The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1 Quotes

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, 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, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga Also Pantanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries, and Glossary of Sa”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1

“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.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1

“In every religion there are three parts: philosophy, mythology, and ritual. Philosophy”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“if you want to do a great or a good work, do not trouble to think what the result will be.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1

“Here is a bad odour. It will bring me unhappiness as soon as it touches my nose. I am the slave of my nose. If I am not its slave, I do not care. A man curses me. His curses enter my ears and are retained in my mind and body. If I am the master, I shall say: "Let these things go; they are nothing to me. I am not miserable. I do not bother." This is the outright, pure, simple, clear-cut truth.”
― Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than praise.”
― Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“Aye, born heir to the infinite thou art,
within the heart is the ocean of love,
"give, give away," - whoever asks return,
his ocean dwindles down to a mere drop.

From the highest brahman to the yonder worm,
and to the very minutest atom,
Everywhere is the same god, the all-love;
Friend, offer mind, soul, body, at their feet.

These are his manifold forms before thee,
rejecting them, where seekest thou for god?
who loves all beings, without distinction,
he indeed is worshipping best his god.

Vivekananda”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“Man has infinite power within himself, and he can realise it - he can realise himself as the one infinite Self. It can be done; but you do not believe it. You pray to God and keep your powder dry all the time.
“The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3573, Manonmani Publishers”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“Now and then we know a moment of supreme bliss, when we ask nothing, give nothing, know nothing but bliss. Then it passes, and we again see the panorama of the universe moving before us; and we know that it is but a mosaic work set upon God, who is the background of all things. Vedanta teaches that nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self, and after having once known that, if only for an instant, never again can one be deluded by the mirage of personality. Having eyes, we must see the apparent, but all the time we know what it is; we have found out its true nature. It is the screen that hides the Self, which is unchanging. The screen opens and we find the Self behind it. All change is the screen. In the saint the screen is thin, and the reality can almost shine through. In the sinner the screen is thick, and we are able to lose sight of the truth that the atman [Self] is there, as well as behind the saint’s screen. When the screen is wholly removed, we find it never existed—that we were the atman and nothing else, even the screen is forgotten.

The two phases of this distinction in life are: First, that the man, who knows the real Self, will not be affected by anything; secondly, that that man alone can do good to the world. That man alone will have seen the real motive of doing good to others, because there is only one. It cannot be called egoistic, because that would be differentiation. It is only selflessness. It is the perception of the universal, not of the individual. Every case of love and sympathy is an assertion of this universal. “Not I, but thou.” Help another, because you are in him and he is in you, is the philosophical way of putting it. The real Vedantist alone will give up his life for a fellow being without any compunction, because he knows he will not die. As long as there is one insect left in the world, he is living; as long as one mouth eats, he eats. So he goes on doing good to others, and is never hindered by the modern ideas of caring for the body. When a man reaches this point of abnegation, he goes beyond the moral struggle, beyond everything. He sees in the most learned priest, in the cow, in the dog, in the most miserable places, neither the learned man, nor the cow, nor the dog, nor the miserable place, but the same divinity manifesting itself in them all. He alone is the happy man; and the man who has acquired that sameness has, even in this life, conquered all existence. God is pure; therefore such a man is said to be living in God.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1

“For one kiss of Thy lips, O Beloved! One who has been kissed by Thee, has his thirst for Thee increasing for ever, all his sorrows vanish, and he forgets all things except Thee alone." Aspire after that kiss of the Beloved, that touch of His lips which makes the devotee mad, which makes of man a god. To him, who has been blessed with such a kiss, the whole of nature changes, worlds vanish, suns and moons die out, and the universe itself melts away into that one infinite ocean of love. That is the perfection of the madness of love.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: Volume 1