Swami Vivekananda Quotes

“One atom in this universe cannot move without dragging the whole world along with it. There cannot be any progress without the whole world following in the wake, and it is becoming every day dearer that the solution of any problem can never be attained on racial, or national, or narrow grounds.”

“Everything has a cause.”

“Man is guided by the stomach. He walks and the stomach goes first and the head afterwards. Have you not seen that? It will take ages for the head to go first.”

“Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status.”

“All objective pleasure in the long run must bring pain, because of the fact of change or death.”

“In this world we find that all happiness is followed by misery as its shadow. Life has its shadow, death. They must go together, because they are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but different manifestations of the same unit, life and death, sorrow and happiness, good and evil.”

“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. Eternal progression is eternal bondage; annihilation of form is to be preferred. We must get free from any body, even a "god-body". God is the only real existence, there cannot be two. There is but One Soul, and I am That.”

“The happiest is the man who is not at all selfish.”

“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.”

“Think day and night, I am of the essence of that Supreme Existence, Knowledge, Bliss-what fear and anxiety have I? This body, mind, and intellect are all transient, and That which is beyond these is myself.”

“The body and mind are dependent.”

“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.”

“When we use our imagination properly it is our greatest friend; it goes belyond reason and is the only light that takes us everywhere.”

“Oh, to live even for a day in the full light of freedom, to breathe the free air of simplicity! Isn't that the highest purity?”

“Stand up and be strong! No fear. No superstition. Face the truth as it is!”

“Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?”

“Do not blame any supernatural being, neither be hopeless and despondent, nor think we are in a place from which we can never escape unless someone comes and lends us a helping hand.”

“All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore make your own future. "Let the dead past bury its dead." The infinite future is before you.”

“Man is the highest being in creation, because he attains to freedom.”

“Fool indeed is he, who, living on the banks of the Ganga, digs a little well for water. Fool indeed is the man who, coming to a mine of diamonds, begins to search for glass beads.”

“We can never lose what is really ours. Who can lose his being? Who can lose his very existence? If I am good, it is the existence first, and then that becomes colored with the quality of goodness. If I am evil, it is the existence first, and that becomes colored with the quality of badness. That existence is first, last, and always; it is never lost but ever present.”

“The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.”

“Something cannot be made out of nothing. Nor can something be made to go back to nothing.”

“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.”

“On this basic - being right and doing right the whole world can unite.”