Wherever in any society there are too many laws, it is a sure sign that that society will soon die. If you study the characteristics of India, you will find that no nation possesses so many laws as the Hindus, and national death is the result.
You must keep a strict eye on your health; let everything else be subordinated to that.
A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.
Go on bravely. Do not expect success in a day or a year. Always hold on to the highest. Be steady. Avoid jealousy and selfishness. Be obedient and eternally faithful to the cause of truth, humanity, and your country, and you will move the world.
If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished – mountains can be crumbled into atoms.
We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.
All the powers in the universe are already ours.
Anything that is western origin, first you verify it, then accept it. Anything that is Indian origin, first accept it, then verify it if necessary.
God is very merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for spiritual realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.
Be moral. Be brave. Be a heart-whole man, strictly moral, brave unto desperation. Don’t bother your head with religious theories. Cowards only sin, brave men never, no, not even in mind.
The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.
You see, no one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge-even in a boy it is so-and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher.
Never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.
We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
Work unto death! I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes; wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!
Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.
My countrymen should have nerves of steel, muscles of iron, and minds like thunderbolt.
My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation. Out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem like lions.
I stand for truth. Truth will never ally itself with falsehood. Even if all the world should be against me, Truth must prevail in the end.
Religion is the life of India, religion is the language of this country, the symbol of all its movements.