Swami Vivekananda Quotes

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“All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.”

“There is nothing beyond God, and the sense enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now in the hope of getting better things.”

“The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another according to the samskaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom.”

“Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.”

“Ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth - sinners! It is a sin to call man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, lions! and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal.”

“If superstition enters, the brain is gone.”

“When we really begin to live in the world, then we understand what is meant by brotherhood or mankind, and not before.”

“The spirit is the cause of all our thoughts and body-action, and everything, but it is untouched by good or evil, pleasure or pain, heat or cold, and all the dualism of nature, although it lends its light to everything.”

“Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.”

“Give me few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world.”

“This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.”

“The Soul is not composed of any materials. It is unity indivisible. Therefore it must be indestructible.”

“The past was great no doubt, but I sincerely believe that the future will be more glorious still.”

“I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light.”

“All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.”

“Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.”

“We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.”

“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 but we shall understand the whole thing. The same phenomena will remain but with a new meaning.”

“The power of purity—it is a definite power.”

“Is there any sex-distinction in the Atman (Self)? Out with the differentiation between man and woman—all is Atman! Give up the identification with the body, and stand up!”

“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.”

“This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.”

“There is only one sin. That is weakness…. The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.”

“It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.”

“The mind is but the subtle part of the body. You must retain great strength in your mind and words.”

“One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth.”

“There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion — I am God — cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.”

“If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.”

“There cannot be friendship without equality.”

“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.”

“Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?”