Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
God is very merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for spiritual realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Spiritual effort is essential to receive divine grace; idleness will not bring enlightenment.
In this quote, Swami Vivekananda emphasizes that divine mercy and grace are directed towards those who sincerely strive for spiritual growth. A passive approach to spirituality will not yield results, as genuine effort and struggle are necessary to connect with the higher self and attain realization.
Themes
SpiritualityStruggleEffortGraceMercy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about the importance of taking action in pursuing one's goals.
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
On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.
AdyashantiRead
Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx.
Hannah ArendtRead
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, The woman will be out. — Adieu, my lord! I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it.
William ShakespeareRead
When there is in nature no fixed condition, how much less must there be in the life of a people, beings endowed with mobility and movement!
Jose RizalRead
Don't worry so much where you live but how you live. Make the family of man your family as well.
Edgar CayceRead