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 banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Today the West is awakening to its wants; and the "true self of man and spirit" is the watchword of the advanced school of Western theologians. The student of Sanskrit philosophy knows where the wind is blowing from, but it matters not whence the power comes so longs as it brings new life.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“True religion comes not front the teaching of men or the reading of books; it is the awakening of the spirit within us, consequent upon pure and heroic action.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Have faith in man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one or a most ignorant one”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Blame nobody else, do not commit the mistake of the ignorant.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Is God to blame for what I myself have done?”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“We are all the time, from our childhood, trying to lay the blame upon something outside ourselves. We are always standing up to set right other people, and not ourselves. If we are miserable, we say, "Oh, the world is a devil's world." We curse others and say, "What infatuated fools!" But why should we be in such a world, if we really are so good? If this is a devil's world, we must be devils also; why else should we be here? "Oh, the people of the world are so selfish!" True enough; but why should we be found in that company, if we be better? Just think of that.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“When the last moment arrives, praise and blame will be the same to you, to me, and to others. We are here to work, and will have to leave all when the call comes.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“When we suffer, it is because of our own acts; God is not to be blamed for it.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“You yourself are to blame. This weeping and wailing and knocking your heads into corners [against brick walls, as it were] will not do you the least good.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“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.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“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.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Body is an unreal dream, and we think we are all bodies.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Body is the name of a stream of matter continuously changing.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Bodies come and go, but the soul does not change.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“No two persons have the same mind or the same body.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The body is mortal and the mind is mortal; both, being compounds, must die.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The body is our enemy, and yet is our friend.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The body must be properly taken care of. The people who torture their flesh are demoniacal.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The root of evil is in the illusion that we are bodies. This, if any, is the original sin.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“A golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one. Shri Ramakrishna used to say that, to pick out one thorn which has stuck into the foot, another thorn is requisitioned, and when the thorn is taken out, both are thrown away. So the bad tendencies are to be counteracted by the good ones, but after that, the good tendencies have also to be conquered.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness and all care as to what becomes of you.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Every one is as much bound in thought, word, deed, and mind, as a piece of stone or this table. That I talk to you now is as rigorous in causation as that you listen to me. There is no freedom until you go beyond Maya. That is the real freedom of the soul.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“He who asserts he is free, shall be free. He who says he is bound, bound he shall remain.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“To injure another creates bondage and hides the truth. Negative virtues are not enough; we have to conquer Maya, and then she will follow us. We only deserve things when they cease to bind us. When the bondage ceases, really and truly, all things come to us. Only those who want nothing are masters of nature.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“To weep is a sign of weakness, of bondage.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“We are bound to earth by desire and also to God, heaven, and the angels. A slave is a slave whether to man, to God, or to angels.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“We must become free. We are free; the work is to know it. We must give up all slavery, all bondage of whatever kind. We must not only give up our bondage to earth and everything and everybody on earth, but also to all ideas of heaven and happiness.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Books are good but they are only maps. Reading a book by direction of a man I read that so many inches of rain fell during the year. Then he told me to take the book and squeeze it between my hands. I did so and not a drop of water came from it. It was the idea only that the book conveyed. So we can get good from books, from the temple, from the church, from anything, so long as it leads us onward and upward.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps!”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Books cannot teach God, but they can destroy ignorance; their action is negative.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“We read many books, but that does not bring us knowledge. We may read all the Bibles in the world, but that will not give us religion. Theoretical religion is easy enough to get, any one may get that. What we want is practical religion.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“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 aggrandise this little self”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Business is business, no child's play.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Business is business, that is, you must do everything promptly; delay and shuffling won't do.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The Hindus have a peculiar slovenliness in business matters, not being sufficiently methodical and strict in keeping accounts etc.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“This caste system had grown by the practice of the son always following the business of the father.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force, and competition its ceremonies, and the human soul its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Doing is very good, but that comes from thinking. Little manifestations of energy through the muscles are called work. But where there is no thought, there will be no work. Fill the brain, therefore, with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“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.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“The soul has neither sex, nor caste nor imperfection.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“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”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“No better commentary on the Vedas has been written or can be written.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Women will work out their destinies — much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread. The other system has been tried and found wanting”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
“Law is death. The more of the law in a country, the worse for the country.”
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda