Swami Vivekananda

If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else is mere moonshine.

This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.

Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality and love of God.

We first observe facts, then generalise, and then draw conclusions or principles.

The only way to study the mind is to get at facts, and then intellect will arrange them and deduce the principles.

Prana, according to the Vedanta, is the principle of life. It is like ether, an omnipresent principle; and all motion, either in the body or anywhere else, is the work of this Prana. It is greater than Akasha, and through it everything lives. Prana is in the mother, in the father, in the sister, in the teacher, Prana is the knower.

Principles must conquer in the long run, for that is the manhood of man.

There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.

What we want is progress, development, realisation.

The very idea of an infinite in place would be a contradiction in terms, as a place must begin and continue in time.

We shall progress inch by inch.

We know there is no progress in a straight line.

The progress and civilisation of the human race simply mean controlling this nature.

The progress of the world means more enjoyment and more misery too.

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

Take any path you like; follow any prophet you like; but have only that method which suits your own nature, so that you will be sure to progress.

I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.

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.

When you feel gloomy, think what has been done within the last year. How, rising from nothing.

Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.

The bane of sects, especially in Bengal, is that if any one happens to have a different opinion, he immediately starts a new sect, he has no patience to wait.