Swami Vivekananda
God is cruel and not cruel. He is all being and not being at the same time. Hence He is all contradictions. Nature also is nothing but a mass of contradictions.Collection: Contradiction
Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality and love of God.Collection: Thinking
Never forget that a man is made great and perfect as much by his faults as by his virtues. So we must not seek to rob a nation of its character, even if it could be proved that the character was all faults.Collection: Character
Christians are always wanting God to give them something. They appear as beggars before the throne of the Almighty.Collection: Christian
He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful. "Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Vedas. And how to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life."Collection: Mother
Chastity, non-injury, forgiving even the greatest enemy, truth, faith in the Lord, these are all different Vrittis. Be not afraid if you are not perfect in all of these; work, they will come. He who has given up all attachment, all fear, and all anger, he whose whole soul has gone unto the Lord, he who has taken refuge in the Lord, whose heart has become purified, with whatsoever desire he comes to the Lord, He will grant that to him. Therefore worship Him through knowledge, love, or renunciation.Collection: Anger
Whenever two particles come together, they are held by a certain attraction; and there will come a time when those particles will separate. This is the eternal law. So, wherever there is a body - either grosser or finer, either in heaven or on earth - death will overcome it.Collection: Law
We want the education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet.Collection: Character
Body is the name of a series of changes.Collection: Names
Bodies come and go, but the soul does not change.Collection: Soul
Where God is, there is no other. Where world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness.Collection: Light
Hindu Dharma is the quintessence of our national life, hold fast to it if you want your country to survive, or else you would be wiped out in three generations.Collection: Country
So we find that in almost every religion these are the three primary things which we have in the worship of God - forms or symbols, names, God-men. All religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with each other...These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to pass; but if he is sincere, if he really wants to reach the truth, he goes higher than these, to a plane where forms are as nothing.Collection: Fighting
We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.Collection: Believe
The guiding motive of mankind should be charity towards men, charity towards all animals.Collection: Animal
Every one is as much bound in thought, word, deed, and mind, as a piece of stone or this table. That I talk to you now is as rigorous in causation as that you listen to me. There is no freedom until you go beyond Maya. That is the real freedom of the soul.Collection: Real
Never producing pain by thought, word, and deed, in any living being, is what is called Ahimsâ, non-injury.Collection: Pain
Let us make our hearts as big as an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy the world without being in any way affected by it.Collection: Ocean
Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure.Collection: World
Non-injuring has to be attained by him who would be free. No one is more powerful than he who has attained perfect non-injuring. No one could fight, no one could quarrel, in his presence. Yes, his very presence, and nothing else, means peace, means love wherever he may be. Nobody could be angry or fight in his presence. Even the animals, ferocious animals, would be peaceful before him.Collection: Powerful
To many, Indian thought, Indian manners; Indian customs, Indian philosophy, Indian literature are repulsive at the first sight; but let them persevere, let them read, let them become familiar with the great principles underlying these ideas, and it is ninety-nine to one that the charm will come over them, and fascination will be the result. Slow and silent, as the gentle dew that falls in the morning, unseen and unheard yet producing a most tremendous result, has been the work of the calm, patient, all-suffering spiritual race upon the world of thought.Collection: Spiritual
The animal man lives in the senses. If he does not get enough to eat, he is miserable; or if something happens to his body, he is miserable. In the senses both his misery and his happiness begin and end.Collection: Animal
As soon as a man stands up and says he is right or his church is right, and all others are wrong, he is himself all wrong. He does not know that upon the proof of all the others depends the proof of his own. Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness. I do not mean the sentimental statement that all men are brothers, but that one must feel the oneness of human life.Collection: Brother
So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.Collection: Motivational
How can there be any progress of the country without the spread of education, the dawning of knowledge?Collection: Country
Who shall blame whom, who praise whom? Whom to seek, whom to avoid? I seek none, nor avoid any, for I am all the universe. I praise myself, I blame myself, I suffer for myself, I am happy at my own will, I am free. This is the Jnâni, the brave and daring. Let the whole universe tumble down; he smiles and says it never existed, it was all a hallucination. He sees the universe tumble down. Where was it! Where has it gone!Collection: Brave
From Him are all name and form; all the animals and men are from Him. He is the one Supreme. He who knows Him becomes free.Collection: Animal
The Vedanta teaches men to have faith in themselves first. As certain religions of the world say that a man who does not believe in a Personal God outside of himself is an atheist, so the Vedanta says, a man who does not believe in himself is an atheist. Not believing in the glory of our own soul is what the Vedanta calls atheism.Collection: Faith
Not only we can, but some have reached perfection; so no matter what finer bodies come, they could only be on the relative plane and could do no more than we, for to attain freedom is all that can be done.Collection: Perfection
We have to practice to become perfect.Collection: Practice
This caste system had grown by the practice of the son always following the business of the father.Collection: Business
Help and not fight. Assimilation and not destruction. Harmony and Peace and not dissension.Collection: Fighting
It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body - to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.Collection: God
Everything that has form, everything that is the result of combination, is evolved out of this Akasha.Collection: Form
When we free ourselves from name and form, especially from a body - when we need no body, good or bad - then only do we escape from bondage.Collection: Names
It is faith that makes a lion of a man.Collection: Faith
The moment you fear, you are nobody.Collection: Moments
Do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle.Collection: Running
Make no conditions and none will be imposed.Collection: Conditions
Whatever you think, that you will be.Collection: Thinking
Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom - physical, mental, and spiritual - and help others to do so.Collection: Spiritual
As soon as extreme attachment comes, a man loses himself, he is no more master of himself, he is a slave.Collection: Men
Do not look back upon what has been done. Go Ahead.Collection: Looks
Education is the manifestation of perfection already existing in man.Collection: Motivational
Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness comes to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers.Collection: Teacher
The world has seen thousands of prophets, and the world has yet to see millionsCollection: World
No one is ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion, which arouses the internal teacher, who helps us to understand things.Collection: Motivational
True progress is slow but sure.Collection: Progress
If you have knowledge and see a man weak, do not condemn him. Go to his level and help him if you can. He must grow.Collection: Men