"The important thing is: how much less you think of the body, of yourself as matter—as dead, dull, insentient matter; how much more you think of yourself as shining immortal being."

"The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence."

"The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another according to the samskaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom."

"The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful."

"The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God."

"The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being."

"Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world."

"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."

"Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse."

"Strength is the sign of vigor, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, and the sign of everything that is good. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, strength in the hand."

"Stand upon the Self, only then can we truly love the world. Take a very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world."

"Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourself. Therefore make your own future."

"Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe."

"Soft-brained people, weak-minded, chicken-hearted, cannot find the truth. One has to be free, and as broad as the sky."

"So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire."

"Religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities."

"Religion as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have."

"Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love."

"Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are …[but] unless you realize the Self (atman), there is no freedom."

"Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are ...but unless you realize the Truth, there is no freedom."

"Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward."

"Perfection is always infinite. We are the Infinite already.You and I, and all beings, are trying to manifest that infinity."

"Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work."

"Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom—physical, mental, and spiritual—and help others to do so."

"Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. Those who have no faith in themselves can never have faith in God."

"One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth."

"No authority can save us, no beliefs. If there is a God, all can find Him. No one needs to be told it is warm; all can discover it for themselves. So it should be with God. He should be a fact in the consciousness of every person."

"Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached."

"Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies; but the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality."

"Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege."

"Let us worship the spirit in spirit, standing on spirit. Let the foundation be spirit, the middle spirit, the culmination spirit."

"Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure."

"Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge, power, and activity, has its seat."

"Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power."

"Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know."

"Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom. If we can bring ourselves down by our karma, surely it is in our power to raise ourselves by our own karma."

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

"It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties."

"It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God."

"Is there any sex-distinction in the Atman (Self)? Out with the differentiation between man and woman—all is Atman! Give up the identification with the body, and stand up!"

"Impurity is a mere superimposition under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong."

"If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole."

"If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature."

"If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word “fearlessness.”"

"If superstition enters, the brain is gone."

"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."

"I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything he really deserves."

"I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light."

"However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite."

"Hold to the idea, “I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act,” and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself."