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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Monk, Mystic)

Inspirational Quotations by Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Monk, Mystic)

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902,) born Narendra Nath Datta, is one of the most admired spiritual leaders of India. He was the chief disciple of the 19th-century Hindu mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the driving force behind the Ramakrishna Mission.

Born in Calcutta in British India, Swami Vivekananda was an associate of the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reform movement, and training to be a lawyer. When he stumbled upon Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda had a forceful religious experience and became one of Ramakrishna’s disciples. After his master’s death, he founded the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. He became a mendicant, traveled the length and breadth of India on foot, meditating and propagating his interpretation of Ramakrishna’s teachings.

Swami Vivekananda proposed that, underneath their seeming diversity, all religions are one. His appeal for universal tolerance attracted much attention at the Chicago World Parliament of Religions in 1893, where he introduced Hinduism with an inspiring speech that began, “Sisters and brothers of America…, it fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us.”

Swami Vivekananda was a crucial figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedānta and Yoga to the Western world and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He was a significant force in the revival of Hinduism in India and contributed to the concept of nationalism in colonial India.

In India, Swami Vivekananda is widely regarded as the patriot saint of modern India and a source of inspiration. His notable literary works include Karma Yoga (1896,) Raja Yoga (1896,) and The East and the West (1909.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Swami Vivekananda

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Inspirational Quotes by Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Monk, Mystic)

We often talk of right and justice, but we find that in the world right and justice are mere baby’s talk. There are two things which guide the conduct of men: might and mercy. The exercise of might is invariably the exercise of selfishness.
—Swami Vivekananda

Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe.
—Swami Vivekananda

All search is vain, until we begin to perceive that wisdom is within ourselves … then we may know the sun is rising, that the morning is breaking for us.
—Swami Vivekananda
Topics: Wisdom

The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
—Swami Vivekananda

First get rid of the delusion “I am the body”, then only will we want real knowledge.
—Swami Vivekananda

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 yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.
—Swami Vivekananda

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

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?
—Swami Vivekananda

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.
—Swami Vivekananda

The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.
—Swami Vivekananda

True love can never react so as to cause pain either to the lover or to the beloved.
—Swami Vivekananda

Thou brave one, be bold take courage,
be proud that thou art an Indian and proudly proclaim,
I am an Indian… The Indian is my brother,
the Indian is my life, the good of India is my good,
take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness and make me a man.
—Swami Vivekananda

We want to worship a living God. I have not seen anything but God all my life, nor have you… He is everywhere, Saying, “I am”. The moment you feel “I am,” you are conscious of Existence. Where shall we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being?
—Swami Vivekananda

Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse. If superstition enters, the brain is gone.
—Swami Vivekananda

Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.
—Swami Vivekananda

Religion as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have.
—Swami Vivekananda

Time is like river. You can’t touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
—Swami Vivekananda

All men and women try to make the most of whatever power or advantage they have.
—Swami Vivekananda

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.
—Swami Vivekananda

Be for a lone moment really “hopeless”, and the mist will clear. For what to hope when one is the all of existence.
—Swami Vivekananda

This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. If all of us think for the society and the country, all our problems will be solved.
—Swami Vivekananda

The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.
—Swami Vivekananda
Topics: Dreams

If a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these impressions will be good; and they, in a similar manner, will force him to do good even in spite of himself.
—Swami Vivekananda

Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.
—Swami Vivekananda

As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.
—Swami Vivekananda

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

If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.
—Swami Vivekananda

Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there the matter ends. In whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a state, assume the same attitude towards it as you have towards your children — expect nothing in return. If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then will your work bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.
—Swami Vivekananda

One party says thought is caused by matter, and the other says matter is caused by thought. Both statements are wrong; matter and thought are coexistent. There is a third something of which both matter and thought are products.
—Swami Vivekananda

Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is Death.
—Swami Vivekananda

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.”
—Swami Vivekananda

He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong.
—Swami Vivekananda

If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.
—Swami Vivekananda

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.
—Swami Vivekananda
Topics: Mindfulness

However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.
—Swami Vivekananda

Only when a man sees this universe as God does the veil fall from his eyes; then that man, purified and cleansed, finds his whole vision changed.
—Swami Vivekananda

There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself…. Burst your own cocoon and come out as the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.
—Swami Vivekananda

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.
—Swami Vivekananda

Strength is the sign of vigor, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, and the sign of everything that is good. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, strength in the hand.
—Swami Vivekananda

Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.
—Swami Vivekananda

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