Swami Vivekananda
Say So'ham, So'ham whatever comes. Tell yourself this even in eating, walking, suffering. Tell the mind this incessantly-that what we see never existed, that there is only I. Flash-the dream will break! Think day and night, this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.Collection: Dream
Stick to God! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else! Through the terrors of evil, say-my God, my love! Through the pangs of death, say-my God, my love! Through all the evils under the sun, say-my God, my love! Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. I am Thine, take me. I am not of the world's but Thine, leave not then me.Collection: Art
The Atman alone is eternal. Hospitals will tumble down. Railroad givers will all die. This earth will be blown to pieces, suns wiped out. The Atman endures for ever.Collection: Railroads
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. God is within us. He is the Soul of our souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom.Collection: Heaven
The sages are often ignorant of physical science, because they read the wrong book-the book within; and the scientists are too often ignorant of religion, because they too read the wrong book-the book outside.Collection: Book
All perfection is there already in the soul. But this perfection has been covered up by nature; layer after layer of nature is covering this purity of the soul.Collection: Covered Up
Infinite perfection is in every man, though unmanifested. Every man has in him the potentiality of attaining to perfect saintliness, Rishihood, or to the most exalted position of an Avatâra, or to the greatness of a hero in material discoveries.Collection: Hero
My Master used to say, when a pitcher is being filled (by immersion), it gurgles, but when full, it is noiseless.Collection: Perfection
The development of man is a return to an original perfection.Collection: Men
Who shall make me perfect? I am perfect already.Collection: Perfect
This ego - the less there is of it, the nearer I am to that which I really am: the universal body.Collection: Ego
This intelligence itself is modified into what we call egoism, and this intelligence is the cause of all the powers in the body. It covers the whole ground, sub-consciousness, consciousness, and super-consciousness.Collection: Ego
To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not at all - living in the body, but not of it.Collection: Giving Up
The principles of the Vedanta not only should be preached everywhere in India, but also outside. Our thought must enter into the make-up of the minds of every nation, not through writings, but through persons.Collection: Writing
Nobody has a right now to say that the Hindus are not liberal to a fault.Collection: Faults
All growth, progress, well - being, or degradation is but relative.Collection: Growth
"Some would call you a saint, some a chandala; some a lunatic, others a demon. Go on then straight to thy work without heeding either" - thus saith one of our great Sannyasins, an old emperor of India, King Bhartrihari, who joined the order in old times.Collection: Kings
The Pariahs, our fellow beings, ought to be educated by the higher castes.Collection: Pariahs
No more materialism, no more this egoism, I must become spiritual.Collection: Spiritual
To believe that mind is all, that thought is all is only a higher materialism.Collection: Believe
Whether on the ground of materialism, or of intellect, or of spirituality, the compensation that is given by the Lord to every one impartially is exactly the same. Therefore we must not think that we are the saviours of the world. We can teach the world, a good many things, and we can learn a good many things from it too. We can teach the world only what it is waiting for.Collection: Thinking
I have long given up the idea of a little house on the Ganges, as I have not the money.Collection: Ideas
The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire.Collection: Inspirational
Good works are continually being undone by the tons of hatred and anger which are being poured out on the world.Collection: Anger
Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in view, viz how to make us weaker and weaker, till we have become real earthworms, crawling at the feet of every one who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength.Collection: Strength
The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me," say the Hebrew scriptures.Collection: Real
Not one atom can rest until it finds its freedom.Collection: Atoms
The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful. When a man is gloomy, that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion. Misery is caused by sin, and by no other cause. What business have you with clouded faces? It is terrible. If you have a clouded face, do not go out that day, shut yourself up in your room. What right have you to carry this disease out into the world?Collection: Religious
The forms are evanescent; but the spirit, being in the Lord and of the Lord, is immortal and omnipresent.Collection: Spirit
See what an atmosphere of holiness is here the pure air of the Ganga what an assemblage of Sadhus will you find anywhere a place like this!Collection: Air
Losing faith in one's self means losing faith in God.Collection: Faith
The God which cannot give me food in this world, cannot give me Heaven in the other worldCollection: Other Worlds
Pay particular attention to your health, but too much coddling of the body will, on the contrary, also spoil the health.Collection: Health
I am teaching you now about it, but how many of you will practice it?Collection: Teaching
Be a hero. Always say, 'I have no fear.' Tell this to everyone - 'Have no fear.'Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Strong
Know that every time you feel weak, you not only hurt yourself but also the cause. Infinite faith and strength are the only conditions of success.Collection: Inspirational
You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant. All you can do is on the negative side - you can only help. It is a manifestation from within; it develops its own nature - you can only take away obstructions.Collection: Life
Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people.Collection: Dream
Hold to the idea, "I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act," and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.Collection: Inspiration
Man in his true nature is substance, soul, spirit.Collection: Men
That is good. It is a law of nature. That is the way with all founders of religion. Without persecution superior ideas cannot penetrate into the heart of society.Collection: Heart
He who always thinks himself as weak will never become strong, but he who knows himself to be a lion, rushes out from the worlds meshes, as a lion from its cage.Collection: Motivational
Come out into the Universe of Light. Everything in the Universe is Yours, stretch out your arms and Embrace it with LoveCollection: Light
[Not parroting.] My old Master used to say, "It is all very good to teach the parrot to say, 'Lord, Lord, Lord' all the time; but let the cat come and take hold of its neck, it forgets all about it" [You may] pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are, [but] unless you realise the soul there is no freedom. Not talking, theorising, argumentation, but realisation. That I call practical religion.Collection: Cat
You and I and everything in the universe are that Absolute, not parts, but the whole. You are the whole of that Absolute, and so are all others, because the idea of part cannot come into it.Collection: Ideas
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.Collection: Law
The Absolute is the material of both God and man.Collection: Men
To the Indian mind there is nothing higher than religious ideals, that this is the keynote of Indian life.Collection: Religious