Swami Vivekananda

May blessings and happiness attend every step of your progress in this world.

Just as the body has its progress and decadence, so also has the mind, and, therefore, the mind is not the soul, because the soul can neither decay nor degenerate.

Language is the chief means and index of a nation's progress.

It is the nature of the brute to remain where he is (not to progress); it is the nature of man to seek good and avoid evil; it is the nature of God to seek neither, but just to be eternally blissful. Let us be God!

Do you think there is any other means of achieving progress except through Rajas?

I do not believe in eternal progress, that we are growing on ever and ever in a straight line. It is too nonsensical to believe. There is no motion in a straight line. A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle. The force sent out will complete the circle and return to its starting place.

All progression is in the relative world.

All growth, progress, well - being, or degradation is but relative.

Ay! says the Vedanta, it is not the fault of God that this partiality exists, that this competition exists. Who makes it? We ourselves. There is a cloud shedding its rain on all fields alike. But it is only the field that is well cultivated, which gets the advantage of the shower; another field, which has not been tilled or taken care of cannot get that advantage. It is not the fault of the cloud.

The following story is one which he related recently regarding the practice of fault - finding among creeds: A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. . . .

It is not God's fault. It is our fault that we suffer. Whatever we sow we reap.

In the primal state before any manifestation, when there was no motion but perfect balance, this Prakriti was indestructible, because decomposition or death comes from instability or change.

Motion is always a relative thing. I move in relation to something else. Any particle in this universe can change in relation to any other particle; but take the whole universe as one, and in relation to what can it move? There is nothing besides it. So this infinite Unit is unchangeable, immovable, absolute, and this is the Real Man.

Matter is motion outside, mind is motion inside.

It is the Prana that is manifesting as motion.

A point of rest alone explains motion.

All motion in this universe is in the form of waves, successively rising and falling.

There is no motion in a straight line. A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle.

All motion, either in the body or anywhere else, is the work of this Prana.

Let new India arise out of peasants' cottage, grasping the plough, out of huts, cobbler and sweeper.

It is impossible to think about the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is impossible for a bird to fly on only one wing.