.[Source] 
  2. The brave alone can afford to be sincere. Compare the lion and the fox.[Source] 
  3. The brave are always moral.[Source] 

Business

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  1. Business is business, no child’s play.[Source] 
  2. Business is business, that is, you must do everything promptly; delay and shuffling won’t do.[Source] 

C

Caste

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  1. This caste system had grown by the practice of the son always following the business of the father.[Source] 
  2. We believe that nowhere throughout the Vedas, Darshanas, or Purânas, or Tantras, is it ever said that the soul has any sex, creed, or caste.[Source] 

Chandala

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  1. If the son of a Brahmin needs one teacher, that of a Chandala needs ten.[Source] 
  2. Through the imparting of moral principles, good behaviour, and education we must make the Chandala come up to the level of the Brahmana.[Source] 

Change

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  1. Change is always in regard to something which does not change, or which changes relatively less.[Source] 
  2. Excepting the infinite spirit, everything else is changing. There is the whirl of change.[Source] 
  3. Not one is constant, but everything is changing.[Source] 

Character

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  1. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.[Source] 
  2. It is character that cleaves its way through adamantine walls of difficulties.[Source] 

Charity

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  1. Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others.[Source] 
  2. The guiding motive of mankind should be charity towards men, charity towards all animals.[Source] 
  3. There is no higher virtue than charity.[Source] 

Charvaka

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  1. Chârvâkas, a very ancient sect in India, were rank materialists. They have died out now, and most of their books are lost.[Source] 
  2. There were the Chârvâkas, who preached horrible things, the most rank, undisguised materialism, such as in the nineteenth century they dare not openly preach.[Source] 

Chastity

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  1. Chastity is the basis of all religions.[Source] 
  2. Chastity is the first virtue in man or woman.[Source] 
  3. The chaste brain has tremendous energy and gigantic will-power. Without chastity there can be no spiritual strength.[Source] 

Children

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  1. All know their own Self, all know, “I am”, even animals. All we know is the projection of the Self. Teach this to the children, they can grasp it.[Source] 
  2. Do you think you can teach even a child? You cannot. The child teaches himself. Your duty is to afford opportunities and to remove obstacles.[Source] 
  3. It is good to be born a child, but bad to remain a child.[Source] 
  4. It is useless to tell children that this world is all good, all flowers, all milk and honey.[Source] 

Christianity

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  1. It is to be noted that Christianity cannot stand without Christ.[Source] 
  2. The Christian idea of a practical religion is in doing good works—worldly utility.[Source] 

Competition

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  1. Competition rouses envy, and it kills the kindliness of the heart.[Source] 
  2. Everything that has selfishness for its basis, competition as its right hand, and enjoyment as its goal, must die sooner or later.[Source] 
  3. How do all the formative forces of the universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict.[Source] 
  4. More and more anxiety, and more and more competition.[Source] 

Concentration

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  1. Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God.[Source] 
  2. The power of concentration, is the only key to the treasure-house of knowledge.[Source] 
  3. The whole secret of knowledge is concentration.[Source] 

Cowardice

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on cowardice

  1. Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral.[Source] 
  2. Die in obeying commands like a soldier, and go to Nirvana, but no cowardice.[Source] 
  3. No cowardice, no sin, no crime, no weakness — the rest will come of itself. . . .[Source] 
  4. Our own selfishness makes us the most arrant cowards; our own selfishness is the great cause of fear and cowardice.[Source] 

Creation

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  1. All creation is moving onwards and upwards, obedient to the great law of spirit evolution, which is different from the evolution of matter.[Source] 
  2. Creation is infinite, without beginning and without end — the ever-moving ripple in an infinite lake.[Source] 
  3. Creation means the struggle to get back to freedom, the centre of our being, whence we have been thrown off, as it were.[Source] 

Culture

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  1. It is culture that withstands shocks, not a simple mass of knowledge.[Source] 
  2. The finer the organism, the higher the culture.[Source] 

D

Death

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  1. Death is but a change.[Source] 
  2. The human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another.[Source] 

Delusion

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  1. Delusion cannot be called an existence.[Source] 
  2. How can the perfect soul be deluded into the belief that it is imperfect?[Source] 
  3. This world is a delusion of two days. The present life is of five minutes. Beyond is the Infinite, beyond this world of delusion; let us seek that.[Source]

Democracy

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  1. Kings having gone, the power is the people’s.[Source] 
  2. No priestcraft, no social tyranny! More bread, more opportunity for everybody![Source] 

Discipline

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  1. Some men, who begin by saying that the world is a hell, often end by saying that it is a heaven when they succeed in the practice of self-control.[Source] 
  2. The whole point is to discipline the mind.[Source] 

Duty

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  1. All our duties are His.[Source] 
  2. Duty for duty’s sake; work for work’s sake.[Source] 
  3. Duty is sweet only through love, and love shines in freedom alone.[Source] 
  4. Each duty has its own place, and according to the circumstances in which we are placed, we must perform our duties.[Source] 
  5. What is duty for one is not duty for another.[Source] 

E

Education

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  1. Education, education, education alone![Source] 
  2. Education has yet to be in the world, and civilisation — civilisation has begun nowhere yet.[Source] 
  3. 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].[Source] 
  4. Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.[Source] 
  5. If the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him.[Source] 
  6. It is man-making education all round that we want.[Source] 
  7. Real education is that which enables one to stand on one’s own legs.[Source] 
  8. There is only one purpose in the whole of life — education. Otherwise what is the use of men and women, land and wealth?[Source] 

Ego

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  1. In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up.[Source] 
  2. The “ego” like its correlative “non-ego”, is the product of the body, mind etc. The only proof of the existence of the real Self is realisation.[Source] 
  3. This rascal ego must be obliterated.[Source] 

Enjoyment

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  1. Enjoyment should not be the goal.[Source] 
  2. Give up all ideas of enjoyment in this world and the next, care only for God and Truth. We are here to know truth, not for enjoyment.[Source] 
  3. There is no enjoyment in this life; all search for enjoyment is vain; this is the old, old lesson which man finds so hard to learn.[Source] 

Ethics

  1. Ethics itself is not the end, but the means to the end.[Source] 

F

Faith

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  1. Have faith in yourselves, and stand up on that faith and be strong; that is what we need.[Source] 
  2. It is faith that makes a lion of a man.[Source] 
  3. Let me draw your attention to one thing which unfortunately we always forget: that is — “O man, have faith in yourself.”[Source] 
  4. The Vedanta teaches men to have faith in themselves first.[Source] 

Fame

  1. Fame does not pay, nor learning.[Source] 

Fear

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on fear

  1. Fear is a sign of weakness.[Source] 
  2. Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life.[Source] 
  3. If you read the Vedas, you will find this word always repeated — fearlessness — fear nothing. Fear is a sign of weakness.[Source] (
  4. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment.[Source] 
  5. It is true that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil.[Source] 

Forgiveness

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  1. Everything is ended if you forgive and forget.[Source] 
  2. Forgive offences by the million. And if you love all unselfishly, all will by degrees come to love one another.[Source] 

Form

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  1. All forms are transitory, that is why all religions say, “God has no form”.[Source] 
  2. Everything is substance plus name and form. Name and form come and go, but substance remains ever the same.[Source] 
  3. In nature alone are forms. That which is not of nature cannot have any forms, fine or gross. It must be formless.[Source] 
  4. What is this universe but name and form?[Source] 

Freedom

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  1. All nature is crying through all the atoms for one thing — its perfect freedom.[Source] 
  2. Every one is struggling for freedom—from the atom to the star.[Source] 
  3. “Freedom, O Freedom! Freedom, O Freedom!” is the song of the soul.[Source] 
  4. Freedom is attained by the threefold means of—work, worship, and knowledge.[Source] 
  5. Freedom is the goal towards which we are all moving.[Source] 
  6. Freedom is the motive of the universe, freedom its goal.[Source] 
  7. The goal of each soul is freedom, mastery — freedom from the slavery of matter and thought, mastery of external and internal nature.[Source] 
  8. What is the goal? It is freedom.[Source] 
  9. Within ourselves is this eternal voice speaking of eternal freedom; its music is eternally going on.[Source] 

G

God

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  1. God alone is eternal, everything else is transitory.[Source] 
  2. God has become man; man will become God again.[Source] 
  3. God is life; God is truth… everything else than God is nothing — here today, gone tomorrow.[Source] 
  4. God is love personified. He is apparent in everything. Everybody is being drawn to Him whether he knows it or not.[Source] 
  5. God is the magnet and human soul is the needle.[Source] (
  6. God is the Soul of all souls and of the whole of nature.[Source] 
  7. God is unattached because He loves; that real love makes us unattached.[Source] 
  8. Life is not real. The real is God.[Source] 
  9. My son, I believe in God, and I believe in man. I believe in helping the miserable. I believe in going even to hell to save others.[Source]
  10. Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world.[Source] 
  11. The knowledge of man is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing man, can we know God.[Source] 
  12. The real happiness is God. Love is God, freedom is God; and everything that is bondage is not God.[Source] 
  13. The universe is—objectified God.[Source] 
  14. You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.[Source] 

Growth

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  1. Growth must proceed from within.[Source] 
  2. Liberty is the first condition of growth.[Source] 
  3. The whole process of growth is de-hypnotisation.[Source] 
  4. You are quite wrong when you think that fighting is a sign of growth. It is not so at all. Absorption is the sign.[Source] 

Guru or Teacher

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  1. He is an Acharya through whom the divine power acts.[Source] 
  2. It is not possible for everyone to be an Acharya.[Source] 
  3. The father and mother give me this body; but the Guru gives me rebirth in the soul.[Source] 
  4. The first lamp is the Guru, and the lamp that is lighted from it is the disciple. The second in turn becomes the Guru, and so on.[Source] 
  5. The Guru has to bear the disciple’s burden of sin.[Source] 

H

Habit

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  1. Happiness presents itself before man, wearing the crown of sorrow on its head. He who welcomes it must also welcome sorrow.[Source] 
  2. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits.[Source] 

Happiness

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on happiness

  1. Happiness presents itself before man, wearing the crown of sorrow on its head. He who welcomes it must also welcome sorrow.[Source] 
  2. If I am unhappy, it has been of my own making, and that very thing shows that I can be happy if I will.[Source] 
  3. Real happiness is not in the senses but above the senses; and it is in every man.[Source] 

Harmony

  1. God will come to everyone, harmony is within the reach of all.[Source] 
  2. We want harmony, not one-sided development.[Source] 

Haste

  1. Nothing shall be done in haste.[Source] 

Hatred

  1. It is hatred that separates man from man; therefore it is wrong and false. It is a disintegrating power; it separates and destroys.[Source] 

Heart

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  1. All truths flash upon it in a minute; all truth in the universe will manifest in your heart, if you are sufficiently pure.[Source] 
  2. Always cultivate the heart; through the heart the Lord speaks, and through the intellect you yourself speak.[Source] 
  3. He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books. Their only value is to create desire in us. They are merely the experiences of others.[Source] 
  4. Heart speaks unto heart better than any language of the mouth.[Source] 
  5. It is the heart, the heart that conquers, not the brain.[Source]
  6. It is through the heart, and the heart alone, that inspiration comes.[Source] 

Help

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  1. All search is vain, until we begin to perceive that knowledge is within ourselves, that no one can help us, that we must help ourselves.[Source] 
  2. Helping others is only helping ourselves.[Source] 
  3. We are our own help. If we cannot help ourselves, there is none to help us.[Source] 

Holiness

  1. Holiness is the greatest power. Everything else quails before it.[Source] 

Hope

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  1. Be free; hope for nothing from anyone.[Source] 
  2. One can hope gradually to attain to universal love if one can learn to love one object unselfishly.[Source] 

I

Ideal

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  1. Devotion to an ideal never fails in sympathy, never becomes weary of sympathising with others.[Source] 
  2. If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal.[Source]
  3. We must have an ideal.[Source] 

Idolatry

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  1. One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots.[Source] 
  2. Some may be helped by images, some may not. Some require an image outside, others one inside the brain.
  3. Too much faith in personality has a tendency to produce weakness and idolatry.[Source] 
  4. We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man.[Source] 

Ignoring

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  1. Be fearless. Ignore the ordinary critics as worms![Source] 
  2. If anybody attacks me, simply ignore his existence. . . .[Source] 

Impermanence

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  1. All prosperity which comes with Mammon is transient, is only for a moment.[Source] 
  2. Everything is evanescent. Enjoyment, misery, luxury, wealth, power, and poverty, even life itself, are all evanescent.[Source] 
  3. In this world nothing is permanent except God.[Source] 

Impurity

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  1. Talk not about impurity, but say that we are pure.[Source] 
  2. The bondage of sin and impurity in the uncultivated savage is to his consciousness very small, for his nature is only a little higher than the animal’s.[Source] 

India

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  1. India can never be Europe until she dies.[Source] 
  2. The Indian nation cannot be killed. Deathless it stands.[Source] 
  3. The Indian nation never stood for imperial glory. Wealth and power, then, were not the ideals of the race.[Source] 
  4. There is only one country in the world which understands religion — it is India.[Source] 
  5. What India wants is a new electric fire to stir up a fresh vigour in the national veins.[Source] 

Individuality

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  1. Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn’t it be better for the pig to lose his pig-individuality if he can become God?[Source] 
  2. The less I think of my own individual mind, the nearer I am to that universal mind.[Source] 

J

Jealousy

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  1. Jealousy is a terrible, horrible sin; it enters a man so mysteriously.[Source] 
  2. Jealousy is the central vice of every enslaved race. And it is jealousy and want of combination which cause and perpetuate slavery.[Source] 
  3. Jealousy is the root of all evil, and a most difficult thing to conquer.[Source] 
  4. We cannot give up jealousy and rally together. That is our national sin![Source] 

Jesus Christ

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  1. Had I lived in Palestine, in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart’s blood![Source] 
  2. I pity the Hindu who does not see the beauty in Jesus Christ’s character. I pity the Christian who does not reverence the Hindu Christ.[Source]
  3. Remember the words of Christ: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”[Source] (

K

Knowledge

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  1. All human knowledge proceeds out of experience; we cannot know anything except by experience.
  2. If I know one lump of clay perfectly, I know all the clay there is. This is the knowledge of principles, but their adaptations are various.[Source] 
  3. Knowledge exists, man only discovers it.[Source] 
  4. Knowledge is power, and getting one you get the other. By knowledge you can even banish the material world.[Source] 
  5. The gift of knowledge is a far higher gift than that of food and clothes; it is even higher than giving life to a man.[Source] 
  6. There is no higher gift than this, for the gift of knowledge is the highest gift in the world.[Source] 

L

Life

  1. Life is good or evil according to the state of mind in which we look at it, it is neither by itself.[Source] 

Love

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  1. Books and learning, Yoga and meditation and illumination — all are but dust compared with love.[Source] 
  2. It is love that gives you the supernatural powers, love that gives you Bhakti, love that gives illumination, and love, again, that reads to emancipation.[Source] 
  3. Love cannot be without a subject and an object.[Source] 
  4. Love conquers in the long run. It won’t do to become impatient — wait, wait — patience is bound to give success. . . .[Source] 
  5. Love is beyond time and space, it is absolute.[Source] 
  6. Love is struggle of a human Soul to find its complement its stable equilibrium its infinite rest.[Source] 
  7. Love knows no bargaining.[Source] 
  8. Love loves for the sake of love itself.[Source] 
  9. Ordinarily human love is seen to flourish only in places where it is returned; where love is not returned for love, cold indifference is the natural result.[Source] 
  10. The perfect love is very rare in human relation.[Source] 
  11. There is only one element in life which is worth having at any cost, and it is love.[Source] 

M

Man

  1. Man cannot go beyond his nature, no more than you can jump out of your body.[Source] 
  2. Man is a compound of animality, humanity, and divinity.[Source] 
  3. Man is born to conquer nature and not to follow it.[Source] 
  4. Man never dies, nor is he ever born; bodies die, but he never dies.[Source] 

Marriage

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on marriage

  1. According to the Hindu way of thinking, marriage is rather a duty than a privilege.[Source] 
  2. Marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the welfare of the nation and the caste.[Source] 
  3. What is marriage but the renunciation of unchastity? The savage does not marry. Man marries because he renounces.[Source] 

Meditation

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on meditation

  1. Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists.[Source] 
  2. Meditation is the means of unification of the subject and object. Meditate.[Source] 
  3. Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the [thought-waves] and the world stops. Your consciousness expands.[Source]

Mercy

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Mercy

  1. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.[Source] 
  2. Mercy is heaven itself; to be good, we have all to be merciful. Even justice and right should stand on mercy.[Source]

Mind

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on mind

  1. It is the cheerful mind that is persevering.[Source] 
  2. Mind is the name of a stream of consciousness or thought continuously changing.[Source] 
  3. This mind is a part of the universal mind. Each mind is connected with every other mind.[Source] 

Motherhood

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Motherhood

  1. The mother is the highest ideal of womanhood in India.[Source] 
  2. The mother is the ideal of love; she rules the family, she possesses the family.[Source] 
  3. The position of the mother is the highest in the world, as it is the one place in which to learn and exercise the greatest unselfishness.[Source] 

N

Nature

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Nature

  1. External nature is only internal nature writ large.[Source] 

O

Obedience

  1.  Every one wants to command, and no one wants to obey.[Source] 

Om

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Om

  1. Om represents the Akhanda, the undifferentiated Brahman.[Source] 
  2. Om, the one without a second. He in me, I in Him. I am like a bit of glass in an ocean of light. I am not, I am not. He is, He is, He is.[Source] 
  3. One must think of Om, and of its meaning too.[Source] 
  4. Meditate upon the Om that is in the heart.[Source] 

P

Patience

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on patience and perseverance

  1. Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.[Source] 
  2. He who has infinite patience and infinite energy at his back, will alone succeed.[Source] 
  3. If you have infinite patience and perseverance, success is bound to come. No mistake in that.[Source]
  4. Purity, patience and perseverance overcome all obstacles. All great things must of necessity be slow.[Source] 
  5. The seed grows into the tree, patiently and gently.[Source] 

Perfection

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on perfection

  1. My Master used to say, when a pitcher is being filled (by immersion), it gurgles, but when full, it is noiseless.[Source] 
  2. Perfection is always infinite.[Source] 
  3. Perfection means infinity, and manifestation means limit, and so it means that we shall become unlimited limiteds, which is self-contradictory.[Source] 

Philosophy

  1. Philosophy is the highest poetry.[Source] 
  2. Poetry and philosophy will become friends.[Source] 

Physique

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on physique

  1. If the physique of the parents be not strong and healthy, how can strong and healthy children be born at all?[Source] 
  2. The gist of the thing is that unless one has a good physique one can never aspire to Self – realisation.[Source] 

Pleasure

  1. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal.[Source] 

Politics

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on politics

  1. God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash.[Source] 
  2. I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense. I do not believe in any politics.[Source] 
  3. The quarrels of politicians are very curious.[Source] 

Power

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on power

  1. If one has got power, one must manifest it in action.[Source] 
  2. Within you lies indomitable power. Only thinking, “I am nothing, I am nothing”, you have become powerless.[Source] 

Poverty

  1. Poverty is not a synonym for holiness; often the reverse.[Source] 
  2. Poverty there must be, so long as the disease known as civilisation existed: and hence the need for relief.[Source] 

Practice

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on practice

  1. All practice or worship is only for taking off this veil. When that will go, you will find that the Sun of Absolute Knowledge is shining in Its own lustre.[Source] 
  2. One ounce of practice is worth a thousand pounds of theory.[Source] 
  3. Practice makes us what we shall be.[Source] 

Pravritti and Nivritti

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on pravritti and nivritti

  1. Nivritti is turning aside from the world.[Source] 
  2. The materialising forces which through desire lead us to take an active part in worldly affairs are called Pravritti.[Source] 

Progress

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on progress

  1. According to the history of human progress, it is disobedience to nature that has constituted that progress.[Source] 
  2. How can there be any progress of the country without the spread of education, the dawning of knowledge?[Source] 
  3. The progress and civilisation of the human race simply mean controlling this nature.[Source] 
  4. True progress is slow but sure.[Source] 

Prostitution

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on prostitution

  1. Prostitution is chiefly a Mohammedan practice.[Source]
  2. They remind one of the prostitute Ambâpâli, the object of Lord Buddha’s divine grace, and of the Samaritan woman who won the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.[Source] 

R

Reasoning

  1. Reasoning is the method of comparison between certain facts which we have already perceived.[Source] 

Religion

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Religion

  1. No one is born into a religion, but each one is born for a religion.[Source] 
  2. Realisation is the soul, the very essence of religion.[Source] 
  3. Religion can be realised. Are you ready? Do you want it? You will get the realisation if you do, and then you will be truly religious.[Source] 
  4. Religion is the idea which is raising the brute unto man, and man unto God.[Source] 
  5. Religion without philosophy runs into superstition; philosophy without religion becomes dry atheism.[Source] 
  6. The downfall of a religious sect begins from the day that the worship of the rich enters into it.[Source] 

Renunciation

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on renunciation

  1. Remember that renunciation is the
    root idea. Unless one is initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the World – gods have the power to attain Mukti.[Source] 
  2. Renunciation is in our blood.[Source] 
  3. Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands.[Source] 
  4. Renunciation means that none can serve both God and Mammon.[Source] 

Rituals

  1. Rituals are the kindergarten of religion.[Source] 

S

Sacrifice

  1. No great work has been done in the world without sacrifice.

Salvation

  1. If you cannot attain salvation in this life, what proof is there that you can attain it in the life or lives to come?[Source] 

Sanskrit

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Sanskrit language

  1. Sanskrit and prestige go together in India.[Source] 
  2. Sanskrit is the language of God.[Source]

Selfishness

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on selfishness

  1. Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness makes us attached to something, and immediately we are made slaves.[Source] 
  2. Our own selfishness makes us the most arrant cowards; our own selfishness is the great cause of fear and cowardice.[Source] 
  3. Selfishness is the chief sin, thinking of ourselves first.[Source] 

Senses 

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on senses

  1. All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing.[Source] 
  2. Back from the senses, back! Do not go to the senses is the watchword of Vairagya.[Source] 
  3. Great is the tenacity with which man clings to the senses.[Source] 
  4. Sense-happiness is not the goal of humanity. Wisdom (Jnâna) is the goal of all life.[Source] 
  5. The animal has its happiness in the senses, the man in his intellect, and the god in spiritual contemplation.[Source] 

Sex

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on sex

  1. The highest love is the love that is sexless, for it is perfect unity that is expressed in the highest love, and sex differentiates bodies.[Source] 
  2. The soul has no sex; why should it degrade itself with sex ideas?[Source] 

Shiva

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Shiva

  1. It was Shiva who made stern and earnest workers, and to Him the labourer must be dedicated.[Source] 
  2. Shiva is the sublime aspect of God.[Source] 

Sin

  1. He alone is a sinner who sees a sinner in another man.[Source] 
  2. If there is any sin in the world, it is weakness.[Source] 

Soul

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on soul

  1. Each soul is a star, and all stars are set in that infinite azure, that eternal sky, the Lord.[Source] 
  2. Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection.[Source] 
  3. My Soul is the highest ideal that I can have. Realising my own real nature is the one goal of my life.[Source] 
  4. Soul is not a force; neither is it thought. It is the manufacturer of thought, but not thought itself; it is the manufacturer of the body, but not the body.[Source] 
  5. The soul can only receive impulses from another soul, and from nothing else.[Source] 

Strength

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on strength

  1. Strength is the medicine for the world’s disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must have when tyrannised over by the rich[Source].
  2. Strength, strength it is that we want so much in this life.[Source]

Struggle

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on struggle

  1. Struggle itself is the grandest and most glorious that man can make.[Source]
  2. Throw your religious observances overboard for the present and be first prepared for the struggle for existence.[Source]
  3. We hope and pray and struggle on, and the day will come when we shall arrive at the truth, and we shall not have to speak.[Source] 

Superstition

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on superstition

  1. Be strong, get beyond all superstitions, and be free.[Source] 
  2. Come out and go and wash off. Wash yourself again and again until you are cleansed of all the superstitions that have clung to you through the ages.[Source] 

T

Truth

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on truth

  1. Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.[Source] 
  2. I stand for truth. Truth will never ally itself with falsehood. Even if all the world should be against me, Truth must prevail in the end.[Source] 
  3. The search for truth is the expression of strength—not the groping of a weak, blind man.[Source] 

U

Unity

  1. In the heart of things there is Unity still.[Source] 
  2. Unity in variety is the plan of creation, individuality in universality.[Source] 
  3. Unity is the only thing that exists; variety is but phenomenal, ephemeral and apparent.[Source] 

V

Vedanta

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Vedanta

  1. From this ocean of the Vedanta, waves of light from time to time have been going Westward and Eastward.[Source] 
  2. Our claim is that the Vedanta only can be the universal religion.[Source] 
  3. The Vedanta is the rationale of all religions. Without the Vedanta every religion is superstition; with it everything becomes religion.[Source] 
  4. The Vedanta recognises no sin, it only recognises error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta, is to say that you are weak.[Source] 
  5. Vedanta does not say, “Give it up”: it says, “Transcend it”.[Source] 

Vedas

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on the Vedas

  1. All that is called knowledge is in the Vedas. Every word is sacred and eternal, eternal as the soul, without beginning and without end.[Source] 
  2. In matters of religious duty the Vedas are the only capable authority.[Source] 
  3. There is no new religious idea preached anywhere which is not found in the Vedas.[Source] 

W

Want

  1. Want makes us beggars, and we are sons of the king, not beggars.[Source] 

Weakness

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on weakness

  1. All weakness, all bondage is imagination. Speak one word to it, it must vanish. Do not weaken! There is no other way out…. Stand up and be strong![Source] 
  2. The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental.[Source] 
  3. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak.[Source] 

Wickedness

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on wickedness

  1. All evils and wickedness are but weakness, the imperfect vision of goodness.[Source] 
  2. The wicked are always the same all over the world. The thief and the murderer are the same in Asia and Europe and America. They form a nation.[Source] 

Women/womanhood

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on womanhood

  1. If you do not raise the women, who are the living embodiment of the Divine Mother, don’t think that you have any other way to rise.[Source] 
  2. Woman is as courageous as man.[Source] 

Work

See more Swami Vivekananda’s quotes work

  1. It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work’s sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one’s labour.[Source] 
  2. The greatest work is done only when there is no selfish motive to prompt it.[Source] 
  3. When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship.[Source] 
  4. Work on! Hold on! Be brave! Dare anything and everything![Source] 
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