Swami Vivekananda’s 150
Quotes
(WORTH READING..READ AS
MUCH YOU CAN AND SHARE
IT)
1. “You have to grow from
the inside out. None can
teach you,
none can make you
spiritual.
There is no other teacher but your own soul.”
2. “Take up one idea. Make
that one idea your life -
think of it, dream of it, and
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 that is way great
spiritual giants are
produced.”
3. “In a conflict between
the heart and the brain,
follow your heart.”
4. “When I Asked God for
Strength
He Gave Me Difficult
Situations to Face When I Asked God for Brain
& Brown
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to
Solve When I Asked God for
Happiness
He Showed Me Some
Unhappy People When I Asked God for
Wealth
He Showed Me How to
Work Hard When I Asked God for
Favors
He Showed Me
Opportunities to Work Hard When I Asked God for
Peace
He Showed Me How to Help
Others God Gave Me Nothing I
Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I
Needed.”
5. “In a day, when you
don't come across any
problems - you can be sure
that you are travelling in a
wrong path”
6. “Dare to be free, dare to
go as far as you’re thought
leads, and dare to carry
that out in your life.”
7. “All love is expansion, all
selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only
law of life. He who loves
lives, he who is selfish is
dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is law
of life, just as you breathe
to live. ”
8. “Be not afraid of
anything. You will do
Marvelous work. It is
Fearlessness that brings
Heaven even in a moment.”
9. “The great secret of true
success, of true happiness,
is this: the man or woman
who asks for no return, the
perfectly unselfish person,
is the most successful.”
10. “The greatest religion is
to be true to your own
nature. Have faith in
yourselves.”
11. “Comfort is no test of
truth. Truth is often far
from being comfortable.”
12. “The fire that warms us
can also consume us; it is
not the fault of the fire.”
13. “We are what our
thoughts have made us; so
take care about what you
think. Words are
secondary. Thoughts live;
they travel far. ”
14. “They alone live, who
live for others.”
15. “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. ”
16. “Strength is Life,
Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life,
Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is
Death.”
17. “All power is within
you, you can do, anything
and everything. Believe in
that do not believe that you
are weak. You can do
anything and everything, without even the guidance
of any one. Stand up and
express the divinity within
you…, within each of you
there is the power to
remove all wants and all miseries. ”
18. “Neither seeks nor
avoids, take what comes.”
19. “You cannot believe in
God until you believe in
yourself.”
20. “Ask nothing; want
nothing in return. Give
what you have to give; it
will come back to you, but
do not think of that now.”
21. “All differences in this
world are of degree, and
not of kind, because
oneness is the secret of
everything.”
22. “Do one thing at a Time,
and while doing it put your
whole Soul into it to the
exclusion of all else.”
23. “We are what our
thoughts have made us; so
take care about that you
think.”
24. “Anything that makes
weak - physically,
intellectually and spiritually,
reject it as poison.”
25. “Whatever you think
that you will be.
If you think yourself weak,
weak you will be;
if you think yourself
strong, you will be”
26. “Was there ever a more
horrible blasphemy than
the statement that all the
knowledge of God is
confined to this or that
book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to
compress Him within the
covers of a little book!”
27. “Man is to become
divine by realizing the
divine. Idols or temples, or
churches or books, are only
the supports, the help of his
spiritual childhood.”
28. “We are responsible for
what we are, and whatever
we wish ourselves to be,
we have the power to
make ourselves. If what we
are now has been the result of our own past actions, it
certainly follows that
whatever we wish to be in
the future can be produced
by our present actions; so
we have to know how to act.”
29. “Feel nothing, know
nothing, do nothing, have
nothing, give up all to God,
and say utterly, 'Thy will be
done.' We only dream this
bondage. Wake up and let it go.”
30.“Learn Everything that is
Good from Others, but
bring it in, and in your own
way absorb it; do not
become others.” 31. “This is a great fact:
strength is life; weakness is
death. Strength is felicity,
life eternal, immortal;
weakness is constant strain
and misery, weakness is death.”
32. “Each soul is potentially
divine. The goal is to
manifest this divinity by
controlling nature, external
and internal. Do this either
by work, or worship, or psychic control, or
philosophy - by one, or
more, or all of these - and
be free. This is the whole of
religion. Doctrines, or
dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or
forms, are but secondary
details.”
33. “Each work has to pass
through these stages--
ridicule, opposition, and
then acceptance. Those
who think ahead of their
time are sure to be misunderstood.”
34. “The greatest sin is to
think yourself weak”
35. “The Vedanta
recognizes no sin it only
recognizes error. And the
greatest error, says the
Vedanta is to say that you
are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature,
and that you have no
power and you cannot do
this and that.”
36. “Arise, awake, stop not
until your goal is achieved.”
37. “Blessed are they
whose bodies get
destroyed in the service of
others.”
38. “If a man can realize his
divine nature with the help
of an image, would it be
right to call that a sin? Nor,
even when he has passed
that stage, should he call it an error. [...] man is not
traveling from error to
truth, but from truth to
truth, from lower to higher
truth. To him all the
religions from the lowest fetishism to the highest
absolutism, mean so many
attempts of the human soul
to grasp and realize the
Infinite, each determined by
the conditions of its birth and association, and each of
these marks a stage of
progress; and every soul is
a young eagle soaring
higher and higher,
gathering more and more strength till it reaches the
Glorious Sun.”
39. “The cheerful mind
perseveres and the strong
mind hews its way through
a thousand difficulties.”
40. “The brain and muscles
must develop
simultaneously. Iron nerves
with an intelligent brain --
and the whole world is at
your feet.”
41. “All the powers in the
universe are already ours.
It is we who have put our
hands before our eyes and
cry that it is dark.”
42.“The moment I have
realized God sitting in the
temple of every human
body, the moment I stand in
reverence before every
human being and see God in him - that moment I am free
from bondage, everything
that binds vanishes, and I
am free.”
43.“The world is the great
gymnasium where we come
to make ourselves strong.”
44. “A few heart-whole,
sincere, and energetic men
and women can do more in
a year than a mob in a
century.”
45. “The only religion that
ought to be taught is the
religion of fearlessness.
Either in this world or in the
world of religion, it is true
that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is
fear that brings misery, fear
that brings death, fear that
breeds evil. And what
causes fear? Ignorance of
our own nature.”
46. “All knowledge that the
world has ever received
comes from the mind; the
infinite library of the
universe is in our own
mind.”
47. “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. Stand up and
express the divinity within
you.”
48.“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.”
49. “Astrology and all these
mystical things are
generally signs of a weak
mind; therefore as soon as
they are becoming
prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take
good food, and rest.”
50. “This attachment of
Love to God is indeed one
that does not bind the soul
but effectively breaks all its
bondages.”
51. “Be strong! … You talk
of ghosts and devils. We are
the living devils. The sign of
life is strength and growth.
The sign of death is
weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it
is strength, go down into
hell and get hold of it! There
is salvation only for the
brave. "None but the brave
deserves the fair." None but the bravest deserves
salvation.”
52. “Books are infinite in
number and time is short.
The secret of knowledge is
to take what is essential.
Take that and try to live up
to it.”
53. “Desire, ignorance, and
inequality—this is the
trinity of bondage.”
54. “Don't look back--
forward, infinite energy,
infinite enthusiasm, infinite
daring, and infinite patience
—then alone can great
deeds be accomplished.”
55. “Bless people when
they revile you. Think how
much good they are doing
by helping to stamp out the
false ego.”
56. “Have Faith in Man,
whether he appears to you
to be a very learned one or
a most ignorant one.”
57. “If the Student thinks
he is the Spirit, he will be a
better Student. If the
Lawyer thinks he is the
Spirit, he will be a better
Lawyer, and so on.”
58. “The Tapas and the
other hard Yogas that were
practiced in other Yugas do
not work now. What is
needed in this Yuga is
giving, helping others. ”
59. “beleive in yourself and
the world will be at your
feet”
60. “Shri Ramakrishna uses
to say, "As Long as I Live, so
long do I learn". That man
or that society which has
nothing to learn is already
in the jaws of death.”
61.“The Heart and core of
everything here is good,
that whatever may be the
surface waves, deep down
and underlying everything,
there is an infinite basis of Goodness and Love.”
62. “Condemn none: if you
can stretch out a helping
hand, do so. If you cannot,
fold your hands, bless your
brothers, and let them go
their own way.”
63. “If faith in ourselves
had been more extensively
taught and practiced, I am
sure a very large portion of
the evils and miseries that
we have would have vanished.”
64.“Our duty is to
encourage everyone 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.”
65. “The will is not free - it
is a phenomenon bound by
cause and effect - but there
is something behind the will
which is free.”
66. “Truth can be stated in
a thousand different ways,
yet each one can be true.”
67. “Religion is being and
becoming. Religion is the
manifestation of the
Divinity already in man.”
68. “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.”
69. “The earth is enjoyed
by heroes”—this is the
unfailing truth. Be a hero.
Always say, “I have no
fear.”
70. “Take up one idea.
Make that one idea your life
- think of it, dream of it, and
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.”
71. “After every happiness
comes misery; they may be
far apart or near. The more
advanced the soul, the
more quickly does one
follow the other. What we want is neither happiness
nor misery. Both make us
forget our true nature;
both are chains--one iron,
one gold; behind both is the
Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery.
These are states, and states
must ever change; but the
nature of the Atman is bliss,
peace, unchanging. We
have not to get it; we have it; only wash away the
dross and see it.”
72. “God is present in every
Jiva; there is no other God
besides that. Who serves
Jiva serves God indeed.”
73. “Be not afraid, for all
great power throughout
the history of humanity has
been with the people. From
out of their ranks have
come all the greatest geniuses of the world and
history can only repeat
itself. Be not afraid of
anything. You will do
marvelous work.”
74. “Devotion to duty is the
highest form of worship of
God.”
75. “By doing well the duty
which is nearest to us, the
duty which is in our hands,
we make ourselves
stronger”
76. “We are allowed to
worship him. Stand in that
reverent attitude to the
whole universe, and then
will come perfect non
attachment”
77. “Be Grateful to the Man
you help, think of Him as
God. Is it not a great
privilege to be allowed to
worship God by helping our
fellow men?”
78. “This universe is the
wreckage of the infinite on
the shores of the finite.”
79. “In a day, when you
don't come across any
problems, you can be sure
that you are treveling in a
wrong path”
80. “We must be Bright and
Cheerful, long faces do not
make Religion”
81. “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.”
82. “The whole universe is
only the self with
variations, one tune made
bearable by variations.
Sometimes there are
discords, but they only make the subsequent
harmony more perfect.”
83.“If in this hell of a world
one can bring a little joy
and peace even for a day
into the heart of a single
person, that much alone is
true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else
is mere moonshine. . . .”
84. “Put the good before
them, see how eagerly they
take it, see how the divine
that never dies, that is
always living in the
human...”
85. “The Older I grow, the
more everything seems to
me to lie in manliness. This is
my new gospel”
86. “As different streams
having different sources all
mingle their waters in the
sea, so different tendencies,
various though they
appear, crooked or straight, all lead to God.”
87. “GOD is to be
worshipped as the one
beloved, dearer than
everything in this and next
life.” 88. “If money help a man to
do good to others, it is of
some value; but if not, it is
simply a mass of evil, and
the sooner it is got rid of,
the better.”
89. “Never think there is
anything impossible for the
soul. It is the greatest
heresy to think so. If there
is sin, this is the only sin; to
say that you are weak, or others are weak.”
90. “The more we come out
and do good to others, the
more our hearts will be
purified, and God will be in
them.”
91. “When an idea
exclusively occupies the
mind, it is transformed into
an actual physical or mental
state.”
92. “Where can we go to
find God if we cannot see
Him in our own hearts and
in every living being.”
93. “All condemnation of
others really condemns
ourselves. Adjust the
microcosm which is in your
power to do) and the
macrocosm will adjust itself for you.”
94. “There is no limit to the
power of the human mind.
The more concentrated it is,
the more power is brought
to bear on one point”
95. “Take up one idea.
Make that one idea your life
- think of it, dream of it, and
live on 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.”
96.“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.”
97. “The more we grow in
Love, Virtue and Holiness,
the more we see Love,
Virtue and Holiness
outside.”
98. “What is now wanted is
a combination of the
greatest heart with the
highest intellectuality, of
infinite love with infinite
knowledge.”
99. “Above all, beware of
compromises. Hold on to
your own principles in weal
or woe and never adjust
them to others’ “fads”
through the greed of getting supporters. Your
Atman is the support of the
universe—whose support
do you stand in need of?”
100. “Above all, beware of
compromises. I do not mean
that you are to get into
antagonism with anybody,
but you have to hold on to
your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust
them to others “fads”
thought the greed of
getting supporters.”
101. “Why should a Man be
Moral? Because this
strengthens his will.”
102. “This World will
always continue to be a
mixture of Good and Evil.
Our duty is to sympathize
with the weak and to Love
even the wrongdoer.”
103. “All who have actually
attained any real religious
experience never wrangle
over the form in which the
different religions are
expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the
same and so they have no
quarrel with anybody just
because he or she does not
speak in the same tongue.”
104. “Anything that brings
spiritual, mental, or physical
weakness, touch it not with
the toes of your feet.”
105. “Are you unselfish?
That is the question. If you
are, you will be perfect
without reading a single
religious book, without
going into a single church or temple.”
106. “Even the greatest fool
can accomplish a task if it
were after his or her heart.
But the intelligent ones are
those who can convert
every work into one that suits their taste.”
107. “The Land where
humanity has attained its
highest towards
gentleness, towards
generosity, towards purity,
towards calmness - it is India.”
108. “Education is the
manifestation of perfection
already existing in man.”
109. “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.”
110“My Faith is in the
Younger Generation, the
Modern Generation, out of
them will come my
workers. They will work
Out the whole problem, like Lions.”
111.“It is the Level-headed
Man, the Calm Man, of Good
Judgment and cool nerves,
of Great sympathy and
love, who does good work
and so does good to himself.”
112. “First, believe in the
world—that there is
meaning behind
everything”
113. “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.”
114. “Tell the truth boldly,
whether it hurts or not.
Never pander to weakness.
If truth is too much for
intelligent people and
sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the
better.”
115. “This life is a hard fact;
work your way through it
boldly, though it may be
adamantine; no matter, the
soul is stronger. “
116.”This I have seen in life
—those who are
overcautious about
themselves fall into dangers
at every step; those who
are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only
disgrace; and those who
are always afraid of loss,
always lose. “
117.“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.”
118.”Those who work at a
thing heart and soul not
only achieve success in it
but through their
absorption in that they also
realize the supreme truth— Brahman. Those who work
at a thing with their whole
heart receive help from
God.”
119.”I, for one, thoroughly
believe that no power in
the universe can withhold
from anyone anything they
Really deserve.”
120.”The whole secret of
existence is to have no fear.
Never fear what will
become of you, depend on
no one. Only the moments
you reject all help are you free.”
121.”Fear is death, fear is
sin, fear is hell, fear is
unrighteousness, and fear
is wrong life. All the
negative thoughts and
ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this
evil spirit of fear. “
122.”Why are people so
afraid? The answer is that
they have made themselves
helpless and dependent on
others. We are so lazy, we
do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a
Personal God, a Savior or a
Prophet to do everything
for us. “
123.”As long as we believe
ourselves to be even the
least different from God,
fear remains with us; but
when we know ourselves
to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?”
124.”There is one thing to
be remembered: that the
assertion—I am God--
cannot be made with
regard to the sense-world.”
125.”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. “
126.”First get rid of the
delusion “I am the body”,
and then only will we want
real knowledge.”
127.”What the world wants
is character. The world is in
need of those whose life is
one burning love, selfless.
That love will make every
word tell like a thunderbolt.”
128. “God is merciful to
those whom He sees
struggling heart and soul
for realization. But remain
idle, without any struggle,
and you will see that His grace will never come.”
129. “We have to go back
to philosophy to treat
things as they are. We are
suffering from our own
karma. It is not the fault of
God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else.
Why should God be
blamed?”
130. “Fill the brain with
high thoughts, highest
ideals, place them day and
night before you, and out
of that will come great
work.”
131. “Who makes us
ignorant? We ourselves. We
put our hands over our
eyes and weep that it is
dark.
132. “We must have
friendship for all; we must
be merciful toward those
that are in misery; when
people are happy, we
ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be
indifferent. These attitudes
will make the mind
peaceful.”
133. “Every action that
helps us manifest our divine
nature more and more is
good; every action that
retards it is evil.”
134. “Are great things ever
done smoothly? Time,
patience, and indomitable
will must show.”
135. “Great work requires
great and persistent effort
for a long time. … Character
has to be established
through a thousand
stumbles.”
136. “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…. But those who do their duty
putting their shoulder to
the wheel will see the light,
and higher and higher
duties will fall to their
share.”
137. “Learning and wisdom
are superfluities, the
surface glitter merely, but it
is the heart that is the seat
of all power.”
138. “Watch people do their most common actions;
these are indeed the things
that will tell you the real
character of a great
person.”
139. “Whenever we attain a
higher vision, the lower
vision disappears of itself.”
140. “We came to enjoy; we
are being enjoyed. We came
to rule; we are being ruled.
We came to work; we are
being worked. All the time,
we find that. And this comes into every detail of
our life.”
141. “We are ever free if
we would only believe it,
only have faith enough.
You are the soul, free and
eternal, ever free, ever
blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a
minute.”
142. “Stand as a rock; you
are indestructible. You are
the Self (atman), the God of
the universe.”
143. “Stand upon the Self,
only then can we truly love
the world. Take a very high
stand; knowing our
universal nature, we must
look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of
the world.”
144."I am the thread that
runs through all these
pearls," and each pearl is a
religion or even a sect
thereof. Such are the
different pearls, and God is the thread that runs
through all of them; most
people, however, are
entirely unconscious of it.”
145. “Stand up, be bold, be
strong. Take the whole
responsibility on your own
shoulders, and know that
you are the creator of your
own destiny. All the strength and succor you
want is within your selves.
Therefore, make your own
future.”
146. “It is the patient
building of character, the
intense struggle to realize
the truth, which alone will
tell in the future of
humanity.”
147. “If there is one word
that you find coming out
like a bomb from the
Upanishads, bursting like a
bombshell upon masses of
ignorance, it is the word “fearlessness.””
148. “The world is ready to
give up its secrets if we
only know how to knock,
how to give it the
necessary blow. The
strength and force of the blow come through
concentration.”
149. “Work and worship
are necessary to take away
the veil, to lift off the
bondage and illusion.”
150. “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.”
Quotes
(WORTH READING..READ AS
MUCH YOU CAN AND SHARE
IT)
1. “You have to grow from
the inside out. None can
teach you,
none can make you
spiritual.
There is no other teacher but your own soul.”
2. “Take up one idea. Make
that one idea your life -
think of it, dream of it, and
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 that is way great
spiritual giants are
produced.”
3. “In a conflict between
the heart and the brain,
follow your heart.”
4. “When I Asked God for
Strength
He Gave Me Difficult
Situations to Face When I Asked God for Brain
& Brown
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to
Solve When I Asked God for
Happiness
He Showed Me Some
Unhappy People When I Asked God for
Wealth
He Showed Me How to
Work Hard When I Asked God for
Favors
He Showed Me
Opportunities to Work Hard When I Asked God for
Peace
He Showed Me How to Help
Others God Gave Me Nothing I
Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I
Needed.”
5. “In a day, when you
don't come across any
problems - you can be sure
that you are travelling in a
wrong path”
6. “Dare to be free, dare to
go as far as you’re thought
leads, and dare to carry
that out in your life.”
7. “All love is expansion, all
selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only
law of life. He who loves
lives, he who is selfish is
dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is law
of life, just as you breathe
to live. ”
8. “Be not afraid of
anything. You will do
Marvelous work. It is
Fearlessness that brings
Heaven even in a moment.”
9. “The great secret of true
success, of true happiness,
is this: the man or woman
who asks for no return, the
perfectly unselfish person,
is the most successful.”
10. “The greatest religion is
to be true to your own
nature. Have faith in
yourselves.”
11. “Comfort is no test of
truth. Truth is often far
from being comfortable.”
12. “The fire that warms us
can also consume us; it is
not the fault of the fire.”
13. “We are what our
thoughts have made us; so
take care about what you
think. Words are
secondary. Thoughts live;
they travel far. ”
14. “They alone live, who
live for others.”
15. “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. ”
16. “Strength is Life,
Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life,
Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is
Death.”
17. “All power is within
you, you can do, anything
and everything. Believe in
that do not believe that you
are weak. You can do
anything and everything, without even the guidance
of any one. Stand up and
express the divinity within
you…, within each of you
there is the power to
remove all wants and all miseries. ”
18. “Neither seeks nor
avoids, take what comes.”
19. “You cannot believe in
God until you believe in
yourself.”
20. “Ask nothing; want
nothing in return. Give
what you have to give; it
will come back to you, but
do not think of that now.”
21. “All differences in this
world are of degree, and
not of kind, because
oneness is the secret of
everything.”
22. “Do one thing at a Time,
and while doing it put your
whole Soul into it to the
exclusion of all else.”
23. “We are what our
thoughts have made us; so
take care about that you
think.”
24. “Anything that makes
weak - physically,
intellectually and spiritually,
reject it as poison.”
25. “Whatever you think
that you will be.
If you think yourself weak,
weak you will be;
if you think yourself
strong, you will be”
26. “Was there ever a more
horrible blasphemy than
the statement that all the
knowledge of God is
confined to this or that
book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to
compress Him within the
covers of a little book!”
27. “Man is to become
divine by realizing the
divine. Idols or temples, or
churches or books, are only
the supports, the help of his
spiritual childhood.”
28. “We are responsible for
what we are, and whatever
we wish ourselves to be,
we have the power to
make ourselves. If what we
are now has been the result of our own past actions, it
certainly follows that
whatever we wish to be in
the future can be produced
by our present actions; so
we have to know how to act.”
29. “Feel nothing, know
nothing, do nothing, have
nothing, give up all to God,
and say utterly, 'Thy will be
done.' We only dream this
bondage. Wake up and let it go.”
30.“Learn Everything that is
Good from Others, but
bring it in, and in your own
way absorb it; do not
become others.” 31. “This is a great fact:
strength is life; weakness is
death. Strength is felicity,
life eternal, immortal;
weakness is constant strain
and misery, weakness is death.”
32. “Each soul is potentially
divine. The goal is to
manifest this divinity by
controlling nature, external
and internal. Do this either
by work, or worship, or psychic control, or
philosophy - by one, or
more, or all of these - and
be free. This is the whole of
religion. Doctrines, or
dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or
forms, are but secondary
details.”
33. “Each work has to pass
through these stages--
ridicule, opposition, and
then acceptance. Those
who think ahead of their
time are sure to be misunderstood.”
34. “The greatest sin is to
think yourself weak”
35. “The Vedanta
recognizes no sin it only
recognizes error. And the
greatest error, says the
Vedanta is to say that you
are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature,
and that you have no
power and you cannot do
this and that.”
36. “Arise, awake, stop not
until your goal is achieved.”
37. “Blessed are they
whose bodies get
destroyed in the service of
others.”
38. “If a man can realize his
divine nature with the help
of an image, would it be
right to call that a sin? Nor,
even when he has passed
that stage, should he call it an error. [...] man is not
traveling from error to
truth, but from truth to
truth, from lower to higher
truth. To him all the
religions from the lowest fetishism to the highest
absolutism, mean so many
attempts of the human soul
to grasp and realize the
Infinite, each determined by
the conditions of its birth and association, and each of
these marks a stage of
progress; and every soul is
a young eagle soaring
higher and higher,
gathering more and more strength till it reaches the
Glorious Sun.”
39. “The cheerful mind
perseveres and the strong
mind hews its way through
a thousand difficulties.”
40. “The brain and muscles
must develop
simultaneously. Iron nerves
with an intelligent brain --
and the whole world is at
your feet.”
41. “All the powers in the
universe are already ours.
It is we who have put our
hands before our eyes and
cry that it is dark.”
42.“The moment I have
realized God sitting in the
temple of every human
body, the moment I stand in
reverence before every
human being and see God in him - that moment I am free
from bondage, everything
that binds vanishes, and I
am free.”
43.“The world is the great
gymnasium where we come
to make ourselves strong.”
44. “A few heart-whole,
sincere, and energetic men
and women can do more in
a year than a mob in a
century.”
45. “The only religion that
ought to be taught is the
religion of fearlessness.
Either in this world or in the
world of religion, it is true
that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is
fear that brings misery, fear
that brings death, fear that
breeds evil. And what
causes fear? Ignorance of
our own nature.”
46. “All knowledge that the
world has ever received
comes from the mind; the
infinite library of the
universe is in our own
mind.”
47. “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. Stand up and
express the divinity within
you.”
48.“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.”
49. “Astrology and all these
mystical things are
generally signs of a weak
mind; therefore as soon as
they are becoming
prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take
good food, and rest.”
50. “This attachment of
Love to God is indeed one
that does not bind the soul
but effectively breaks all its
bondages.”
51. “Be strong! … You talk
of ghosts and devils. We are
the living devils. The sign of
life is strength and growth.
The sign of death is
weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it
is strength, go down into
hell and get hold of it! There
is salvation only for the
brave. "None but the brave
deserves the fair." None but the bravest deserves
salvation.”
52. “Books are infinite in
number and time is short.
The secret of knowledge is
to take what is essential.
Take that and try to live up
to it.”
53. “Desire, ignorance, and
inequality—this is the
trinity of bondage.”
54. “Don't look back--
forward, infinite energy,
infinite enthusiasm, infinite
daring, and infinite patience
—then alone can great
deeds be accomplished.”
55. “Bless people when
they revile you. Think how
much good they are doing
by helping to stamp out the
false ego.”
56. “Have Faith in Man,
whether he appears to you
to be a very learned one or
a most ignorant one.”
57. “If the Student thinks
he is the Spirit, he will be a
better Student. If the
Lawyer thinks he is the
Spirit, he will be a better
Lawyer, and so on.”
58. “The Tapas and the
other hard Yogas that were
practiced in other Yugas do
not work now. What is
needed in this Yuga is
giving, helping others. ”
59. “beleive in yourself and
the world will be at your
feet”
60. “Shri Ramakrishna uses
to say, "As Long as I Live, so
long do I learn". That man
or that society which has
nothing to learn is already
in the jaws of death.”
61.“The Heart and core of
everything here is good,
that whatever may be the
surface waves, deep down
and underlying everything,
there is an infinite basis of Goodness and Love.”
62. “Condemn none: if you
can stretch out a helping
hand, do so. If you cannot,
fold your hands, bless your
brothers, and let them go
their own way.”
63. “If faith in ourselves
had been more extensively
taught and practiced, I am
sure a very large portion of
the evils and miseries that
we have would have vanished.”
64.“Our duty is to
encourage everyone 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.”
65. “The will is not free - it
is a phenomenon bound by
cause and effect - but there
is something behind the will
which is free.”
66. “Truth can be stated in
a thousand different ways,
yet each one can be true.”
67. “Religion is being and
becoming. Religion is the
manifestation of the
Divinity already in man.”
68. “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.”
69. “The earth is enjoyed
by heroes”—this is the
unfailing truth. Be a hero.
Always say, “I have no
fear.”
70. “Take up one idea.
Make that one idea your life
- think of it, dream of it, and
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.”
71. “After every happiness
comes misery; they may be
far apart or near. The more
advanced the soul, the
more quickly does one
follow the other. What we want is neither happiness
nor misery. Both make us
forget our true nature;
both are chains--one iron,
one gold; behind both is the
Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery.
These are states, and states
must ever change; but the
nature of the Atman is bliss,
peace, unchanging. We
have not to get it; we have it; only wash away the
dross and see it.”
72. “God is present in every
Jiva; there is no other God
besides that. Who serves
Jiva serves God indeed.”
73. “Be not afraid, for all
great power throughout
the history of humanity has
been with the people. From
out of their ranks have
come all the greatest geniuses of the world and
history can only repeat
itself. Be not afraid of
anything. You will do
marvelous work.”
74. “Devotion to duty is the
highest form of worship of
God.”
75. “By doing well the duty
which is nearest to us, the
duty which is in our hands,
we make ourselves
stronger”
76. “We are allowed to
worship him. Stand in that
reverent attitude to the
whole universe, and then
will come perfect non
attachment”
77. “Be Grateful to the Man
you help, think of Him as
God. Is it not a great
privilege to be allowed to
worship God by helping our
fellow men?”
78. “This universe is the
wreckage of the infinite on
the shores of the finite.”
79. “In a day, when you
don't come across any
problems, you can be sure
that you are treveling in a
wrong path”
80. “We must be Bright and
Cheerful, long faces do not
make Religion”
81. “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.”
82. “The whole universe is
only the self with
variations, one tune made
bearable by variations.
Sometimes there are
discords, but they only make the subsequent
harmony more perfect.”
83.“If in this hell of a world
one can bring a little joy
and peace even for a day
into the heart of a single
person, that much alone is
true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else
is mere moonshine. . . .”
84. “Put the good before
them, see how eagerly they
take it, see how the divine
that never dies, that is
always living in the
human...”
85. “The Older I grow, the
more everything seems to
me to lie in manliness. This is
my new gospel”
86. “As different streams
having different sources all
mingle their waters in the
sea, so different tendencies,
various though they
appear, crooked or straight, all lead to God.”
87. “GOD is to be
worshipped as the one
beloved, dearer than
everything in this and next
life.” 88. “If money help a man to
do good to others, it is of
some value; but if not, it is
simply a mass of evil, and
the sooner it is got rid of,
the better.”
89. “Never think there is
anything impossible for the
soul. It is the greatest
heresy to think so. If there
is sin, this is the only sin; to
say that you are weak, or others are weak.”
90. “The more we come out
and do good to others, the
more our hearts will be
purified, and God will be in
them.”
91. “When an idea
exclusively occupies the
mind, it is transformed into
an actual physical or mental
state.”
92. “Where can we go to
find God if we cannot see
Him in our own hearts and
in every living being.”
93. “All condemnation of
others really condemns
ourselves. Adjust the
microcosm which is in your
power to do) and the
macrocosm will adjust itself for you.”
94. “There is no limit to the
power of the human mind.
The more concentrated it is,
the more power is brought
to bear on one point”
95. “Take up one idea.
Make that one idea your life
- think of it, dream of it, and
live on 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.”
96.“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.”
97. “The more we grow in
Love, Virtue and Holiness,
the more we see Love,
Virtue and Holiness
outside.”
98. “What is now wanted is
a combination of the
greatest heart with the
highest intellectuality, of
infinite love with infinite
knowledge.”
99. “Above all, beware of
compromises. Hold on to
your own principles in weal
or woe and never adjust
them to others’ “fads”
through the greed of getting supporters. Your
Atman is the support of the
universe—whose support
do you stand in need of?”
100. “Above all, beware of
compromises. I do not mean
that you are to get into
antagonism with anybody,
but you have to hold on to
your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust
them to others “fads”
thought the greed of
getting supporters.”
101. “Why should a Man be
Moral? Because this
strengthens his will.”
102. “This World will
always continue to be a
mixture of Good and Evil.
Our duty is to sympathize
with the weak and to Love
even the wrongdoer.”
103. “All who have actually
attained any real religious
experience never wrangle
over the form in which the
different religions are
expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the
same and so they have no
quarrel with anybody just
because he or she does not
speak in the same tongue.”
104. “Anything that brings
spiritual, mental, or physical
weakness, touch it not with
the toes of your feet.”
105. “Are you unselfish?
That is the question. If you
are, you will be perfect
without reading a single
religious book, without
going into a single church or temple.”
106. “Even the greatest fool
can accomplish a task if it
were after his or her heart.
But the intelligent ones are
those who can convert
every work into one that suits their taste.”
107. “The Land where
humanity has attained its
highest towards
gentleness, towards
generosity, towards purity,
towards calmness - it is India.”
108. “Education is the
manifestation of perfection
already existing in man.”
109. “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.”
110“My Faith is in the
Younger Generation, the
Modern Generation, out of
them will come my
workers. They will work
Out the whole problem, like Lions.”
111.“It is the Level-headed
Man, the Calm Man, of Good
Judgment and cool nerves,
of Great sympathy and
love, who does good work
and so does good to himself.”
112. “First, believe in the
world—that there is
meaning behind
everything”
113. “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.”
114. “Tell the truth boldly,
whether it hurts or not.
Never pander to weakness.
If truth is too much for
intelligent people and
sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the
better.”
115. “This life is a hard fact;
work your way through it
boldly, though it may be
adamantine; no matter, the
soul is stronger. “
116.”This I have seen in life
—those who are
overcautious about
themselves fall into dangers
at every step; those who
are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only
disgrace; and those who
are always afraid of loss,
always lose. “
117.“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.”
118.”Those who work at a
thing heart and soul not
only achieve success in it
but through their
absorption in that they also
realize the supreme truth— Brahman. Those who work
at a thing with their whole
heart receive help from
God.”
119.”I, for one, thoroughly
believe that no power in
the universe can withhold
from anyone anything they
Really deserve.”
120.”The whole secret of
existence is to have no fear.
Never fear what will
become of you, depend on
no one. Only the moments
you reject all help are you free.”
121.”Fear is death, fear is
sin, fear is hell, fear is
unrighteousness, and fear
is wrong life. All the
negative thoughts and
ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this
evil spirit of fear. “
122.”Why are people so
afraid? The answer is that
they have made themselves
helpless and dependent on
others. We are so lazy, we
do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a
Personal God, a Savior or a
Prophet to do everything
for us. “
123.”As long as we believe
ourselves to be even the
least different from God,
fear remains with us; but
when we know ourselves
to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?”
124.”There is one thing to
be remembered: that the
assertion—I am God--
cannot be made with
regard to the sense-world.”
125.”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. “
126.”First get rid of the
delusion “I am the body”,
and then only will we want
real knowledge.”
127.”What the world wants
is character. The world is in
need of those whose life is
one burning love, selfless.
That love will make every
word tell like a thunderbolt.”
128. “God is merciful to
those whom He sees
struggling heart and soul
for realization. But remain
idle, without any struggle,
and you will see that His grace will never come.”
129. “We have to go back
to philosophy to treat
things as they are. We are
suffering from our own
karma. It is not the fault of
God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else.
Why should God be
blamed?”
130. “Fill the brain with
high thoughts, highest
ideals, place them day and
night before you, and out
of that will come great
work.”
131. “Who makes us
ignorant? We ourselves. We
put our hands over our
eyes and weep that it is
dark.
132. “We must have
friendship for all; we must
be merciful toward those
that are in misery; when
people are happy, we
ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be
indifferent. These attitudes
will make the mind
peaceful.”
133. “Every action that
helps us manifest our divine
nature more and more is
good; every action that
retards it is evil.”
134. “Are great things ever
done smoothly? Time,
patience, and indomitable
will must show.”
135. “Great work requires
great and persistent effort
for a long time. … Character
has to be established
through a thousand
stumbles.”
136. “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…. But those who do their duty
putting their shoulder to
the wheel will see the light,
and higher and higher
duties will fall to their
share.”
137. “Learning and wisdom
are superfluities, the
surface glitter merely, but it
is the heart that is the seat
of all power.”
138. “Watch people do their most common actions;
these are indeed the things
that will tell you the real
character of a great
person.”
139. “Whenever we attain a
higher vision, the lower
vision disappears of itself.”
140. “We came to enjoy; we
are being enjoyed. We came
to rule; we are being ruled.
We came to work; we are
being worked. All the time,
we find that. And this comes into every detail of
our life.”
141. “We are ever free if
we would only believe it,
only have faith enough.
You are the soul, free and
eternal, ever free, ever
blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a
minute.”
142. “Stand as a rock; you
are indestructible. You are
the Self (atman), the God of
the universe.”
143. “Stand upon the Self,
only then can we truly love
the world. Take a very high
stand; knowing our
universal nature, we must
look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of
the world.”
144."I am the thread that
runs through all these
pearls," and each pearl is a
religion or even a sect
thereof. Such are the
different pearls, and God is the thread that runs
through all of them; most
people, however, are
entirely unconscious of it.”
145. “Stand up, be bold, be
strong. Take the whole
responsibility on your own
shoulders, and know that
you are the creator of your
own destiny. All the strength and succor you
want is within your selves.
Therefore, make your own
future.”
146. “It is the patient
building of character, the
intense struggle to realize
the truth, which alone will
tell in the future of
humanity.”
147. “If there is one word
that you find coming out
like a bomb from the
Upanishads, bursting like a
bombshell upon masses of
ignorance, it is the word “fearlessness.””
148. “The world is ready to
give up its secrets if we
only know how to knock,
how to give it the
necessary blow. The
strength and force of the blow come through
concentration.”
149. “Work and worship
are necessary to take away
the veil, to lift off the
bondage and illusion.”
150. “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.”
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