Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
As long as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some form of religion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit of meaning and understanding in life necessitates a continual struggle, often found through religion.
This quote by Swami Vivekananda highlights the inherent struggle that comes from human thought and consciousness. It suggests that as long as humanity seeks answers to existential questions, there will be an ongoing need for some form of religion or belief system to help navigate these complexities and provide a framework for understanding the human experience.
Themes
StruggleReligionThoughtMeaningExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of spirituality in personal development.
More from Swami Vivekananda
All quotes βRama, 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
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
Baruch SpinozaRead
I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words. I scatter them... in time, and space. A message to lead myself here.
Russell T DaviesRead
Awareness isnβt something we own; awareness isnβt something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.
AdyashantiRead
There is a big difference between an honest mistake made in a moment of spiritual weakness and a willfull decision to disobey persistently the commandments of God. Those who deliberately choose to violate God's commandments or ignore the standards of the Church, even when promising themselves and others that someday they will be strong enough to repent, are stepping into a dangerously slippery slope upon which many have lost their spiritual footing.
M. Russell BallardRead
If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Winston ChurchillRead
The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.
Mortimer AdlerRead