Swami Vivekananda: Trending quotes (page 8)

“This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.”

“All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.”

“We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.”

“Learn to recognise the mother in Evil, Terror, Sorrow, Denial, as well as in Sweetness and in Joy.”

“Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling, they will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But those who do their duties as they go, putting their shoulders to the wheel, will see the light, and higher duties will fall to their share.”

“Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.”

“Take up an idea, devote yourself to it, struggle on in patience, and the sun will rise for you.”

“Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure.”

“Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.”

“Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. Those who have no faith in themselves can never have faith in God.”

“The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.”

“When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were, only we shall understand the whole thing.”

“As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.”

“A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.”

“"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls," and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.”

“Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself.”

“Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.”

“The greatest error is to call a man a weak and miserable sinner. Every time a person thinks in this mistaken manner, he rivets one more link in the chain of avidya that binds him, adds one more layer to the “self-hypnotism” that lies heavy over his mind.”

“The mistake is that we cling to the body when it is the spirit that is really immortal.”