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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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Narendra Nath Datta
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More quotes by Swami Vivekananda

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As the cause is, so the effect will be.
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Man has infinite power within himself, and he can realise it - he can realise himself as the one infinite Self. It can be done but you do not believe it. You pray to God and keep your powder dry all the time.
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Change is inherent in every form.
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He who knows even how to prepare a smoke properly, knows also how to meditate. And he who cannot cook well cannot be a perfect sannyasin. Unless cooking is performed with a pure mind and concentration, the food is not palatable.
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We are bound to earth by desire and also to God, heaven, and the angels. A slave is a slave whether to man, to God, or to angels.
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Principles must conquer in the long run, for that is the manhood of man.
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Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny. Pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich.
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You know your real nature [to be divine]. You are the king and play you are a beggar. . . . It is all fun. Know it and play. That is all there is to it. Then practice it. The whole universe is a vast play.
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Wherever in any society there are too many laws, it is a sure sign that that society will soon die. If you study the characteristics of India, you will find that no nation possesses so many laws as the Hindus, and national death is the result.
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Science and religion will meet and shake hands.
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I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.
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Weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death.
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Prana, according to the Vedanta, is the principle of life. It is like ether, an omnipresent principle and all motion, either in the body or anywhere else, is the work of this Prana. It is greater than Akasha, and through it everything lives. Prana is in the mother, in the father, in the sister, in the teacher, Prana is the knower.
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In everything, there are two kinds of development-analytical and synthetical. In the former the Hindus excel other nations. In the latter they are nil.
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The meditative state is the highest state of existence. So long as there is desire, no real happiness can come. It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness.
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An atheist can be charitable but not religious. But the religious man must be charitable.
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The more power there is, the more bondage, the more fear.
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This intelligence itself is modified into what we call egoism, and this intelligence is the cause of all the powers in the body. It covers the whole ground, sub-consciousness, consciousness, and super-consciousness.
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Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!
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Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go the sooner the better.
Swami Vivekananda