"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."

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

"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."

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

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"The whole universe is one. There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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!"

"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 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."

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

"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."

"If superstition enters, the brain is gone."

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

"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."

"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.”"

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

"Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles."

"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."

"Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?"

"God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come."

"Go on saying, “I am free.” Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, “I am bound.” Dehypnotize the whole thing."

"God is self-evident, impersonal, omniscient, the Knower and the Master of nature, the Lord of all. He is behind all worship and it is being done according to Him, whether we know it or not."