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Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything.

Swami Vivekananda

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Swami Vivekananda
Age: 39 †
Born: 1863
Born: January 12
Died: 1902
Died: July 4
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More quotes by Swami Vivekananda

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We must travel we must go to foreign parts. We must see how the engine of society works in other countries, and keep free and open communication with what is going on in the minds of other nations, if we really want to be a nation again.
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We are the makers of our own lives. There is no such thing as fate. Our lives are the result of our previous actions, our karma, and it naturally flows that, having been ourselves the makers of our karma, we must also be able to unmake it.
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One possessing Vairagya does not understand by Atman the individual ego but the All-pervading Lord, residing as the Self and Internal Ruler in all. He is perceivable by all as the sum total.
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To cowards what advice shall I offer? - nothing whatsoever have I to say.
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Until higher institutions have been evolved, any attempt to break the old ones will be disastrous.
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He who asserts he is free, shall be free. He who says he is bound, bound he shall remain.
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Excepting the infinite spirit, everything else is changing. There is the whirl of change.
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This is the secret of spiritual life: to think that I am the Atman and not the body, and that the whole of this universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but as a series of paintings...scenes on a canvas...of which I am the witness.
Swami Vivekananda
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Marriage is the truest goal for ninety-nine per cent of the human race, and they will live the happiest life as soon as they have learnt and are ready to abide by the eternal lesson - that we are bound to bear and forbear and that life to every one must be a compromise.
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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.
Swami Vivekananda
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Those giants of old, the ancient Rishis, who never walked but strode, of whom if you were to think but for a moment you would shrivel up into a moth, they sir, had time-and you have no time!
Swami Vivekananda
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Free thyself from the mighty attraction- The maddening wine of love, the charm of sex. Break the harp! Forward, with the ocean's cry!. . .
Swami Vivekananda
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Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone lies the way to Devayana (the way to the gods). Those who think that a little sugar - coating of untruth helps the spread of truth are mistaken and will find in the long run that a single drop of poison poisons the whole mass ... The man who is pure, and who dares, does all things.
Swami Vivekananda
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No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through love, a passion for truth, and tremendous energy, that all undertakings are accomplished.
Swami Vivekananda
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Thinking of objects, attachment to them is formed in a man. From attachment longing, and from longing anger grows.
Swami Vivekananda
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Ahimsa (non-killing), truthfulness, purity, mercy, and godliness are always to be kept.
Swami Vivekananda
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These births and deaths are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in us.
Swami Vivekananda
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Religion has become to many merely a means of doing a little charity work, just to amuse them after a hard day's labour - they get five minutes religion to amuse them. This is the danger with the liberal thought.
Swami Vivekananda
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Religion is the life of India, religion is the language of this country, the symbol of all its movements.
Swami Vivekananda
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I want to start two institutions, one in Madras and one in Calcutta, to carry out my plan and that plan briefly is to bring the Vedantic ideals into the everyday practical life of the saint or the sinner, of the sage or the ignoramus, of the Brahmin or the Pariah.
Swami Vivekananda