Quotes from Ramakrishna

The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe. Discard the make-believe and take the truth.

God is in all men, but all men are not in God that is why we suffer.

The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.

Work, apart from devotion or love of God, is helpless and cannot stand alone.

If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God.

It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it.

More are the names of God and infinite are the forms through which He may be approached. In whatever name and form you worship Him, through them you will realise Him.

Travel in all the four quarters of the earth, yet you will find nothing anywhere. Whatever there is, is only here.

One must be very particular about telling the truth. Through truth one can realize God.

When one has love for God, one doesn't feel any physical attraction to wife, children, relatives and friends. One retains only compassion for them.

God is everywhere but He is most manifest in man. So serve man as God. That is as good as worshipping God.

To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end.

God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.

A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything.

Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart. Then through his grace one realize him in course of time. God can be seen. One can talk to him as I am talking to you.

If you desire to be pure, have firm faith, and slowly go on with your devotional practices without wasting your energy in useless scriptural discussions and arguments. Your little brain will otherwise be muddled.

Bondage is of the mind freedom too is of the mind. If you say 'I am a free soul. I am a son of God who can bind me' free you shall be.

If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.

Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.

If a man prays to Thee with a yearning heart, he can reach Thee, through Thy grace, by any path.

The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again.

If you meditate on your ideal, you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God.

Great men have the nature of a child.

Forgiveness is the true nature of the ascetic.