Swami Vivekananda

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.

Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego.

We must patiently practice every day.

Religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities.

When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.

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

Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.

Give everything and look for no return.

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.

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.

The idol is the expression of religion.

This caste system had grown by the practice of the son always following the business of the father.

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.

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.

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to truth or die.

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.

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.

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.

The subtle are the causes, the gross the effects.

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

All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

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.

In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.

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

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.

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.

Manifest the divinity within you and everything will be harmoniously arranged around it.

The powers of the mind are like the rays of the sun-when they are concentrated they illumine.

He alone teaches who has something to give for teaching is not talking teaching is not imparting doctrines it is communicating.

Don’t look back – forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience. Then alone can great deeds be accomplished.

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.

Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself.

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

An intellectual heartless man never becomes an inspired man. It is always the heart that speaks in the man of love it discovers a greater instrument than intellect can give you the instrument of inspiration.

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

Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.

Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

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.

The will is not free – it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect – but there is something behind the will which is free.

We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough.

In one word this ideal is that you are divine.

You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.

Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse.

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.

When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians give strength to you to carry out your noble idea.

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

This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.

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

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

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, 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.

External nature is only internal nature writ large.

When you feel gloomy think what has been done within the last year. How rising from nothing.

The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.

The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.

Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!

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

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

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.

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.

The three essentials of Hinduism are belief in God, in the Vedas as revelation, in the doctrine of Karma and transmigration.

The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.

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

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.

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

So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one being and that every soul is that being in full, not a part of that Being.

The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the most intense activity, and in the midst of the most intense activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.

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.

Holy meditation helps to burn out all mental impurities.

All differences in this world are of degree and not of kind because oneness is the secret of everything.

However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the soul is there and is never injured. We are that infinite.

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.

Die in obeying commands like a soldier and go to Nirvana but no cowardice.

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

Salvation never will come through hope of reward.

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 yourself. Therefore make your own future.

Stand in that reverent attitude to the whole universe, and then will come perfect non attachment.

Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.

The guru is the means of realization.

Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.

First, believe in the world—that there is meaning behind everything.

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.

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.

Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.

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

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

Fill the brain with high thoughts highest ideals place them day and night before you and out of that will come great work.

Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person.

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

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

All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.

GOD is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.

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.

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.

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