Swami Vivekananda Quotes About Struggle

• If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Men, Burning

  Swami Vivekananda (1995). “Prabuddha Bharata: Or Awakened India”

• He who struggles is better than he who never attempts

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle

  Swami Vivekananda (1963). “Selections from Swami Vivekananda”

• Religion is not an imitation of Jesus or Mohammed. Even if an imitation is good, it is never genuine. Be not an imitation of Jesus, but be Jesus, You are quite as great as Jesus, Buddha, or anybody else. If we are not ... we must struggle and be. I would not be exactly like Jesus. It is unnecessary that I should be born a Jew.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Jesus, Struggle, Unnecessary

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.438, Manonmani Publishers

• Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the result of this struggle for freedom.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Men, Soul

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Karma Yoga: The Yoga of Action”, p.64, Advaita Ashrama

• 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.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Spiritual, Struggle, Heart

  "Pearls of Wisdom". Book by Swami Vivekananda, edited by the Ramakrishna Mission, 2010.

• Our misery comes, not from work, but by our getting attached to something. Take for instance, money: money is a great thing to have, earn it, says Krishna; struggle hard to get money, but don't get attached to it. So with children, with wife, husband, relatives, fame, everything; you have no need to shun them, only don't get attached. There is only one attachment and that belongs to the Lord, and to none other.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Children, Husband, Struggle

  Swami Vivekananda, Ann Myren (1993). “Living at the Source: Yoga Teachings of Vivekananda”, Shambhala Publications

• Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow-never a man. So 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.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Mistake, Lying, Struggle

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.606, Manonmani Publishers

• It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Character, Humanity

  "Pearls of Wisdom". Book by Swami Vivekananda, edited by the Ramakrishna Mission, 2010.

• Patanjali, declares that the true secret of evolution is the manifestation of the perfection which is already in every being; that this perfection has been barred and the infinite tide behind is struggling to express itself. These struggles and competitions are but the results of our ignorance, because we do not know the proper way to unlock the gate and let the water in. This infinite tide behind must express itself; it is the cause of all manifestation.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Ignorance, Water

  Swami Vivekananda (2012). “Raja Yoga (Annotated Edition)”, p.143, Jazzybee Verlag

• Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing not in believing, but in being and becoming.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Believe, Struggle, Doe

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Swami Vivekanand's Chicago Speech: Swami Vivekananda’s Speech At World Parliament Of Religion, Chicago”, p.13, editionNEXT.com

• Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Inspirational, Time, Truth

  Swami Vivekananda (1974). “Karma Yoga”, p.9, Jazzybee Verlag

• Take up an idea, devote yourself to it, struggle on in patience, and the sun will rise for you.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Patience, Struggle, Ideas

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2629, Manonmani Publishers

• As long as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some form of religion.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Men, Thinking

  Swami Vivekananda (2016). “Jnana Yoga (Part II): The Yoga of Knowledge (Art of Living)”, p.5, editionNEXT.com

• Each one of us reaps what we ourselves have sown. These miseries under which we suffer, these bondages under which we struggle, have been caused by ourselves, and none else in the universe is to blame. God is the least to blame for it.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Suffering, Misery

  Swami Vivekananda (1995). “Prabuddha Bharata: Or Awakened India”

• Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Men, Long

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge”, p.9, editionNEXT.com

• Struggle hard and then if you do not succeed, you are not to blame. Let the world praise or blame you. Let all the wealth of the earth come to your feet, or let you be made the poorest on earth. Let death come this moment or hundreds of years hence. Swerve not from the path you have taken. All good thoughts are immortal and go to make Buddhas and Christs.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Taken, Years

• Is enjoyment the goal of life? Were it so, it would be a tremendous mistake to become a man at all. What man can enjoy a meal with more gusto than the dog or the cat ? Go to a menagerie and see the [wild animals] tearing the flesh from the bone. Go back and become a bird! . . . What a mistake then to become a man! Vain have been my years - hundreds of years - of struggle only to become the man of sense-enjoyments.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Dog, Mistake, Struggle

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1642, Manonmani Publishers

• Every one is struggling for freedom-from the atom to the star. The ignorant man is satisfied if he can get freedom within a certain limit-if he can get rid of the bondage of hunger or of being thirsty. But that sage feels that there is a stronger bondage which has to be thrown off. He would not consider the freedom of the Red Indian as freedom at all.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Stars, Struggle, Men

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2252, Manonmani Publishers

• Morality is the struggle of the bound will to get free and is the proof that we have come from perfection. . . .

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Perfection, Morality

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3150, Manonmani Publishers

• Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and everything shall be added unto you. This is the one great duty, this is renunciation. Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else. Let us put forth all our energies to acquire that which never fails-our spiritual perfection. If we have true yearning for realization, we must struggle, and through struggle growth will come. We shall make mistakes, but they may be angels unawares.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Spiritual, Mistake, Struggle

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Powers of The Mind”, p.21, editionNEXT.com

• There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of the struggle toward freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that human beings are the same as this little body.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Mean, Ideas

  "Pearls of Wisdom". Book by Swami Vivekananda, edited by the Ramakrishna Mission, 2010.

• A perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are defeated, our life has to go. It is, for instance, a continuous struggle for food and air. If food or air fails, we die. Life is not a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound effect. This complex struggle between something inside and the external world is what we call life. So it is clear that when this struggle ceases, there will be an end of life.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Fighting, Simple

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Karma Yoga”, p.97, Swami Vivekananda

• All these practices and struggles to become religious are only negative work, to take off the bars, and open the doors to that perfection which is our birthright, our nature.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Religious, Struggle, Doors

  Swami Vivekananda (2012). “Raja Yoga (Annotated Edition)”, p.143, Jazzybee Verlag

• That truth which you swallow from others will not be yours...you have to realize truth and work it our for yourself according to your own nature...All must struggle to be individuals-strong, standing on your own feet, thinking your own thoughts, realizing you own Self. No use swallowing doctrines others pass on-standing up together like soldiers in jail, sitting down together, all eating the same food, all nodding their heads at the same time. Variation is the sign of life. Sameness is the sign of death.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Strong, Struggle, Thinking

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