Swami Vivekananda, known in his pre-monastic life as Narendra Nath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk who played a major role in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world. A chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda was pivotal in the revival of Hinduism in India and contributed to the concept of nationalism in colonial India. Inclined towards spirituality from an early age, he toured the entire Indian subcontinent as a young man. He later went to the United States where he represented India at the 1893 Parliament of the World Religions. Even though he died at the relatively young age of 39, it was not before he had conducted hundreds of public and private lectures and classes which helped to spread Indian philosophies to the Western world. This amazing collection of quotes by Swami Vivekananda will definitely enlighten you and help you in seeking answers to your existential queries.
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.
Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.
Swami 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.
Learn Everything that is Good from Others, but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others.
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.
Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.
Swami Vivekananda
Beleive in yourself and the world will be at your feet
All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
Swami Vivekananda
Education is the manifestation of perfection already existing in man.
Swami Vivekananda
Shri Ramakrishna use to say, "As Long as I Live, so long do I learn". That man or that society which has nothing to learn is already in the jaws of death.
He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.
Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
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.
This is a great fact: strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery, weakness is death.
So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every person a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them!
Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.
Swami Vivekananda
Liberty is the first condition of growth. It is wrong, a thousand times wrong, if any of you dares to say, 'I will work out the salvation of this woman or child.
Desire can be eradicated from the roots by firmly imbibing the four attributes of: Jnan, Atmanishtha, Vairagya, Dharma and the full fledged devotion to God.
The knowing ones must have pity on the ignorant.
One who knows is willing to give up his body even for an ant,
because he knows that the body is nothing.
Swami Vivekananda
The Heart and core of everything here is good, that whatever may be the surface waves, deep down and underlying everything, there is an infinite basis of Goodness and Love.
The help which tends to make us spiritually strong is the highest help, next to it comes intellectual help and after that comes physical help.
Swami Vivekananda
Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.
Religion is being and becoming. Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.
Swami Vivekananda
Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin; to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
Of one hundred persons who take up the spiritual life, eighty turn out to be charlatans, fifteen insane, and only five, maybe, get a glimpse of the real truth. Therefore beware.
 and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. )
