Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea; O Lord, so the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Despite our differing journeys in life, we all ultimately seek the same truth or divine essence.
This quote by Swami Vivekananda illustrates the idea that, although people may follow diverse paths in life, driven by various desires and inclinations, they eventually converge towards a singular truth or understanding of the divine. Just as streams from various sources flow together into the sea, so too do our unique experiences and beliefs unite in pursuit of a higher purpose or spiritual realization.
Themes
PathsJourneySpiritualityUnityDiversityTruth
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about faith and spirituality, this quote can emphasize the idea that different religions lead to a common understanding.
More from Swami Vivekananda
All quotes →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.
Swami VivekanandaRead
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".
Swami VivekanandaRead
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.
Swami VivekanandaRead
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.
Swami VivekanandaRead
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.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Similar quotes
Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.
Alexander HamiltonRead
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act.
Robert JacksonRead
This moment - the one you're experiencing right now - is the culmination of all the moments you have experienced in the past. This moment is as it is because the entire universe is as it is.
Deepak ChopraRead
There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
I will call not just on Israel, but on the Palestinians, on the Arab States, and the international community to join us in this effort, because the burden of making hard choices must not be Israel’s alone.
Barack ObamaRead
The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship
Jonathan HaidtRead