“Though our castes and institutions are apparently linked with our religion, they are not so. These institutions have been necessary to protect us as a nation, and when this necessity for self-preservation will no more exist, they will die a natural death. But the older I grow, the better I seem to think of these time-honored institutions of India. There was a time when I used to think that many of them were useless and worthless; but the older I grew, the more I seem to feel a diffidence in cursing any one of them, for each one of them is the embodiment of the experience of centuries. A child of but yesterday, destined to die the day after tomorrow, comes to me and asks me to change all my plans; and if I hear the advice of that baby and change all my surroundings according to his ideas, I myself should be a fool, and no one else. Much of the advice that is coming to us from different countries is similar to this. Tell these wiseacres: "I will hear you when you have made a society yourselves. You cannot hold on to one idea for two days, you quarrel and fail; you are born like moths in the spring and die like them in five minutes. You come up like bubbles and burst like bubbles too. First form a stable society like ours. First make laws and institutions that remain undiminished in their power through scores of centuries. Then will be the time to talk on the subject with you, but till then, my friend, you are only a giddy child.”
Quote by Swami Vivekananda
Work
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3
Browse quotes and source details for this work. more
Author
You May Also Like
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3
Source: To the Lighthouse
Source: Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes
Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3
Source: The Materialist Conception of History
Source: Julius Caesar
Source: Ninth Grade Slays
Source: If We Were Villains
Source: The Glass Bead Game
Source: The Sixth Borough
