Swami Vivekananda citations

Page 5

“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.”