Inspiring Quotes by Swami Vivekananda
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If you are really my children, you will fear nothing, stop at nothing. You will be like lions. We must rouse India and the whole world. No cowardice.

The day, man will find that he never really dies; that his Soul persists beyond death; he will have no more fear of death.

Men may have given millions of dollars and fed rats and cats, as some do in India. They say that men can take care of themselves, but the poor animals cannot.

Paris is the fountain-head of European civilisation, as Gomukhi is of the Ganga.

It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.

Everything is ended if you forgive and forget.

When death is so certain, it is better to die for a good cause.

Gita and Ganga constitute the essence of Hinduism; one its theory and the other its practice.

It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work's sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one's labour.

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.

Books never make religions, but religions make books. We must not forget that. No book ever created God, but God inspired all the great books. And no book ever created a soul.

God is to be worshiped as the one Beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life.

Good works are continually being undone by the tons of hatred and anger which are being poured out on the world.

Praise and blame, good and bad, even heat and cold, must be equally acceptable to us.

Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself.

He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.

He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.

Have faith in yourself, all power is in you, be conscious and bring it out.

Let me draw your attention to one thing which unfortunately we always forget: that is -- O man, have faith in yourself.

Be a hero. Always say, 'I have no fear.' Tell this to everyone -- 'Have no fear.'

This craving for health, wealth, long life, and the like -- the so -- called good -- is nothing but an illusion.

Face the brutes. That is a lesson for all life-face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them.

Stamping down the weakness of mind and heart, stand up, saying, I am possessed of heroism, I am possessed of a steady intellect... Never allow weakness to overtake your mind.

One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots.

The secret of image-worship is that you are trying to develop your vision of Divinity in one thing.

Some may be helped by images, some may not. Some require an image outside, others one inside the brain.

Many of us do not believe in any form of idolatry; but they have no right to object when others do it.

Oh, if only you knew yourselves! You are souls; you are Gods. If ever I feel like blaspheming, it is when I call you man.

Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing not in believing, but in being and becoming.

I am a Hindu, I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.

The infinite library of the Universe is in your mind.

Marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the welfare of the nation and the caste.

Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry.

Desire can be eradicated from the roots by firmly imbibing the four attributes of: Jnan, Atmanishtha, Vairagya, Dharma and the full fledged devotion to God.

My brother, do men grieve over the fight of cats and dogs? So the jealousy, envy, and elbowing of common men should make no impression on your mind.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all good things will be added unto you. Follow God and you shall have whatever you desire.

All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.

A man may be the greatest philosopher in the world but a child in RELIGION. When a man has developed a high state of spirituality he can understand that the kingdom of heaven is within him.

Modern Hinduism, modern Jainism, and Buddhism branched off at the same time. For some period, each seemed to have wanted to outdo the others in grotesqueness and humbuggism.

In a difficulty in the company of the central and the instigator, be successful your central.

Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.

Now is wanted intense Karma-Yoga with unbounded courage and indomitable strength in the heart. Then only will the people of the country be roused.

The nearer we are to God, the less we will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from God, the more will long faces come. The more we know God, the more misery vanishes.

The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality. They never say me and mine; they are only blessed in being instruments.

When you talk and think of the Absolute, you have to do it in the relative; so all these logical arguments apply.

They only live, who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

A man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world -- his heart to God and his hands to work.

The law of Karma is the law of causation.

Losing faith in one's self means losing faith in God.

Where God is, there is no other. Where world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness.

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

Expansion is life, contraction is death. Love is life, hatred is death.

All misery and pain come from attachment.

There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened.

There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding us, but they cannot harm us unless we become weak, until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them.

Each man has a mission in life, which is the result of all his infinite past Karma.

We must not forget that health is only a means to an end. If health were the end, we would be like animals; animals rarely become unhealthy.

What do you gain in heaven? You become gods, drink nectar, and get rheumatism. There is less misery there than on earth, but also less truth.

Those giants of old, the ancient Rishis, who never walked but strode, of whom if you were to think but for a moment you would shrivel up into a moth, they sir, had time-and you have no time!

The glory of man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of man to think and therein he differs from animals.

Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.

The God which cannot give me food in this world, cannot give me Heaven in the other world.

The Pariahs, our fellow beings, ought to be educated by the higher castes.

If I am a Pariah, I will be all the more glad, for I am the disciple of a man, who -- the Brahmin of Brahmins -- wanted to cleanse the house of a Pariah. (here the man means Ramakrishna).

A good practice carried to an extreme and worked in accordance with the letter of the law becomes a positive evil.

He in whose mind is no anger, hatred, or envy, who never loses his balance, dies, or is born, who is he but God?

Man stands in materialism; you and I are materialists. Our talking about God and Spirit is good; but it is simply the vogue in our society to talk thus: we have learnt it parrot-like and repeat it.

Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work. The moment you fear, you are nobody. Be a hero. Always say, 'I have no fear'. Tell this to everybody-'Have no fear'.

Onward, my brave boys -- money or no money -- men or no men! Have you love? Have you God? Onward and forward to the breach, you are irresistible.

Do one thing at a Time, and while doing it put your whole Soul into it to the exclusion of all else.