Book detail: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book includes a wide range of Swami Vivekananda's teachings on spirituality, philosophy, and social issues, offering insights into his thoughts on various aspects of life and the human condition.
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“The test of having ceased to be an idolater is: "When you say 'I', does the body come into your thought or not? If it does, then you are still a worshipper of idols."”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“This external worship of images has, however, been described in all our Shastras as the lowest of all the low forms of worship. But that does not mean that it is a wrong thing to do.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Those reformers who preach against image-worship, or what they denounce as idolatry - to them I say "Brothers, if you are fit to worship God-without-form discarding all external help, do so, but why do you condemn others who cannot do the same?"”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“If there be no eternal life, still the enjoyment of spiritual thoughts as ideals is keener and makes a man happier, whilst the foolery of materialism leads to competition and undue ambition and ultimate death, individual and national.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Let there be as little materialism as possible, with the maximum of spirituality.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Neither idealists nor materialists are right; we must take both idea and expression.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Even forgiveness, if weak and passive, is not true: fight is better. Forgive when you could bring legions of angels to the victory.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“What can be my highest idea of forgiveness? Nothing beyond myself. Which of you can jump out of your own bodies? Which of you can jump out of your own minds? Not one of you.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“You never hear of a mother cursing the child; she is forgiving, always forgiving.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“A monk is not forbidden to marry, but if he takes a wife she becomes a monk with the same powers and privileges and occupies the same social position as her husband.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“According to the Hindu way of thinking, marriage is rather a duty than a privilege.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not for thy individual personal happiness.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“In Tibet there is no marriage, and there is no jealousy, yet we know that marriage is a much higher state. The Tibetans have not known the wonderful enjoyment, the blessing of chastity, the happiness of having a chaste, virtuous wife, or a chaste, virtuous husband. These people cannot feel that. And similarly they do not feel the intense jealousy of the chaste wife or husband, or the misery caused by unfaithfulness on either side, with all the heart-burnings and sorrows which believers in chastity experience. On one side, the latter gain happiness, but on the other, they suffer misery too.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Just as man must have liberty to think and speak, so he must have liberty in food, dress, and marriage, and in every other thing, so long as he does not injure others.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Marriage and sex and money the only living devils.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the welfare of the nation and the caste.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The natural ambition of woman is through marriage to climb up, leaning upon a man; but those days are gone. You shall be great without the help of any man, just as you are.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“This doctrine of prenatal influence is now slowly being recognized, and science as well as religion calls out: 'Keep yourself holy, and pure.' So deeply has this been recognized in India, that there we even speak of adultery in marriage, except when marriage is consummated in prayer.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“What is marriage but the renunciation of unchastity? The savage does not marry. Man marries because he renounces.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Stand in that reverent attitude to the whole universe, and then will come perfect non attachment.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Hold to the idea, "I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act," and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Accumulation of power is as necessary as its diffusion, or rather more so.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“All want power, but few will wait to gain it for themselves.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Brave, bold men, these are what we want. What we want is vigour in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“From the highest god to the meanest grass, the same power is present in all - whether manifested or not. We shall have to call forth that power by going from door to door.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Good and evil thoughts are each a potent power, and they fill the universe.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“If one has got power, one must manifest it in action.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Prana is the driving power of the world, and can be seen in every manifestation of life.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Superhuman power is not strong enough.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The same power is in every man, the one manifesting more, the other less; the same potentiality is in everyone.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“There is no power on earth which can be kept long confined within a narrow limit. It cannot be kept compressed too long to allow of expansion at a subsequent period.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Thought is like a bubble rising to the surface. When thought is joined to will, we call it power. That which strikes the sick person whom you are trying to help is not thought, but power.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“What we call powers, secrets of nature, and force, are all within. In the external world are only a series of changes.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Whenever power is used for evil, it becomes diabolical; it must be used for good only.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“All practice or worship is only for taking off this veil. When that will go, you will find that the Sun of Absolute Knowledge is shining in Its own lustre.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Here lies the secret. Says Patanjali, the father of Yoga, "When a man rejects all the superhuman powers, then he attains to the cloud of virtue." He sees God. He becomes God and helps others to become the same. This is all I have to preach. Doctrines have been expounded enough. There are books by the million. Oh, for an ounce of practice!”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“If you intend to study the mind, you must have systematic training; you must practice to bring the mind under your control.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“One ounce of practice is worth a thousand pounds of theory.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“One ounce of the practice of righteousness and of spiritual Self-realisation outweighs tons and tons of frothy talk and nonsensical sentiments.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Practice is absolutely necessary. You may sit down and listen to me by the hour every day, but if you do not practice, you will not get one step further. It all depends on practice.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Practice makes us what we shall be.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The real work is in the practice.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The Yogi must always practice.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“We must patiently practice every day.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“You know your real nature [to be divine]. You are the king and play you are a beggar. . . . It is all fun. Know it and play. That is all there is to it. Then practice it. The whole universe is a vast play.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Build up your health. Do not dwell in silence upon your sorrows.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda