Swami Vivekananda Inspiring Quotations

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.

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.

Man is to become divine by realizing the divine. Idols or temples, or churches or books, are only the supports, the help of his spiritual childhood.

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.

The brain and muscles must develop simultaneously. Iron nerves with an intelligent brain — and the whole world is at your feet.

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.

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.

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!

We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.

If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word "fearlessness."

Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe.

If superstition enters, the brain is gone.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

They alone live, who live for others.

Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.

All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.

There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point

Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.

The Land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness - it is India.

This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells-that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one's spiritual Self (atman).

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind?....... We make our own destiny.