Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
A Brahmin is not so much in need of education as a Chandala. If the son of a Brahmin needs one teacher, that of a Chandala needs ten.
Interpretation
Education is essential for everyone, especially for those in disadvantaged positions.
In this quote, Swami Vivekananda highlights the disparity in educational needs between individuals of different social standings. He emphasizes that while the Brahmin, a member of the higher caste, may require less educational support, the Chandala, representing those in marginalized positions, needs significantly more guidance and resources to overcome societal barriers.
In practice
During a seminar discussing social inequalities and educational reforms.
Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Rama, the ancient idol of the heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the ideal husband, and above all, the ideal king, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can be purer, none chaster, none more beautiful, and at the same time simpler, than the language in which the great poet has depicted the life of Rama.
Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists".
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.
I have come to deal with principles. I have only to preach that God comes again and again, and that He came in India as Krishna, Rama, and Buddha, and that He will come again. It can almost be demonstrated that after each 500 years the world sinks, and a tremendous spiritual wave comes, and on the top of the wave is a Christ.
Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people.
A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
The pupil is ... 'schooled' to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new.
The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator.
The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.
Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.
I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.
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