Quotes from Swami Vivekananda

Put God behind everything-human beings, animals, food, and work. Make this a habit.

The Absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle.

We are suffering from our own Karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?. . .

Christians are always wanting God to give them something. They appear as beggars before the throne of the Almighty.

No study has taken so much of human energy, whether in times past or present, as the study of the soul, of God, and of human destiny.

Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.

Immediately you will be perfect, you will become God.

The idea of God grew side by side with the idea of materialism.

Infinite strength is religion and God.

The will is stronger than anything else. Everything must go down before the will, for it comes from God. A pure and strong will is omnipotent.

The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe-the body-is the soul.

Books cannot teach God, but they can destroy ignorance; their action is negative.

To see God is the one goal. Power is not the goal.

Renunciation means that none can serve both God and Mammon.

The God which cannot give me food in this world, cannot give me Heaven in the other world

In whatever name or form they are offered, all these flowers are laid at God's feet, for He is the one Lord of all, the one Soul of all souls.

The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me," say the Hebrew scriptures.

With the attraction for lust and lucre working the other way, how many long for the realisation of God?

The Impersonal God seen through the mists of sense is personal.

Only when a man sees this universe as God does the veil fall from his eyes; then that man, purified and cleansed, finds his whole vision changed.

Know this also to be one of the spiritual practices, a discipline for God - realisation. Its aim also is Self - realisation.

Books never make religions, but religions make books. We must not forget that. No book ever created God, but God inspired all the great books. And no book ever created a soul.

Is God to blame for what I myself have done?

Have faith in Guru, in his teachings, and in the surety that you can get free. Think day and night that this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.