Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Hold to the idea, "I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act," and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.

There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion — I am God — cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.

The mother and the father are the causes of this body; so a man must undergo a thousand troubles in order to do good to them.

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.

Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.

Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge, power, and activity, has its seat.

This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.

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.

Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?

The earth is enjoyed by heroes” — this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.

If there is something here that is not in the Vedas, that is your delusion. It does not exist.

He works for work’s sake. “Work for work’s sake. Worship for worship’s sake.

Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.