1,842 Quotes by Swami Vivekananda

I am responsible for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil. I am the Pure and Blessed One. We must reject all thoughts that assert to the contrary.

In the primal state before any manifestation, when there was no motion but perfect balance, this Prakriti was indestructible, because decomposition or death comes from instability or change.

Calm and silent and steady work, and no newspaper humbug, no name-making, you must always remember.

Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.

Blows are what awaken us & help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world & make us long to escape, to have freedom.

Each one of you has a glorious future if you dare believe me. Have a tremendous faith in yourselves, like the faith I had when I was I was young... Have that faith, each one of you, in yourself - that eternal power is lodged in every soul - and you will revive the whole of India.

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.

What is meant by charity? Charity is not fundamental. It is really helping on the misery of the world, not eradicating it. One looks for name and fame and covers his efforts to obtain them with the enamel of charity and good works. He is working for himself under the pretext of working for others. Every so-called charity is an encouragement of the very evil it claims to operate against.

Everything that has form, everything that is the result of combination, is evolved out of this Akasha.