Swami Vivekananda Quotes on Life
Narendranath Datta, known as Swami Vivekananda, was an Indian Hindu monk and the principal disciple of the mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. This page collects quotes attributed to Swami Vivekananda on the topic of life, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Arise, awake, and stop not until the goal is reached.”
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Attributed to Swami Vivekananda:
“We are what our thoughts have made us.”
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Attributed to Swami Vivekananda:
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.”
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“And may I ask you, Europeans, what country you have ever raised to better conditions? Wherever you have found weaker races, you have exterminated them by the roots, as it were. You have settled on their lands and they are gone forever. What is the history of your America, your Australia and New Zealand, your Pacific Islands and South Africa? Where are those aboriginal races there today? They are all exterminated, you have killed them outright, as if they were wild beasts. It is only where you have not the power to do so, and there only, that other nations are still alive.”
Swami Vivekananda Quoted in Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. -
“A perfect life is a contradiction in terms.”
Swâmi Vivekânanda on Râja Yoga (1899), Ch. VI : Pratyâhâra and Dhâraṇâ