"Perfection is not to be attained, it is already within us."
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Swami Vivekananda quotes (page 36 of 86)
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"If there be no eternal life, still the enjoyment of spiritual thoughts as ideals is keener and makes a man happier, whilst the foolery of materialism leads to competition and undue ambition and ultimate death, individual and national."
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"Thought is like a bubble rising to the surface. When thought is joined to will, we call it power. That which strikes the sick person whom you are trying to help is not thought, but power."
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"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."
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"I am not talking about what every one of us means by love. Little namby-pamby love is lovely. Man rails in love with woman, and woman goes to die for man. The chances are that in five minutes John kicks Jane, and Jane kicks John. This is a materialism and no love at all. If John could really love Jane, he would be perfect that moment."
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"Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies. But the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality."
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"What is the idea of God in heaven? Materialism. The Vedantic idea is the infinite principle of God embodied in every one of us. God sitting up on a cloud! Think of the utter blasphemy of it! It is materialism - downright materialism. When babies think this way, it may be all right, but when grown - up men try to teach such things, it is downright disgusting - that is what it is. It is all matter, all body idea, the gross idea, the sense idea. Every bit of it is clay and nothing but clay. Is that religion?"
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"When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state."
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"Man dies but once. My disciples must not be cowards."
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"Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us."
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"Man cannot be satisfied by wealth. Man cannot go beyond his nature, no more than you can jump out of your body."
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"It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body - to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God."
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"All these ideas such as astrology, although there may be a grain of truth in them, should be avoided."
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"It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity."
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"Religion in India must be made as free and as easy of access as is God's air."
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"Law is death. The more of the law in a country, the worse for the country."
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"The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation."
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"In this world we find that all happiness is followed by misery as its shadow. Life has its shadow, death. They must go together, because they are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but different manifestations of the same unit, life and death, sorrow and happiness, good and evil."
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"Spirituality brings a class of men who lay exclusive claim to the special powers of the world. The immediate effect of this is a reaction towards materialism, which opens the door to scores of exclusive claims, until the time comes when not only all the spiritual powers of the race, but all its material powers and privileges are centred in the hands of a very few; and these few, standing on the necks of the masses of the people, want to rule them. Then society has to help itself, and materialism comes to the rescue."
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"We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds."
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