Swami Vivekananda (also known as Narendranath Datta) was born (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902) in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He was always inclined towards spirituality. He is often credited for introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world. Swami Vivekananda has raised interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He is also best known for his speech which began, “Sisters and brothers of America …,” in which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893. Hope his words of wisdom inspire you to achieve all your dreams. These Swami Vivekananda quotes are collection of strength and self-confidence in life.

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

1. “Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita. These are bold words; but I have to say them, for I love you. I know where the shoe pinches.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes about football
2. “Cowards only sin, brave men never, no, not even in mind.”
3. “Do not figure out big plans at first, but, begin slowly, feel your ground and proceed up and up.”
4.  “Hold on to your own ideal. . . . Above all, never attempt to guide or rule others, or, as the Yankees say, “boss” others. Be the servant of all.”
5. “If you are really my children, you will fear nothing, stop at nothing. You will be like lions. We must rouse India and the whole world. No cowardice. I will take no nay. Do you understand?”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes about India
6. “It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.”
7. “Let people say whatever they like, stick to your own convictions, and rest assured, the world will be at your feet. They say, ‘Have faith in this fellow or that fellow’, but, I say, ‘Have faith in yourself first’. that’s the way.”
8. “Man is born to conquer nature and not to follow it.”
9. “Man never dies, nor is he ever born; bodies die, but he never dies.”
10. “Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin to say that you are weak, or others are weak.”
11. “No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through love, a passion for truth, and tremendous energy, that all undertakings are accomplished.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes on love
12. “No need for looking behind. FORWARD! We want infinite energy, infinite zeal, infinite courage, and infinite patience, then only will great things achieved.”
13. “Oh, if only you knew yourselves! You are souls; you are Gods. If ever I feel like blaspheming, it is when I call you man.”
14. “Pay no attention whatsoever to newspaper nonsense or criticism. Be sincere and do your duty. Everything will come all right. Truth must triumph.”
15. 
16. “Perfect sincerity, holiness, gigantic intellect, and all-conquering will. Let only a handful of men work with these, and the whole world will be revolutionized.”
17. “Persevere on, my brave lads, We have only just begun. Never despond! Never say enough!”
18. “Purity, patience and perseverance overcome all obstacles. All great things must of necessity be slow.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes best
19. “Say, “I can do everything.” “Even if poison of a snake is powerless if you can firmly deny it.”
20. Say, “This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone.”
21. “Take courage and work on. Patience and steady work— this is the only way.”
22. “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”   , Swami Vivekananda quotes dreams
23. “Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.
    Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.
    Love is Life, Hatred is Death.”
24. “The earth is enjoyed by heroes— this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, ‘I have no fear’.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes be a hero
25. “The remedy for weakness is not brooding over weakness, but thinking of strength.”
26. “Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work.”
27. “Be not in despair, the way is very difficult, like walking on the edge of a razor; yet despair not, arise, awake, and find the ideal, the goal.”
28. “To work with undaunted energy! What fear! Who is powerful enough to thwart you.”
29. “Calm and silent and steady work, and no newspaper humbug, no name-making, you must always remember.”
30. “Come out into the broad open light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts? Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you ever felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.”
31. “Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.”
32. “We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”
33. “We reap what we sow; We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.”
34. “Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be; if you think yourselves impure, impure you will be; if you think yourselves pure, pure you will be.”
35. “Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes on education
36. “What makes one man great and another weak and low is concentration.”
37. “A nation is advanced in proportion to education and intelligence spread among the masses.”
38. “Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream.”
39. “All that man has to do is to take care of three things; good thought, good word, good deed.”
40. “Neither numbers nor powers nor wealth nor learning nor eloquence nor anything else will prevail, but purity, living the life, in one word, anubhuti, realisation. Let there be a dozen such lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth nor power nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.”
41. Swami Vivekananda quotes arise awake,
42. “Slave wants power to make slaves.”
43. “Infinite patience, infinite purity and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good cause.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes on success
44. “Instinct is like ice, reason is the water, and inspiration is the subtlest form of vapour.”
45. “Who is Helping You, Don’t Forget them Who is Loving you, Don’t Hate them.”
46. “Who is Believing you, Don’t Cheat them.”
47. “Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison.”
48. “Talk to yourself at least once in a Day.. Otherwise you may miss a meeting with an EXCELLENT person in this World.”
49. “Relationships are more important than life, but it is important for those relationships to have life in them.”
50. “You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.”   , Swami Vivekananda quotes about students
51. “Like me or Hate me,
    both are in my favor,
    If you like me I am in your Heart,
    If you hate me I am in your mind.”
52. “By the study of different religions we find that in essence they are one.”
53. “Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.”
54. “Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals place them day and night before you and out of that will come great work.”
55. “To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. ‘I will drink the ocean’, says the persevering soul, ‘at my will mountains will crumble up.’ Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.”
56. “The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.”
57. “The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.”
58. “You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.”
59. “If I, as an Oriental have to worship Jesus of Nazareth, there is only one way, that is, to worship him as God and nothing else.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes about Jesus
60. “The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.”
61. “When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.”
62. “It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.”
63. “This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells — that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one’s spiritual Self.”
64. “Good Motive, Sincerity and Infinite love can conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of hypocrites and brutes.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes about love
65. “Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.”
66. “I am the thread that runs through all these pearls, and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.”
67. “Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.”
68. “Go on bravely. Do not expect success in a day or a year. Always hold on to the highest. Be steady. Avoid jealousy and selfishness. Be obedient and eternally faithful to the cause of truth, humanity, and your country, and you will move the world.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes country
69. “Have faith in yourselves, and stand up on that faith and be strong; that is what we need.”
70. “Each work has to pass through these stages — ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.”
71. “If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word ‘fearlessness’.”
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73. “A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.”
74. “Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes character
75. “Do not believe in a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe in a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.”
76. “The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.”
77. “The greatest source of strength for any society is its faith in God. The day it renounces such faith will be the day that society begins to die.”
78. “Strength is the sign of vigor, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, and the sign of everything that is good. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, strength in the hand.”
79. “What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.”
80. “Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege.”
81. “Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.”
82. “As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves.”
83. “Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow— never a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.”
84. “Society does not go down because of the activities of criminals,
    But because of the inactivities of the good people.”
85. “Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?”
86. “The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.”
87. “As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?”
88. “Our duty is to encourage everyone in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes on duty
89. “This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.”
90. “Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.”
91. “If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.”
92. “The will is not free – it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect – but there is something behind the will which is free.”
93. “We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.”
94. “If we really want to be blessed, and make others blessed, we must go deeper. The first step is not to disturb the mind, not to associate with persons whose ideas are disturbing.”
95. “Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes destiny
96. “Take courage and work on. Patience and steady work–this is the only way. Go on. Remember–patience and purity and courage and steady work. So long as you are true and pure, you will never fail. Mother will never leave you. All blessings will be on you.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes on work
97. “Stand upon the Self, only then can we truly love the world. Take a very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world.”
98. “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man, and character is the test of that manifestation.”
    

    More Swami Vivekananda Quotes

99. “Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.”
100. “If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.”
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102. “All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.”
103. “Give me a few men and women who are pure and selfless, and I shall shake the world.”
104. “We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.”
105. “Truth, Purity, Unselfishness wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the Sun to crush the possessor thereof.”
106. “He who always thinks himself as weak will never become strong, but he who knows himself to be a lion, rushes out from the worlds meshes, as a lion from its cage.”
107. “God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.”
108. “Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.”
109. “When I asked God for peace
110. He showed me how to help others
111. God gave me nothing I wanted
112. He gave me everything I needed.”   , Swami Vivekananda quotes god gave me nothing
113. “The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.”
114. “Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.”
115. “This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. If all of us think for the society and the country, all our problems will be solved.”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes about life
116. “Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.”
117. “Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse. If superstition enters, the brain is gone.”
118. “This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death. “
119. “It is our mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds.”
120. “This I have seen in life those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.”
121. “Everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is aroused to self conscious.”
122. “If you can think that infinite power, infinite knowledge and indomitable energy lie within you, and if you can bring out that power, you also can become like me.”
123. “Infinite patience, infinite purity, and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good cause.”
124. “We make our own luck.”
125. “Everything is easy when you are busy. But nothing is easy when you are lazy.”
126. “Do not lower your goals to the level of your abilities. Instead, raise your abilities to the height of your goals.“
127. “Never say NO, Never say, ‘I cannot’, for you are INFINITE. All the power is WITHIN you. You can do anything.”
128. “Take Risks in Your Life If you Win, U Can Lead! If You Lose, You can Guide!”  , Swami Vivekananda quotes on leadership
129. “If the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, It is no more Absolute; It has become finite.”
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131. “I hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense. I do not believe in any politics. God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash.”
132. “I want each one of my children to be a hundred times greater than I could ever be. Everyone of you must be a giant— must, that is my word. Obedience, readiness, and love for the cause— if you have these three, nothing can hold you back.”
133. “When I asked God for strength, He gave me difficult situations to face.”
134. “Do not be afraid of a small beginning. great things come afterwards. Be courageous. Do not try to lead your brethren, but serve them. The brutal mania for leading has sunk many a great ships in the waters of life. Take care especially of that, i.e. be unselfish even unto death, and work.”
135. “When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for the time being.”
136. “The brain and muscles must develop simultaneously. Iron nerves with an intelligent brain — and the whole world is at your feet.”
137. “If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished—mountains can be crumbled into atoms.”
138. “We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful toward those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be indifferent. These attitudes will make the mind peaceful.”   , Swami Vivekananda quotes on friendship
139. “Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are soul-immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; you are not matter, you are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.”
140. “We want to worship a living God. I have not seen anything but God all my life, nor have you… He is everywhere, Saying, “I am”. The moment you feel “I am,” you are conscious of Existence. Where shall we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being?”
141. “All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”
142. “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.”
143. “Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came.”
144. “Relationships are more important than life, but it is important for those relationships to have life in them.”

Interesting facts about Swami Vivekananda:-

• Ramakrishna Deva Swami’s Guru taught him ‘service to God could be rendered by service to mankind’
• Vivekananda is highly regarded as a patriotic saint and his birthday is celebrated as National Youth Day, in India
• His father, Vishwanath Datta, was an attorney at the Calcutta High Court
• In those days, in 1884 he had Bachelor of Arts degree and he was very proud of it
• He wasn’t great at academics. He scored a mere 47% in the entrance level examination of university, followed by just 46% in FA, which was later named as IA or Intermediate Arts. In B.A. however, he performed slightly better by scoring 56%.
• Narendranath Datta(Swami Vivekananda) would often lie to his mother about lunch invitation from his friends. In reality there were no such invitations and he would simple get out of house so that the other members of his family could eat his share of food. He used to literally starve himself because of financial instability and scarcity of food