Swami Vivekananda, born on January 12, 1863, was an Indian Hindu monk and a chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Swami Vivekananda was one of the reasons Vedanta and Yoga were introduced to the western world. He is also one of the reasons why Hinduism is widely accepted in the western part of the word. He also helped revive Hinduism in India and contributed to the Nationalism in Colonial India. Swami Vivekananda was a modern Hindu Saint and a strong follower of the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. He was known as a disciple of Ramakrishna, which led him to found the Belur Math, Ramakrishna Math, and Ramakrishna Mission.

Swami Vivekananda is the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. He is widely known for his speech at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893, where he started his speech with “Sisters and brothers of America.” He introduced Hinduism to the world during that day, at one of the biggest platforms in the world. In India, Swami Vivekananda is considered a patriotic saint, and his birthday is celebrated as National Youth Day. The Indian government decided to Swami Vivekananda’s Gregorian date of birth as National Youth Day since 1985.

Vivekananda Quotes On Life

1. Take up one idea; make that one idea your life. Think of it, a dream of it, Live on that idea let the brain, 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.
2. Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the faults you suffer from, you are the sole and only cause.
3. Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own way adsorb it; do not become others.
4. Meditation can turn fools into sages but unfortunately, fools never meditate.
5. All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that. Do not believe that you are weak; do to believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. Stand up and express the divinity within you.
6. Take risks in your life, If you win, you can lead! If you lose, you can guide!
7. Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth.
8. Take up one idea, make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, Live on that idea let the brain, 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.
9. In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.
10. We are what our thought have made us; So take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

Swami Vivekananda Famous Quotes

1. You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
2. Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship or psychic control, or philosophy—by one, or more, or all of these—and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.
3. So long as even a single dog in my country is without food my whole religion is to feed it and serve it, anything excluding that is unreligious.
4. Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.
5. Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.
6. Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man.
7. Civilization is the manifestation of the natural strength in man.
8. Service to man is the true service to God.
9. To stir up the religious awareness of the masses and generate pride in their legacy.
10. To amalgamate Hinduism by highlighting the common bases of its sects.

10 Best Quotes From Swami Vivekananda

1. Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.
2. Take up an idea, devote yourself to it, struggle on in patience, and the sun will rise for you, Swami Vivekananda had said.
3. This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.
4. If I do an evil action, I must suffer for it; there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it.
5. After so much austerity I have known that the highest truth is this: He is present in every being! These are all in manifold forms of him, Swami Vivekanada had said.
6. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God, who serves all beings!
7. Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.
8. India is immortal if she persists in her search for God. But if she goes in for politics and social conflict, she will die.
9. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone-“Have no fear,” Swami Vivekananda had said.
10. To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

Swami Vivekananda Famous Speech At The World’s Parliament Of Religions In Chicago On 11 September 1893

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us.

I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration.

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.

I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.

I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny.

I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.

I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

“As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita:

“Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me.”

Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.

But their time has come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.