Quotes by Swami Vivekananda

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life -- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

The infinite library of the Universe is in your mind.

The perfect man sees nothing but God.

If you have infinite patience and perseverance, success is bound to come. No mistake in that.

Infinite patience, infinite purity, and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good cause.

Purity, perseverance, and energy- these three I want.

Purity, patience and perseverance overcome all obstacles. All great things must of necessity be slow.

Every work has got to pass through hundreds of difficulties before succeeding. Those that persevere will see the light, sooner or later.

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.

Let there be as little materialism as possible, with the maximum of spirituality.

Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes.

All the power is within you. You can do anything.

Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

It is the cheerful mind persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.

Be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.

The Guru is the means of realisation. There is no knowledge without a teacher.

The guru is the means of realization.

The guru must be a man who has known, has actually realized the Divine truth, has perceived himself as the spirit.

The Guru is the conveyance in which the spiritual influence is brought to you. Anyone can teach, but the spirit must be passed on by the Guru to the Shishya (disciple), and that will fructify.

The development of man is a return to an original perfection.

Where you find the attraction for lust and wealth considerably diminished, to whatever creed he may belong, know that his inner spirit is awakening.

A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the ocean of life and bliss.

Blame neither man, nor God, nor anyone in the world. When you find yourselves suffering, blame yourselves, and try to do better.

Let us blame none, let us blame our own Karma.

It is cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.

Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life-think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

You cannot believe in god until you believe in yourself.

Never say, 'No,' never say 'I cannot,' for you are infinite, even time and space are nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almighty.

Have faith in yourselves, great convictions are the mothers of great deeds.

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

Only by practice and non-attachment can we conquer mind.

Man has wanted to look beyond, wanted to expand himself; and all that we call progress, evolution, has been always measured by that one search, the search for human destiny, the search for God.

The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present.

The man who becomes angry never does a great amount of work, and the man whom nothing can make angry accomplishes so much.

It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work.

We have wept enough. No more weeping, but stand on feet and be men.

Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral. Try to be moral, try to be brave, try to be sympathising.

The Land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness -- it is India.

We are bound to earth by desire and also to God, heaven, and the angels. A slave is a slave whether to man, to God, or to angels.

We must become free. We are free; the work is to know it. We must give up all slavery, all bondage of whatever kind. We must not only give up our bondage to earth and everything and everybody on earth, but also to all ideas of heaven and happiness.

This attachment of Love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but effectively breaks all its bondages.

Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness and all care as to what becomes of you.

As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves.

The effect is delusion, and therefore the cause must be delusion.

This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.

Life without death and happiness without misery are contradiction and neither can be found alone, because each of them is a different manifestation of the same thing.

Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward.

Let us worship the spirit in spirit, standing on spirit. Let the foundation be spirit, the middle spirit, the culmination spirit.

The Absolute cannot be divided.

Each soul is potentially divine.

A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.

I direct my attention to the individual, to make him strong, to teach him that he himself is divine, and I call upon men to make themselves conscious of this divinity within. That is really the ideal -- conscious or unconscious -- of every religion.

Religion is being and becoming. Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.

It is the duty of all to support and side with Dharma. All must fight and support Dharma regardless of their personality, background, status.

It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one's own good.

Doing good to others is the number one great Universal Religion.

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.

May blessings and happiness attend every step of your progress in this world.

The main feature should be the teaching of principles through stories. Don't make it metaphysical at all.

Friends or foes, they are all instruments in Her hands to help us work out our own karma, through pleasure or pain. As such, 'Mother' bless all.

In the world take always the position of the giver.

Even books are nurses, medicines are nurses. But we must work to bring about the time when man shall recognise his mastery over his own body. Herbs and medicines have power over us as long as we allow them; when we become strong, these external methods are no more necessary.

How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leave them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves. Plants always remain small under a big tree.

Have faith in Guru, in his teachings, and in the surety that you can get free. Think day and night that this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.

Strength, strength for us. What we need is strength, who will give us strength? There are thousands to weaken us, and of stories we have had enough.

Why is it that we three hundred and thirty millions of people have been ruled for the last one thousand years by any and every handful of foreigners who chose to walk over our prostrate bodies? Because they had faith in themselves and we had not.

Love conquers in the long run. It won't do to become impatient -- wait, wait -- patience is bound to give success.

The body is mortal and the mind is mortal; both, being compounds, must die.

Body is the name of a stream of matter continuously changing.

The ignorant man never enjoys.

Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.

To get any reason out of the mass of incongruity we call human life, we have to transcend our reason, but we must do it scientifically, slowly, by regular practice, and we must cast off all superstition.

I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance.

In everything, there are two kinds of development-analytical and synthetical. In the former the Hindus excel other nations. In the latter they are nil.

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.

Give me few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world.

Christ's public life extended only over eighteen months, and for this he had silently been preparing himself for thirty -- two years.

Neither idealists nor materialists are right; we must take both idea and expression.

Two attempts have been made in the world to found social life: the one was upon religion, and the other was upon social necessity. The one was founded upon spirituality, the other upon materialism; the one upon transcendentalism, the other upon realism.

The Hindus have to learn a little bit of materialism from the West and teach them a little bit of spirituality.

We must get out of materialism.

Avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.

If Jesus Christ was not perfect, then the religion bearing his name falls to the ground.

This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone.

There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion 'I am God' cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.

The Indian mythology has a theory of cycles, that all progression is in the form of waves.

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!

Don't you find that in a weak physique it is difficult to control the sex-appetite or anger?

None of us have yet seen an ideally perfect man, and yet without that ideal we cannot progress.

Take any path you like; follow any prophet you like; but have only that method which suits your own nature, so that you will be sure to progress.

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.

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.

All progression is in the relative world.

A man could be in a throne and have no attachment at all; another one could be in rags and have many attachments.

Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind...what we sow is what we reap.

The test of progress is the amount of renunciation that one has attained.

Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.

Renunciation means that none can serve both God and Mammon.

Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands.

Everything is fraught with fear: Renunciation alone is fearless.

Renunciation is in our blood.

Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.

Live for an ideal and leave no place in the mind for anything else.

No freedom without renunciation.

Renunciation is always the ideal of every race; only other races do not know what they are made to do by nature unconsciously.

Highest love for God can never be achieved without renunciation.

Self-love is the first teacher of self-renunciation.

Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work.

Turn thy gaze inward, wherein resides the Supreme Self.

It is the subjective world that rules the objective. Change the subject, and the object is bound to change; purify youreslf, and the world is bound to be purified.

Change is always subjective.

We are what our considered opinion abide through us; so put up with assiduousness about what you storage. Natter are sub. Line live; they travel far.

Even now, when you get love, you see Radha. Become Radha and be saved. There is no other way, Christians do not understand Solomon's song. They call it prophecy symbolising Christ's love for the Church. They think it nonsense and father some story upon it.

Even if our every attempt is a failure, and we bleed and are torn asunder, yet, through all this, we have to preserve our heart -- we must assert our Godhead in the midst of all these difficulties.

The body must be properly taken care of. The people who torture their flesh are demoniacal.

Forbearance is the highest expression of freedom.

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 but one temple -- the body. It is the only temple that ever existed.

It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

Even our smallest attempts are not in vain. We know that nothing is lost.

In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone's door.

Everything must be sacrificed, if necessary, for that one sentiment: universality.

Get up, and set your shoulder to the wheel -- How long is this life for? As you have come into this world, leave some mark behind. Otherwise, where is the difference between you and the trees and stones? They too come into existence, decay and die.

God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love.

Anything that is western origin, first you verify it, then accept it. Anything that is Indian origin, first accept it, then verify it if necessary.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind?....... We make our own destiny.

Work unto death! I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes; wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!

No negative, all positive, affirmative. I am, God is, everything is in me. I will manifest health, purity, knowledge, whatever I want.

The sky never changes: it is the cloud that is changing.

It is nature that is changing, not the soul of man. This never changes.

Satisfied is no test of truth. Actuality is steadily far from idiosyncratic secure.

Advaita is the only system that gives us complete control over ourselves, takes off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run, attain to absolute freedom.

The Yogi must always practice.

All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do anything and everything without even the guidance of any one.

If a man, day and night, thinks he is miserable, low and nothing, nothing he becomes. If you say yea, yea, I am, I am, so shall you be.

Whenever power is used for evil, it becomes diabolical; it must be used for good only.

Despondency is not religion, whatever else it may be.

Differentiation is in name and form only.

Accumulation of power is as necessary as its diffusion, or rather more so.

When once you consider an action, do not let anything dissuade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates.

Thirst after body is the great bane of human life.

It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.

All these practices and struggles to become religious are only negative work, to take off the bars, and open the doors to that perfection which is our birthright, our nature.

An atheist can be charitable but not religious. But the religious man must be charitable.

All is bound by the law of causation.

Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time, and space would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these three.

All law has its essence in causation.

A certain motion becomes understood when it is referred to a force; certain sensations, to matter; certain changes outside, to law; certain changes in thought, to mind; certain order singly, to causation -- and joined to time, to law.

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.

The animal has its happiness in the senses, the human beings in their intellect, and the gods in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful.

The progress and civilisation of the human race simply mean controlling this nature.

Bold has been my message to the people of the west, bolder is my message to you, my beloved countryman.

If the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, It is no more Absolute; It has become finite.

The cause being finite, the effect must be finite. If the cause is eternal the effect can be eternal, but all these causes, doing good work, and all other things, are only finite causes, and as such cannot produce infinite result.

Man the infinite dreamer, dreaming finite dreams!

We do not seek to thrust the principles of our religion upon anyone. The fundamental principles of our religion forbid that.

The disciple must have great power of endurance. Bear all evil and misery without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance, and that you must acquire.

Man is the product of two forces, action and reaction, which make him think.

Put God behind everything-human beings, animals, food, and work. Make this a habit.

The body is the external coating and the mind is the internal coating of the Atman who is the real perceiver, the real enjoyer, the being in the body who is working the body by means of the internal organ or the mind.

Always discriminate-your body, your house, the people and the world are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that the body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.

Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are ...but unless you realize the Truth, there is no freedom.

According to this philosophy, each man consists of three parts -- the body, the internal organ or the mind, and behind that, what is called the Atman, the Self.

Each soul is a star and all stars are set in the infinite azure, the eternal sky-the Lord.

High achievements in art, music, etc., are the results of concentration.

Never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.

As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful.

Is it freedom to be a slave to the senses, to anger, to jealousies and a hundred other petty things that must occur every day in human life?

Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others.

These births and deaths are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in us.

Man only remains hypnotised with the false idea of an ego. When this ghost is off from us, all dreams vanish, and then it is found that the one Self only exists from the highest Being to a blade of grass.

Each nation has an identity and destiny. As far as Bharat is concerned, Hindu is its identity and religion is its way of working.

Always remember that renunciation is the root idea. Unless one is initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the World -- gods have the power to attain Mukti.

The greatest sin is to think that you are weak. No one is greater: realize that you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it.

Man is the nearest approach to Brahman.

Knowledge of the Absolute depends upon no book, nor upon anything; it is absolute in itself. No amount of study will give this knowledge; is not theory, it is realization. Cleanse the dust from the mirror, purify your own mind, and in a flash you know that you are Brahman.

Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.

Life is short, and therefore, one thing being certain, death, let us take up a great ideal, and give up the whole life to it. For what is the value of life, this vegetating little low life of man? Subordinating it to one high ideal is the only value that life has.

To realize the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea. That realization is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation-renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter.