Top 500 Swami Vivekananda Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.”

— Swami Vivekananda

352. “The Indian mythology has a theory of cycles, that all progression is in the form of waves.”

— Swami Vivekananda

353. “Body is the name of a series of changes.”

— Swami Vivekananda

354. “Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.”

— Swami Vivekananda

355. “Each soul is a star and all stars are set in the infinite azure, the eternal sky-the Lord.”

— Swami Vivekananda

356. “External nature is only internal nature writ large.”

— Swami Vivekananda

357. “Every action that helps us manifest our divine nature more and more is good; every action that retards it is evil.”

— Swami Vivekananda

358. “We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist until man’s character changes.”

— Swami Vivekananda

359. “Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya.”

— Swami Vivekananda

360. “My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation. Out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem like lions.”

— Swami Vivekananda

361. “Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And this truth is with us!”

— Swami Vivekananda

362. “If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.”

— Swami Vivekananda

363. “Knowledge of the Absolute depends upon no book, nor upon anything; it is absolute in itself. No amount of study will give this knowledge; is not theory, it is realization. Cleanse the dust from the mirror, purify your own mind, and in a flash you know that you are Brahman.”

— Swami Vivekananda

364. “Advaita is the only system that gives us complete control over ourselves, takes off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run, attain to absolute freedom.”

— Swami Vivekananda

365. “I hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense.”

— Swami Vivekananda

366. “The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material condition and feel our divine nature.”

— Swami Vivekananda

367. “As thou thinkest, so art thou.”

— Swami Vivekananda

368. “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.”

— Swami Vivekananda

369. “Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom-physical, mental, and spiritual-and help others to do so.”

— Swami Vivekananda

370. “If you have knowledge and see a man weak, do not condemn him. Go to his level and help him if you can. He must grow.”

— Swami Vivekananda

371. “So long as we perceive this world in motion, we have to conceive will behind it.”

— Swami Vivekananda

372. “By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in our hands now, we make ourselves stronger; and improving our strength in this manner step by step, we may reach a state in which it shall be our privilege to do the most coveted and honored duties in life and in society.”

— Swami Vivekananda

373. “Have faith in yourself. You people were once the Vedic Rishis. Only, you have come in different forms, that’s all. I see it clear as daylight that you all have infinite power in you. Rouse that up; arise, arise – apply yourselves heart and soul, gird up your loins.”

— Swami Vivekananda

374. “According to the Hindu way of thinking, marriage is rather a duty than a privilege.”

— Swami Vivekananda

375. “The Upanishads do not reveal the life of any teacher, but simply teach principles.”

— Swami Vivekananda

376. “It is the Prana that is manifesting as motion.”

— Swami Vivekananda

377. “As the cause is, so the effect will be Cause is never different from effect, the effect is but the cause reproduced in another form.”

— Swami Vivekananda

378. “No two persons have the same mind or the same body.”

— Swami Vivekananda

379. “Man, therefore, according to the Vedanta philosophy, is the greatest being that is in the universe.”

— Swami Vivekananda

380. “Religion in India culminates in freedom.”

— Swami Vivekananda

381. “Change is always in regard to something which does not change, or which changes relatively less.”

— Swami Vivekananda

382. “I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread. The other system has been tried and found wanting.”

— Swami Vivekananda

383. “Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward.”

— Swami Vivekananda

384. “Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.”

— Swami Vivekananda

385. “So long as even a single dog in my country is without food, my whole religion will be to feed it.”

— Swami Vivekananda

386. “Say to your own minds, “I am He, I am He”. Let it ring day and night in your minds like a song, and at the point of death declare : “I am He”. That is truth; the infinite strength of the world is yours.”

— Swami Vivekananda

387. “Man is guided by the stomach. He walks and the stomach goes first and the head afterwards. Have you not seen that? It will take ages for the head to go first.”

— Swami Vivekananda

388. “Women will work out their destinies – much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.”

— Swami Vivekananda

389. “Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.”

— Swami Vivekananda

390. “Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.”

— Swami Vivekananda

391. “As soon as extreme attachment comes, a man loses himself, he is no more master of himself, he is a slave.”

— Swami Vivekananda

392. “The waters of the Ganga are roaring among his matted locks.”

— Swami Vivekananda

393. “Marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the welfare of the nation and the caste.”

— Swami Vivekananda

394. “We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.”

— Swami Vivekananda

395. “We never change, we never die, and we are never born.”

— Swami Vivekananda

396. “Self-love is the first teacher of self-renunciation.”

— Swami Vivekananda

397. “Know that every time you feel weak, you not only hurt yourself but also the cause. Infinite faith and strength are the only conditions of success.”

— Swami Vivekananda

398. “Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others.”

— Swami Vivekananda

399. “Purusha is the; great attraction of the universe; though untouched by and unconnected with the universe, yet it attracts the whole; universe.”

— Swami Vivekananda

400. “Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral. Try to be moral, try to be brave, try to be sympathising.”

— Swami Vivekananda