“I loved India after reading Vivekananda……… and I came to know about Vivekananda through the writings of Nivedita.”
— Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
Sister Nivedita has gifted us a life that is immensely great. There has been no lack of sincerity from her end. Every day, every minute, whatever has been the best in her, she sacrificed it all.
— Rabindranath Tagore
Nivedita’s face expressed such strength, radiance and purity that is not generally envisaged in many. Once seen, it cannot be easily forgotten. I cannot express enough the enthusiasm and inspiration we have received from her. What she had been for us was felt by us in every breath of our being but it is difficult to express in words.
— Nandalal Basu
The strength of submission and surrender and the compassion to feel the pain of others was innate in her and natural with her….. On one hand she was beautiful and delicate like a flower…gentle and kind in affection, empathy and service; on the other, she was relentless than the thunder, to rise up against the unfeeling, proud tormentor.
— Dilip Kumar Roy
In general what is understood by the term school, Sister Nivedita’s school was not that in the true sense. Swami Vivekananda had envisaged establishing a women’s math, unto which Sister Nivedita had dedicated her life and it is with this spirit that she had given her life for this school.
— Sarala Bala Sarkar
She had to face a lot of hindrances and oppositions, keeping in mind the social practices of the times…she bore with patience and fortitude all these attacks, pains, obstacles and won them over. Had she not been endowed with infinite love, she would have had to forego all that she had intended to do.
— Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay
In a dilapidated house at Bosepara, she had spent her days in starvation, sacrificing her life in the service of this nation. She had been requested innumerable times to shift to a better house…and proper nutritional food. But she had smilingly refused it all. Sacrificing like Dadhichi, penance like Uma, whatever I have read in the Puranas or heard in the epics, I have seen in her life.
— Jagadish Chandra Bose (As told to Kumudbandhu Sen)
Once she would take up a responsibility, she never thought it to be another’s work. This type of selflessness, devoid of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’, disinterested in the return, not only that, strictly opposing any type of favour given…such a dedicated person…, is not one I have seen in my life. The ideals of work that she portrayed is what I had read of, only in the Gita.
— Dinesh Chandra Sen
Nivedita, mother…..o mother!
In the Temple of Love, always dedicated.
You are the sun, the remover of my soul’s Tamas, darkness,
In the desert of life, are shower.
Fountain of affection you are for the hapless
In the temple of well-being and charity, you are the ascetic,
I bow, I bow to you Mother Nivedita.
— Subhramaniyam Bharati
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