Top 500 Swami Vivekananda Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Take up an idea, devote yourself to it, struggle on in patience, and the sun will rise for you.”

— Swami Vivekananda

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

— Swami Vivekananda

53. “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.”

— Swami Vivekananda

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

— Swami Vivekananda

55. “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!”

— Swami Vivekananda

56. “Stand up and be strong! No fear. No superstition. Face the truth as it is!”

— Swami Vivekananda

57. “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.”

— Swami Vivekananda

58. “Service to man is service to god.”

— Swami Vivekananda

59. “We are what our thoughts have made us.”

— Swami Vivekananda

60. “Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.”

— Swami Vivekananda

61. “Go on bravely. Do not expect success in a day or a year. Always hold on to the highest. Be steady. Avoid jealousy and selfishness. Be obedient and eternally faithful to the cause of truth, humanity, and your country, and you will move the world.”

— Swami Vivekananda

62. “Devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God.”

— Swami Vivekananda

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

— Swami Vivekananda

64. “You must have an iron will, if you would cross the ocean. You must be strong enough to pierce mountains.”

— Swami Vivekananda

65. “The secret of karma yoga which is to perform actions without any fruitive desires is taught by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita.”

— Swami Vivekananda

66. “My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.”

— Swami Vivekananda

67. “Everything is easy when you are busy. But nothing is easy when you are lazy.”

— Swami Vivekananda

68. “Thoughts are living things – they travel far.”

— Swami Vivekananda

69. “Purity, perseverance, and energy - these three I want.”

— Swami Vivekananda

70. “Cowards never win victories. We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us.”

— Swami Vivekananda

71. “Music alone can take you to the Highest!”

— Swami Vivekananda

72. “He who is alone is happy. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage, and bondage brings only misery. Live alone in your mind – that is happiness. To have nobody to care for and never minding who cares for one is the way to be free.”

— Swami Vivekananda

73. “The seeker’s silence is the loudest form of prayer.”

— Swami Vivekananda

74. “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.”

— Swami Vivekananda

75. “Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven. Control the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but spiritual freedom.”

— Swami Vivekananda

76. “Strength and manliness are virtue; weakness and cowardice are sin.”

— Swami Vivekananda

77. “To work with undaunted energy! What fear! Who is powerful enough to thwart you.”

— Swami Vivekananda

78. “Everything will come right if you are pure and sincere. We want hundreds like you bursting upon society and bringing new life and vigor of the spirit wherever they go.”

— Swami Vivekananda

79. “Man can become like God and acquire control over the whole universe if he multiplies infinitely his centre of self-consciousness.”

— Swami Vivekananda

80. “Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita. These are bold words; but I have to say them, for I love you. I know where the shoe pinches.”

— Swami Vivekananda

81. “A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.”

— Swami Vivekananda

82. “Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion.”

— Swami Vivekananda

83. “Marriage, sex, and money are the only living devils.”

— Swami Vivekananda

84. “Man is the highest being in creation, because he attains to freedom.”

— Swami Vivekananda

85. “One may gain political and social independence, but if one is a slave to his passions and desires, one cannot feel the pure joy of real freedom.”

— Swami Vivekananda

86. “Take risks in your life. If you win, you can lead! If you lose, you can guide!”

— Swami Vivekananda

87. “The more we grow in Love, Virtue and Holiness, the more we see Love, Virtue and Holiness outside.”

— Swami Vivekananda

88. “Man makes the mistake of separating himself from God and identifying himself with the body.”

— Swami Vivekananda

89. “A man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world – his heart to God and his hands to work.”

— Swami Vivekananda

90. “All these ideas such as astrology, although there may be a grain of truth in them, should be avoided.”

— Swami Vivekananda

91. “Be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, “I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother.” Say, “The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother.””

— Swami Vivekananda

92. “Say it with pride, we are Hindus.”

— Swami Vivekananda

93. “Even forgiveness, if weak and passive, is not true: fight is better. Forgive when you could bring legions of angels to the victory.”

— Swami Vivekananda

94. “Above all, India is the land of religion.”

— Swami Vivekananda

95. “Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness.”

— Swami Vivekananda

96. “Never forget that a man is made great and perfect as much by his faults as by his virtues. So we must not seek to rob a nation of its character, even if it could be proved that the character was all faults.”

— Swami Vivekananda

97. “This is the principle of Universal Brotherhood of man with one another, with all life down to the little ants.”

— Swami Vivekananda

98. “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.”

— Swami Vivekananda

99. “Take off the veil of hypnotism which you have cast upon the world, send not out thoughts and words of weakness unto humanity.”

— Swami Vivekananda

100. “It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body – to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.”

— Swami Vivekananda