1. You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
2. Be free. Hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives, you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came.
3. All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
4. Just as in the case of electricity, or any other force, the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle back to the dynamo. So with all forces in nature; they must come back to the source. Therefore do not hate anybody, because that force, that hatred which comes from you, must, in the long run come back to you…It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred that goes out of the heart of man comes back to him with full force; nothing can stop it, and every impulse of love comes back to him.
5. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.
6. The land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards purity – it is India.
7. Blows are what awaken us & help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world & make us long to escape, to have freedom.
8. Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.
9. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.
10. This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres. You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results. Work incessantly, but see something behind the work. Even good deeds can find a man in great bondage. Therefore be not bound by good deeds or by desire for name and fame. Those who know this secret pass beyond this round of birth and death and become immortal.
See also:
Vivekananda’s Message to the West and the Historic September 11 Speech
When Vivekananda Met Tesla: Modern Physics’ Earliest Trysts with Vedanta
Indian Monk Says to Rise Above Thought and Reason (Swami Vivekananda)
