Vivekananda > Quotes

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga Also Pantanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries, and Glossary of Sanskrit Terms

“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you,
none can make you spiritual.
There is no other teacher but your own soul.”
― Vivekananda

“In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.”
― Vivekananda

“In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path”
― Vivekananda

“All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do any thing and everything, without even the guidance of any one. Stand up and express the divinity within you.”
― Vivekananda

“The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.”
― Vivekananda

“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.”
― Vivekananda

“The greatest sin is to think yourself weak”
― Vivekananda

“Anything that makes weak - physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject it as poison.”
― Vivekananda

“Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life.”
― Vivekananda

“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”
― Vivekananda

“Arise, awake, stop not till the goal is reached.”
― Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods : According to Swami Vivekananda + Fear Not Be Strong + Personality Development + Powers of the Mind

“They alone live, who live for others.”
― Vivekananda

“Be not Afraid of anything. You will do Marvelous work. it is Fearlessness that brings Heaven even in a moment.”
― Vivekananda

“All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.”
― Vivekananda , Letters of Swami Vivekananda, Year 1960

“You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.”
― Vivekananda

“Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes.”
― Vivekananda

“Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.”
― Vivekananda

“Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is Death.”
― Vivekananda

“Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.”
― Vivekananda

“The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire.”
― Vivekananda

“Learn Everything that is Good from Others, but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others.”
― Vivekananda

“Do one thing at a Time, and while doing it put your whole Soul into it to the exclusion of all else.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!”
― Vivekananda, Raja Yoga

“whatever you think that you will be.
if you think yourself weak,weak you will be;
if you think yourself strong,you will be”
― Swami Vivekananda

“All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you, but do not think of that now.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.