Vivekananda's Quotes

Work a little harder at meditation and it comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system.

Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.

Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.

Work unto death—I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes—wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!

Worship of society and popular opinions is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

You must avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.

You, as body, mind, or soul, are a dream, but what you really are, is Being, Consciousness, Bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating the whole universe and drawing it in.

Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of? 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.