19 quotes of Swami Vivekananda every Indian must know by heart
He belongs to the club of greats who transcend all kinds of quality criteria; he always stands beyond the limits of ideologies and political thought. Swami Vivekananda decorates a one-of-its-kind space in the history of modern India as a legendary saint, great social reformer, spiritual master of Indian revolution, and a fantastic raconteur who chilled the masses with his impeccable oratory skills.
He is the man extraordinaire who ruled the public platforms of India and the US in the 19th century. He was the one who first presented the idea of India to an international audience at the Parliament World’s Religions in 1893 through his historic speech which has been widely celebrated as the "Great Chicago Speech of the Hurricane Hindu" since then.
Substance must follow grandiloquent oratories, and it was a perfect fit in the case of Vivekananda as his well-crafted words were bold enough to revive the spirit of Vedic India in the minds of Indian youth.
For people of all time, his words offer an unending source of inspiration to move on in life. On the occasion of his 154th birth anniversary (January 12), here’s a collection of Swami Vivekananda’s inspiring quotes that will force you to look at life from an entirely different dimension. These quotes will make you cheerful and undefeated.
1) Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life.
2) What makes one man great and another weak and low is shraddha (concentration).
3) Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.
4) A nation is advanced in proportion to education and intelligence spread among the masses.
5) Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream.
6) All that man has to do is to take care of three things; good thought, good word, good deed.
7) Slave wants power to make slaves.
8) If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.
9) Infinite patience, infinite purity and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good cause.
10) Instinct is like ice, reason is the water, and inspiration is the subtlest form of vapour.
11) He who can become mad with an idea, he alone sees light.
12) All the strength and succour you want is within yourself. Therefore make your own future.
13) Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison.
14) Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others.
15) Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.
16) The greatest religion is to be true to your own future.
17) Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.
18) Self-sacrifice, indeed, is the basis of all civilisations.
19) If the poor cannot come to education, education must reach them, at the plough, in the bakery factory, elsewhere.
Also read: Why Swami Vivekananda still matters