Swami Vivekananda
Many of us do not believe in any form of idolatry; but they have no right to object when others do it.Collection: Believe
. . . Wait, my child, wait and work on. Patience, patience. . . . .Collection: Patience
If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished—mountains can be crumbled into atoms.Collection: Motivational
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!Collection: Book
The secret of Greek Art is its imitation of nature even to the minutest details; whereas the secret of Indian Art is to represent the ideal. The energy of the Greek painter is spent in perhaps painting a piece of flesh, and he is so successful that a dog is deluded into taking it to be a real bit of meat and so goes to bite it. Now, what glory is there in merely imitating nature? Why not place an actual bit of flesh before the dog?Collection: Dog
We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward.Collection: Optimistic
Marriage or non-marriage, good or evil, learning or ignorance, any of these is justified, if it leads to the goal.Collection: Marriage
We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.Collection: Errors
First of all, our young must be strong. Religion will come afterwards.Collection: Strong
A perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are defeated, our life has to go. It is, for instance, a continuous struggle for food and air. If food or air fails, we die. Life is not a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound effect. This complex struggle between something inside and the external world is what we call life. So it is clear that when this struggle ceases, there will be an end of life.Collection: Struggle
Only by practice and non-attachment can we conquer mind.Collection: Attachment
Do not run away, it is cowardice.Collection: Running
With everything we do in life we identify ourselves. Here is a man who says harsh words to me. I feel anger coming on me. In a few seconds anger and I are one, and then comes misery. Attach yourselves to the Lord and to nothing else, because everything else is unreal. Attachment to the unreal will bring misery. There is only one Existence that is real, only one Life in which there is neither object nor [subject].Collection: Real
In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed on you. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.Collection: Giving
Wherever in any society there are too many laws, it is a sure sign that that society will soon die. If you study the characteristics of India, you will find that no nation possesses so many laws as the Hindus, and national death is the result.Collection: Law
It is the duty of all to support and side with Dharma. All must fight and support Dharma regardless of their personality, background, status.Collection: Fighting
Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.Collection: Inspirational
Everything that has form must have a beginning and an end.Collection: Ends
If you really want the good of others, the whole universe may stand against you and cannot hurt you. It must crumble before your power of the Lord Himself in you if you are sincere and really unselfish.Collection: Hurt
We do not look at our own faults; the eyes do not see themselves, they see the eyes of everybody else. We human beings are very slow to recognise our own weakness, our own faults, so long as we can lay the blame upon somebody else.Collection: Eye
Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.Collection: Feelings
True religion comes not front the teaching of men or the reading of books; it is the awakening of the spirit within us, consequent upon pure and heroic action.Collection: Book
It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.Collection: Ideas
All these ideas such as astrology, although there may be a grain of truth in them, should be avoided.Collection: Ideas
Have faith. We will doCollection: Faith
Man dies but once. My disciples must not be cowards.Collection: Men
Have faith in man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one or a most ignorant oneCollection: Men
To his enemies the householder must be a hero. Them he must resist. That is the duty of the householder. He must not sit down in a corner and weep, and talk nonsense about non-resistance. If he does not show himself a hero to his enemies he has not done his duty.Collection: Hero
The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm.Collection: Kings
Who cares for your bhakti and mukti? Who cares what your scriptures say? I will go into a thousand hells cheerfully if I can rouse my countrymen, immersed in tamas, to stand on their own feet and be men inspired with the spirit of karma-yoga. I am a follower only of he or she who serves and helps others without caring for his own bhakti and mukti!Collection: Karma
Ahimsa (non-killing), truthfulness, purity, mercy, and godliness are always to be kept.Collection: Mercy
Music is the highest art and to those who understand, is the highest worshipCollection: Art
In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone's door.Collection: Heart
Service to man is service to godCollection: Men
Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya.Collection: Names
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.Collection: Reality
You know your real nature [to be divine]. You are the king and play you are a beggar. . . . It is all fun. Know it and play. That is all there is to it. Then practice it. The whole universe is a vast play.Collection: Kings
These tremendous contradictions in our intellect, in our knowledge, yea, in all the facts of our life face us on all sides.Collection: Faces
Ours is the only religion that does not depend on a person or persons; it is based upon principles. At the same time there is room for millions of persons. There is ample ground for introducing persons, but each one of them must be an illustration of the principles. We must not forget that. These principles of our religion are all safe, and it should be the life-work of everyone of us to keep then safe, and to keep them free from the accumulating dirt and dust of ages.Collection: Illustration
Weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death.Collection: Weakness
All the superior religions had their growth between the Ganga and the Euphrates.Collection: Growth
Children of those ancient Aryans, through the grace of the Lord may you have the same pride, may that faith in your ancestors come into your blood, may it become a part and parcel of your lives, may it work towards the salvation of the world!Collection: Motivational
It is the Prana that is manifesting as motion.Collection: Prana
Who can break the law? If I break this glass, it will fall down. If anyone succeeds in throwing one atom out of place, every other atom will go out of balance. . . . The law can never be broken. Each atom is kept in its place. Each is weighed and measured and fulfils its [purpose] and place. Through His command the winds blow, the sun shines. Through His rule the worlds are kept in place. Through His orders death is sporting upon the earth. Just think of two or three Gods having a wrestling match in this world! It cannot be.Collection: Fall
The Indian mythology has a theory of cycles, that all progression is in the form of waves.Collection: Progress
Brave, bold men, these are what we want. What we want is vigor in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion. Is there any mystery in the Vedanta, or in the Vedas, or in the Samhitâs, or in the Puranas? What secret societies did the sages of yore establish to preach their religion? What sleight-of-hand tricks are there recorded as used by them to bring their grand truths to humanity?Collection: Motivational
External motion we call action; internal motion is human thought.Collection: Action
Many of us get many messages in our lives, or think we get them. As long as the message is regarding our own selves, go on doing what you please. But when it is in regard to our contact with and behavior to others, think a hundred times before you act upon it-and then you will be safe.Collection: Thinking
May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and, above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.Collection: Believe