200+ Swami Vivekananda Quotes with Commentary

JaneSmith105

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Lets all create a thread with world famous Swami Vivekananda Quotes and this thread should cover almost all the quotes of swami ji.
I am starting with few quotes please post quotes on comment section which i might have missed.
  1. "Arise! Awake! and stop not until the goal is reached."
  2. "You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself."
  3. "The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them."
  4. "In one word, this ideal is that you are divine."
  5. “Take risks in your life, If you win, you can lead! If you loose, you can guide!"
  6. “Experience is the only teacher we have. we may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth.”
  7. “If you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.”
  8. “Meditation can turn fools in to sages but unfortunately fools never meditate.”
  9. “If i love myself despite my infinite faults, how can i hate anyone at the glimpse of a few faults”
  10. “That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.”
Now My best from Swami Vivekananda Quotes with Commentary
11) “You cannot believe in god until you believe in yourself.” - I firmly believe in this quote
12) “You are the creator of your own destiny.” - This is something which every successful person says its like mantra of success
13) “In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.” - My funda of life
14) “Strength is life; weakness is death.” - Law of nature survival of the fittest
15) We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far. - when we think positive things by large goes in positive manner,
 
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I will take list forward by adding Swami Vivekananda Quotes which you have not added on your comment.

16) "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."
17) "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."
18) "Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being."
19) "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."
20) "The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong."
21) "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."
22) "We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far."
23) "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."
24) "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."
25) "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."
26) "When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state."
27) "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."
28) "All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything."
29) "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."
30) "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."
31) "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."
32) "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."
33) "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."
34) “Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at other; for all the faults you suffer from, you are the sole and only cause.”
35) “Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own way adsorb it; do not become others.”
 

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Thanks for sharing the quotes,they are inspirational,gives motivation and how we have to live in life.Can we know more about swami Vivekananda? who is he?
 

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One Liner Swami Vivekananda Quotes

36)
All change is in the screen.

37) Change is always subjective.

38) The real work is in the practice.

39) A changeable God would be no God.

40) Service to man is service to god.

41) God is pure, and the same to all.

42) March on, the Lord is our General.

43) Change can only be in the limited.

44) The best guide in life is strength.

45) Every change is being forced upon us.

46) GOD of truth, be Thou alone my guide.

47) Ignorance is death, Knowledge is life.

48) Infinite strength is religion and God.

49) Business is business, no child's play.

50) As the cause is, so the effect will be.

51) Hinduism is the mother of all religions.

52) Change is the nature of all objective things.

53) This life is a tremendous assertion of freedom.

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

55) Not one is constant, but everything is changing.

56) And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature.

57) My bones are destined to make corals in the Ganga.

58) The seeker's silence is the loudest form of prayer.

59) External nature is only internal nature writ large.

60) The world sympathizes only with strong and powerful.

61) Religion lies in being and becoming, in realization.

62) Change of the unchangeable would be a contradiction.

63) We never change, we never die, and we are never born.

64) The soul has neither sex, nor caste nor imperfection.

65) The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.

66) None deserves liberty who is not ready to give liberty.

67) Turn thy gaze inward, wherein resides the Supreme Self.

68) The gift of knowledge is the highest gift in the world.

69) Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands.

70) Perfection is not to be attained, it is already within us.

71) The benefits of knowledge can only be realized in practice.

72) Love for yourselves means [in the end] love for everything.

73) When I asked god for peace, he showed me how to help others.

74) Why should a Man be Moral? Because this strengthens his will.

75) Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.

76) God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted , He Gave Me Everything I Needed.

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

78) The Impersonal God seen through the mists of sense is personal.

79) Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

80) He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books.

81) I am indebted to my mother for the efflorescence of my knowledge.

82) The Church tries to fit Christ into it, not the Church into Christ.

83) No better commentary on the Vedas has been written or can be written.

84) While real perfection is only one, relative perfections must be many.

85) On this basic - being right and doing right the whole world can unite.

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

87) That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

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

89) I do not call it religion so long as it is confined to books and dogmas.

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

91) Law is death. The more of the law in a country, the worse for the country.

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

93) This universe is the wreckage of the infinite on the shores of the finite.

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

95) The first sign of your becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.

96) I hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense.

97) WHY should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God?

98) Those who die, merely suffering the woes of life like cats and dogs, are they men?

99) We are the sons of Light and children of God. Glory unto the Lord, we will succeed.

100) What makes a man stand up and work? Strength. Strength is goodness, weakness is sin.

101) The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.

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

103) When the body is still healthy and disease-less, When old age has not yet attacked it.

104) It is the duty of every person to contribute in the development and progress of India.

105) The mistake is that we cling to the body when it is the spirit that is really immortal.

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

107) Give up bondage; become a son, be free, and then you can "see the Father", as did Jesus.

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

109) Excepting the infinite spirit, everything else is changing. There is the whirl of change.

110) Help and not fight. Assimilation and not destruction. Harmony and Peace and not dissension.

111) Purity,patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all: love.

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

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

114) The Older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel.

115) THE Lord is great! - He will not allow me to become a hypocrite. Now let what is in come out.

116) The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.

117) Business is business, that is, you must do everything promptly; delay and shuffling won't do.

118) Even the minds of animals, such as dogs, lions, cats, and serpents, become charmed with music.

119) Our best work is done, our greatest influence is exerted, when we are without thought of self.

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

121) The more we grow in Love, Virtue and Holiness, the more we see Love, Virtue and Holiness outside.

122) Let new India arise out of peasants cottage, grasping the plough, out of huts, cobbler and sweeper.

123) Every individual has in himself perfection. It lies within the dark recesses of his physical being.

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

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

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

127) Anything that brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it not with the toes of your feet.

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

129) Whenever there is a conflict between the pure heart and the intellect, always side with the pure heart.

130) The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.

131) This attachment of Love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but effectively breaks all its bondage's.

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

133) Excessive attention to the minutiae of astrology is one of the superstitions which has hurt the Hindus very much.

134) Do you have the belief in you to move on, even when the whole world is against you, with swords in their hands?

135) When we really begin to live in the world, then we understand what is meant by brotherhood or mankind, and not before.

136) The body is made by the thought that lies behind it. The body politic is thus the expression of national thought.

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

138) 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.

139) There is really no difference between matter, mind and Spirit. They are only different phases of experiencing the One.

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

141) If I, as an Oriental have to worship Jesus of Nazareth, there is only one way, that is, to worship him as God and nothing else.

142) We must always bear in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already. Every idea that we are bound is a delusion.

143) The secret of karma yoga which is to perform actions without any fruitive desires is taught by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita.

144) Get away from all books and forms and let your soul see its Self. "We are deluded and maddened by books", Shri Krishna declares.

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

146) The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material condition and feel our divine nature.

147) This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on.

148) 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.

149) Be not in despair, the way is very difficult, like walking on the edge of a razor; yet despair not, arise, awake, and find the ideal, the goal.

150) Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom. . Our thoughts, our words, and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw around ourselves.
 
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JaneSmith105

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Some More Swami Vivekananda Quotes

151) This is the principle of Universal Brotherhood of man with one another, with all life down to the little ants.

152) The Hindus have cultivated the power of analysis and abstraction. No nation has yet produced a grammar like that of Panini.

153) The best guide in life is strength. In religion, as in all other matters, discard everything that weakens you, have nothing to do with it.

154) There is nothing beyond God, and the sense enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now in the hope of getting better things.

155) 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.

156) We must be bright and cheerful. Long faces do not make religion. Religion should be the most joyful thing in the world, because it is the best.

157) This is the central idea of the Gita- to be calm and steadfast in all circumstances, with one's body, mind, and soul centered at His hallowed feet!

158) There is only one Soul in the Universe. There is no 'you' or 'me'; all variety is merged into the absolute unity, the one infinite existence - God.

159) 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.

160) Liberty in thought and action is the only condition of life, growth and well-being: Where it does not exist, the man, the race, and the nation must go down.

161) 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.

162) We have to cover everything with the Lord himself, not a false sort of optimism, not by blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in everything.

163) Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion.

164) So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.

165) The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.

166) 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.

167) 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.

168) 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.

169) 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.

170) 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.

171) "I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher." That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.

172) You have heard that Christ said, 'My words are spirit and they are life'. So are my words spirit and life; they will burn their way into your brain and you will never get away from them!

173) The difference between architecture and building is that the former expresses an idea, while the latter is merely a structure built on economical principles. The value of matter depends solely on its.

174) The spirit is the cause of all our thoughts and body-action, and everything, but it is untouched by good or evil, pleasure or pain, heat of cold, and all the dualism of nature, although it lends its light to everything.

175) 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.

176) 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.

177) PRAYER is divine love alone. When this highest ideal of love is reached, philosophy is thrown away. Who will then care of it ? Freedom, salvation, nirvana- all are thrown away. Who cares to become free while in the enjoyment of divine love?

178) Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being. 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.

179) 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.

180) Those whose only aim is to barter the energies of life for gold, or name, or any other enjoyment; those to whom the tramp of embattled cohorts is the only manifestation of power; those to whom the enjoyment of the senses is the only bliss that life c

181) If you have not even a little imagination, you are simply a brute. So you must not lower your ideal, neither are you to lose sight of practicality. We must avoid the two extremes.... You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with immense practicality.

182) Think of a space in your heart, and in the midst of that space think that a flame is burning. Think of that a flame is burning. Think of that flame as your own soul and inside the flame is another effulgent light, and that is the Soul of your soul, God. Meditate upon that in the heart.

183) The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also.

184) The devil comes in many guises-anger in the form of justice-passion in the form of duty. When it first comes, the man knows and then he forgets. Just as your pleaders' conscience; at first they know it is all Badmashi (roguery), then it is duty to their clients; at last they get hardened.

185) IT is good to love God for hope of reward, but it is better to love God for loves sake; and the prayer goes: O Lord, I do not want wealth nor children nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth. But grant me this, that I may love thee without the hope of reward - love unselfishly for loves sake.
 

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Completing 200 Swami Vivekananda Quotes

186) Do not stand on a high pedestal and take 5 cents in your hand and say, "here, my poor man", but be grateful that the poor man is there, so by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver.Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.

187) We have seemingly been divided, limited, because of our ignorance; and we have become as it were the little Mrs. so - and - so and Mr. so - and - so. But all nature is giving this delusion the lie every moment. I am not that little man or little woman cut off from all else; I am the one universal existence. The soul in its own majesty is rising up every moment and declaring its own intrinsic Divinity.

188) How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? 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. 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; that is the secret.

189) Some imaginations help to break the bondage of the rest. The whole universe is imagination, but one set of imaginations will cure another set. Those that tell us that there is sin and sorrow and death in the world are terrible. But the other set - thou art holy, there is God, there is no pain - these are good, and help to break the bondage of the others. The highest imagination that can break all the links of the chain is that of the Personal God.

190) But on the heights of the Himalayas I have a place where I am determined nothing shall enter except pure truth. There I want to work out this idea about which I have spoken to you today. There are an Englishman and an Englishwoman in charge of the place. The purpose is to train seekers of truth and to bring up children without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus - none of these.

191) We have seemingly been divided, limited, because of our ignorance; and we have become as it were the little Mrs. so - and - so and Mr. so - and - so. But all nature is giving this delusion the lie every moment. I am not that little man or little woman cut off from all else; I am the one universal existence. The soul in its own majesty is rising up every moment and declaring its own intrinsic Divinity.

192) How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? 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. 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; that is the secret.

193) Some imaginations help to break the bondage of the rest. The whole universe is imagination, but one set of imaginations will cure another set. Those that tell us that there is sin and sorrow and death in the world are terrible. But the other set - thou art holy, there is God, there is no pain - these are good, and help to break the bondage of the others. The highest imagination that can break all the links of the chain is that of the Personal God.

194) But on the heights of the Himalayas I have a place where I am determined nothing shall enter except pure truth. There I want to work out this idea about which I have spoken to you today. There are an Englishman and an Englishwoman in charge of the place. The purpose is to train seekers of truth and to bring up children without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus - none of these.

195) It is entirely wrong to think that we have done, or can do, good to the world, or to think that we have helped such and such people. It is a foolish thought, and all foolish thoughts bring misery. We think that we have helped some man and expect him to thank us, and because he does not, unhappiness comes to us. Why should we expect anything in return for what we do? 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? Everybody is changing.

196) You nourish your minds by reading books. There is no good in doing that unless you hold it also as a sacrifice to the whole world. For the whole world is one; you are rated a very insignificant part of it, and therefore it is right for you that you should serve your millions of brothers rather than aggrandize this little self

197) Is enjoyment the goal of life? Were it so, it would be a tremendous mistake to become a man at all.What man can enjoy a meal with more gusto than the dog or the cat ? Go to a menagerie and see the [wild animals] tearing the flesh from the bone. Go back and become a bird! . . . What a mistake then to become a man! Vain have been my years - hundreds of years - of struggle only to become the man of sense-enjoyments.

198) A man, and a cat, and a dog, are all animals. These particular examples, as man, or dog, or cat, are parts of a bigger and more general concept, animal. The man, and the cat, and the dog, and the plant, and the tree, all come under the still more general concept, life. Again, all these, all beings and all materials, come under the one concept of existence, for we all are in it.

199) [Not parroting.] My old Master used to say, "It is all very good to teach the parrot to say, 'Lord, Lord, Lord' all the time; but let the cat come and take hold of its neck, it forgets all about it" [You may] pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are, [but] unless you realize the soul there is no freedom. Not talking, theorizing, argumentation, but realization. That I call practical religion.

200) You all know that certain things are necessary to make a religion. First of all, there is the book. The power of the book is simply marvelous! Whatever it be, the book is the center round which human allegiance gathers. Not one religion is living today but has a book. With all its rationalism and tall talk, humanity still clings to the books. In your country every attempt to start a religion without a book has failed. In India sects rise with great success, but within a few years they die down, because there is no book behind them. So in every other country.
 

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