Quotes from Swami Vivekananda

All the work you do, is done for your own salvation, is done for your own benefit.

Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.

It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work.

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.

What makes a man stand up and work? Strength. Strength is goodness, weakness is sin.

Each nation has its own peculiar method of work. Some work through politics, some through social reforms, some through other lines. With us, religion is the only ground along which we can move.

Every wave of passion restrained is a balance in your favor. It is therefore good policy not to return anger for anger, as with all true morality.

Is there no room for art in the spoken language? What is the use of creating an unnatural language to the exclusion of the natural one?

High achievements in art, music, etc., are the results of concentration.

Every artist paints his Madonna according to his own pre-conceived ideas.

In art, interest must be centred on the principal theme.

The sculptor, the painter the musician the dancer, or any artist, if he can first obtain celebrate in Paris, acquires very easily the esteem and eulogy of other countries.

As thou thinkest, so art thou.

Stand in that reverent attitude to the whole universe, and then will come perfect non attachment.

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

Perfection can never be attained by work.

I am a slave of Ramakrishna, who left his work to be done by me and will not give me rest till I have finished it. And oh, how shall I speak of him? Oh, his love for me!

All motion, either in the body or anywhere else, is the work of this Prana.

In every attempt there will be one set of men who will applaud, and another who will pick holes. Go on doing your own work, what need have you to reply to any party?

All these practices and struggles to become religious are only negative work, to take off the bars, and open the doors to that perfection which is our birthright, our nature.

Moths like me die by the thousands every minute. Her work goes on all the same. Glory unto Mother!

Even the least work done for others awakens the power within.

As soon as we identify ourselves with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we do not identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery.

When the last moment arrives, praise and blame will be the same to you, to me, and to others. We are here to work, and will have to leave all when the call comes.