Swami Vivekananda Motivational Quotations [Page 2]

Everything will come right if you are pure and sincere. We want hundreds like you bursting upon society and bringing new life and vigor of the spirit wherever they go.

For the next fifty years this alone shall be our keynote - this, our great Mother India. Let all other vain gods disappear for the time from our minds. This is the only god that is awake, our own race - "everywhere his hands, everywhere his feet, everywhere his ears, he covers everything." All other gods are sleeping. What vain gods shall we go after and yet cannot worship the god that we see all round us, the Virât? When we have worshiped this, we shall be able to worship all other gods.

Advaita is the only system that gives us complete control over ourselves, takes off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run, attain to absolute freedom.

Dependence is misery. Independence is happiness.

Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work. The moment you fear, you are nobody. Be a hero. Always say, 'I have no fear'. Tell this to everybody-'Have no fear'.

Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.

Bold has been my message to the people of the west, bolder is my message to you, my beloved countryman.

I love my nation, I cannot see you degraded, weakened any more than you are now. Therefore I am bound for your sake and for truth's to cry, "Hold!" and to raise my voice against this degradation of my race. Give up these weakening mysticism and be strong...

For a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil. The warrior confronted with such a war should be pleased, Arjuna, for it comes as an open gate to heaven. But if you do not participate in this battle against evil, you will incur sin, violating your dharma and your honor.

The truths of Upanishadas are before you. Take them up, live up to them, and the salvation of Bharat will be at hand.

We have wept enough. No more weeping, but stand on feet and be men.

I am one of the proudest men ever born, but let me tell you frankly, it is not for myself, but on account of my ancestry. The more I have studied the past, the more I have looked back, more and more has this pride come to me, and it has given me the strength and courage of conviction, raised me up from the dust of the earth, and set me working out that great plan laid out by those great ancestors of ours.

To me the thought of oneself as low and humble is a sin and ignorance.

None will be able to resist truth and love and sincerity. Are you sincere? Unselfish even unto death, and loving? Then fear not, not even death.

Do not say we are weak; we can do anything and everything. What can we not do? Everything can be done by us; we all have the same glorious soul, let us believe in it.

Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone lies the way to Devayana (the way to the gods). Those who think that a little sugar - coating of untruth helps the spread of truth are mistaken and will find in the long run that a single drop of poison poisons the whole mass ... The man who is pure, and who dares, does all things.

We must travel; we must go to foreign parts. We must see how the engine of society works in other countries, and keep free and open communication with what is going on in the minds of other nations, if we really want to be a nation again.

A nation is not to be judged by its weaklings called the wicked, as they are only the weeds which lag behind, but by the good, the noble, and the pure, who indicate the national life current flowing clear and vigorous.

Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny. Pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich.

If you are pure, if you are strong, you, one man are equal to the whole world.

Pay no attention whatsoever to newspaper nonsense or criticism. Be sincere and do your duty. Everything will come all right. Truth must triumph.

Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep?

You are strong, omnipotent, and omniscient. No matter that you have not expressed it yet, it is in you. All knowledge is in you, all power, all purity, and all freedom-why cannot you express this knowledge? Because you do not believe in it... Believe in it, and it must and will come out.

No one step back, that is the idea.... Fight it out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the sphere! Let the whole world stand against us!.... What of it? Thus fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards.... Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune.

Every idea that strengthens you must be taken up and every thought that weakens you must be rejected.

What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is man-making theories that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want.

God is true. The universe is a dream. Blessed am I that I know this moment that I have been and shall be free all eternity; ... that I know that I am worshiping only myself; that no nature, no delusion, had any hold on me. Vanish nature from me, vanish these gods; vanish worship; ... vanish superstitions, for I know myself. I am the Infinite. All these - Mrs. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, responsibility, happiness, misery - have vanished. I am the Infinite. How can there be death for me, or birth? Whom shall I fear? I am the One. Shall I be afraid of myself? Who is to be afraid of whom?...

Proclaim the glory of the Atman with the roar of a lion, and impart fearlessness unto all beings by saying, 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached'!

Go and preach to all, 'Arise, awake, sleep no more: within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries. Believe this, and that power will be manifested.

Above all, beware of compromises. I do not mean that you are to get into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others "fads" thought the greed of getting supporters.

Always keep the mind cheerful. Everyone will die once. Cowards suffer the pangs of death again and again, solely due to the fear in their own minds.

To succeed, you must have tremendous perserverance... tremendous will. "I will drink the ocean", says the perservering soul; at my will mountains will crumble. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.

Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything ... Those who really want to be yogis must give up, once and for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.

No one is ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion, which arouses the internal teacher, who helps us to understand things.