A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.
I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.
I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.
I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.
I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.
Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
Love is my religion - I could die for it.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, and many goodly states and kingdoms seen.
My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.
Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.
Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.
The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
The poetry of the earth is never dead.
The Public - a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.
There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.
There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.
Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine; the commonest man shows a grace in his quarrel.
What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.
With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.
You are always new, The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.
You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Karl Marx
A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.
A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism.
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.
Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.
Democracy is the road to socialism.
Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.
For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
I am not a Marxist.
In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!
Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.
Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.
Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.
On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.
Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.
Religion is the opium of the masses.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.
The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.
We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass.
While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.
Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.
A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism.
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.
Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.
Democracy is the road to socialism.
Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.
For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
I am not a Marxist.
In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!
Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.
Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.
Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.
On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.
Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.
Religion is the opium of the masses.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.
The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.
We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass.
While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.
Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.
Abraham Lincoln
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Some day I shall be President.
Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
Abraham Lincoln
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Some day I shall be President.
Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
Abraham Lincoln
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
Charlie Chaplin
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.
A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.
Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.
All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.
Brunettes are troublemakers. They're worse than the Jews.
Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.
Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.
I am for people. I can't help it.
I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.
I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.
I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.
I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President.
I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.
I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.
I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.
I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.
In the end, everything is a gag.
Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.
Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.
Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.
Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.
Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.
Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.
That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.
The glamour of it all! New York! America!
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.
This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.
To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.
To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
We might as well die as to go on living like this.
We think too much and feel too little.
What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.
Why should poetry have to make sense?
Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.
A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.
A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.
Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.
All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.
Brunettes are troublemakers. They're worse than the Jews.
Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.
Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.
I am for people. I can't help it.
I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.
I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.
I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.
I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President.
I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.
I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.
I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.
I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.
In the end, everything is a gag.
Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.
Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.
Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.
Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.
Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.
Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.
That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.
The glamour of it all! New York! America!
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.
This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.
To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.
To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
We might as well die as to go on living like this.
We think too much and feel too little.
What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.
Why should poetry have to make sense?
Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Most Powerfull Thoughts
The most destructive habit Worry
The greatest joy Giving
The most endangered species Dedicated leaders
Our greatest natural resource Our youth
The greatest “shot in the arm” Encouragement
The greatest problem to overcome Fear
The most effective sleeping pill Peace of mind
The most crippling disease Excuses
The most powerful force in life Love
The most destructive pariah Gossip
The most incredible computer The human brain
The worst thing to be without Hope
The deadliest weapon The tongue
The two most powerful words Can do
The greatest asset Faith
The most worthless emotion Self-pity
The worst thing you can lose Self-respect
The most satisfying work Helping others
The ugliest personality trait Selfishness
The most beautiful attire A smile!
The most prized possession Integrity
The most contageous spirit Enthusiasm
The most powerful communication Prayer
The greatest joy Giving
The most endangered species Dedicated leaders
Our greatest natural resource Our youth
The greatest “shot in the arm” Encouragement
The greatest problem to overcome Fear
The most effective sleeping pill Peace of mind
The most crippling disease Excuses
The most powerful force in life Love
The most destructive pariah Gossip
The most incredible computer The human brain
The worst thing to be without Hope
The deadliest weapon The tongue
The two most powerful words Can do
The greatest asset Faith
The most worthless emotion Self-pity
The worst thing you can lose Self-respect
The most satisfying work Helping others
The ugliest personality trait Selfishness
The most beautiful attire A smile!
The most prized possession Integrity
The most contageous spirit Enthusiasm
The most powerful communication Prayer
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Dalai Lama
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.
If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.
It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
Sleep is the best meditation.
Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.
Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.
Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.
With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.
If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.
It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
Sleep is the best meditation.
Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.
Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.
Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.
With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world.
Socrates Quotes
A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
An honest man is always a child.
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
Be as you wish to seem.
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
Let him that would move the world first move himself.
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
An honest man is always a child.
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
Be as you wish to seem.
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
Let him that would move the world first move himself.
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Buddha
Hate is not overcome by hate; by love alone is hate appeased. This is an eternal law.
Though one should conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, he who conquers his own self, is the greatest of all conquerers.
Though one should live a hundred years without wisdom and control, yet better, indeed, is a single day’s life of one who is wise and meditative.
Oneself, indeed, is one’s saviour, for what other saviour would there be? With oneself well controlled one obtains a saviour difficult to find.
To cease from all evil, to cultivate good, to purify one’s mind: This is the advice of all Buddhas.
Victory breeds hatred. The defeated live in pain. Happily the peaceful live, giving up victory and defeat.
There is no fire like lust, no crime like hate. There is no ill like the body, no bliss higher than Peace.
Let go the past. Let go the future. Let go the present. Crossing to the farther shore of existence, with mind released from everything, do not again undergo birth and decay.
It is man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
Though one should conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, he who conquers his own self, is the greatest of all conquerers.
Though one should live a hundred years without wisdom and control, yet better, indeed, is a single day’s life of one who is wise and meditative.
Oneself, indeed, is one’s saviour, for what other saviour would there be? With oneself well controlled one obtains a saviour difficult to find.
To cease from all evil, to cultivate good, to purify one’s mind: This is the advice of all Buddhas.
Victory breeds hatred. The defeated live in pain. Happily the peaceful live, giving up victory and defeat.
There is no fire like lust, no crime like hate. There is no ill like the body, no bliss higher than Peace.
Let go the past. Let go the future. Let go the present. Crossing to the farther shore of existence, with mind released from everything, do not again undergo birth and decay.
It is man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Truth is one; only It is called by different names. All people are seeking the same Truth; the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name. A lake has many ghats. From one ghat the Hindus take water in jars and call it ‘jal’. From another ghat the Mussalmāns take water in leather bags and call it ‘pāni’. From a third the Christians take the same thing and call it ‘water’. Suppose someone says that the thing is not ‘jal’ but ‘pāni’, or that it is not ‘pāni’ but ‘water’, or that it is not ‘water’ but ‘jal’, It would indeed be ridiculous. But this very thing is at the root of the friction among sects, their misunderstandings and quarrels. This is why people injure and kill one another, and shed blood, in the name of religion. But this is not good. Everyone is going toward God. They will all realize Him if they have sincerity and longing of heart.
A man can reach the roof of a house by stone stairs or a ladder or a rope-ladder or a rope or even by a bamboo pole. But he cannot reach the roof if he sets foot now on one and now on another. He should firmly follow one path. Likewise, in order to realize God a man must follow one path with all his strength. But you must regard other views as so many paths leading to God. You should not feel that your path is the only right path and that other paths are wrong. You mustn’t bear malice toward others.
Whether you accept Rādhā and Krishna, or not, please do accept their attraction for each other. Try to create that same yearning in your heart for God. Yearning is all you need in order to realize Him.
Direct the six passions to God. The impulse of lust should be turned into the desire to have intercourse with Atman. Feel angry at those who stand in your way to God. Feel greedy for Him. If you must have the feeling of I and mine, then associate it with God. Say, for instance, ‘My Rama, my Krishna.’ If you must have pride, then feel like Bibhishana, who said, ‘I have touched the feet of Rama with my head; I will not bow this head before anyone else.’
It is said that truthfulness alone constitutes the spiritual discipline of the Kaliyuga. If a man clings tenaciously to truth he ultimately realizes God. Without this regard for truth, one gradually loses everything. … After my vision of the Divine Mother, I prayed to Her, taking a flower in my hands: ‘Mother, here is Thy knowledge and here is Thy ignorance. Take them both, and give me only pure love. Here is Thy holiness and here is Thy unholiness. Take them both, Mother, and give me pure love. Here is Thy good and here is Thy evil. Take them both, Mother, and give me pure love. Here is Thy righteousness and here is Thy unrighteousness. Take them both, Mother, and give me pure love.’ I mentioned all these, but I could not say: ‘Mother, here is Thy truth and here is Thy falsehood. Take them both.’ I gave up everything at Her feet but could not bring myself to give up truth.
God laughs on two occasions. He laughs when the physician says to the patient’s mother, ‘Don’t be afraid, mother; I shall certainly cure your boy.’ God laughs, saying to Himself, ‘I am going to take his life, and this man says he will save it!’ The physician thinks he is the master, forgetting that God is the Master. God laughs again when two brothers divide their land with a string, saying to each other, ‘This side is mine and that side is yours.’ He laughs and says to Himself, ‘The whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they own this portion or that portion.’
The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as ‘I am such an important man’ or ‘I am so and so’. Level the mound of ‘I’ to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.
One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides.
Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.
One cannot be spiritual as long as one has shame, hatred, or fear.
If one has faith one has everything.
By constantly repeating, ‘I am free, I am free’, a man verily becomes free. On the other hand, by constantly repeating, ‘I am bound, I am bound’, he certainly becomes bound to worldliness. The fool who says only, ‘I am a sinner, I am a sinner’, verily drowns himself in worldliness. One should rather say: ‘I have chanted the name of God. How can I be a sinner? How can I be bound?’
All will surely realize God. All will be liberated. It may be that some get their meal in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening; but none will go without food. All, without any exception, will certainly know their real Self.
There are three kinds of devotees: superior, mediocre, and inferior. The inferior devotee says, ‘God is out there.’ According to him God is different from His creation. The mediocre devotee says: ‘God is the Antaryami, the Inner Guide. God dwells in everyone’s heart.’ The mediocre devotee sees God in the heart. But the superior devotee sees that God alone has become everything; He alone has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. He finds that everything, above and below, is filled with God.
This māyā, that is to say, the ego, is like a cloud. The sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud; when that disappears one sees the sun. If by the grace of the guru one’s ego vanishes, then one sees God.
Imagine a limitless expanse of water: above and below, before and behind, right and left, everywhere there is water. In that water is placed a jar filled with water. There is water inside the jar and water outside, but the jar is still there. The ‘I’ is the jar.
Take the case of the infinite ocean. There is no limit to its water. Suppose a pot is immersed in it: there is water both inside and outside the pot. The jnani sees that both inside and outside there is nothing but Paramatman. Then what is this pot? It is ‘I-consciousness’. Because of the pot the water appears to be divided into two parts; because of the pot you seem to perceive an inside and an outside. One feels that way as long as this pot of ‘I’ exists. When the ‘I’ disappears, what is remains. That cannot be described in words.
You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man, because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
The vanities of all others may gradually die out, but the vanity of a saint regarding his sainthood is hard indeed to wear away.
That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true Knowledge, all else is only a negation of Knowledge.
Two friends went into an orchard. One of them possessing much worldly wisdom, immediately began to count the mango trees there and the number of mangoes each tree bore, and to estimate what might be the approximate value of the whole orchard. His companion went to the owner, made friends whith him, and then, quietly going into a tree, began at his host’s desire to pluck the fruits and eat them. Whom do you consider to be the wiser of the two? Eat mangoes. It will satisfy your hunger. What is the good of counting the trees and leaves and making calculations? The vain man of intellect busies himself with finding out the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore’ of creation, while the humble man of wisdom makes friends with the Creator and enjoys His gift of supreme bliss.
As a toy fruit or a toy elephant reminds one of the real fruit and the living animal, so do the images that are worshipped remind one of the God who is formless and eternal.
Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth.
Sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls; but only a bright surface like that of water, or of a mirror reflects it fully. So is the light Divine. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and pious hearts of holy men receive and reflect that light well.
Who is whose Guru? God alone is the guide and Guru of the universe.
Do yourself what you wish others to do.
As long as I live, so long do I learn.
A man can reach the roof of a house by stone stairs or a ladder or a rope-ladder or a rope or even by a bamboo pole. But he cannot reach the roof if he sets foot now on one and now on another. He should firmly follow one path. Likewise, in order to realize God a man must follow one path with all his strength. But you must regard other views as so many paths leading to God. You should not feel that your path is the only right path and that other paths are wrong. You mustn’t bear malice toward others.
Whether you accept Rādhā and Krishna, or not, please do accept their attraction for each other. Try to create that same yearning in your heart for God. Yearning is all you need in order to realize Him.
Direct the six passions to God. The impulse of lust should be turned into the desire to have intercourse with Atman. Feel angry at those who stand in your way to God. Feel greedy for Him. If you must have the feeling of I and mine, then associate it with God. Say, for instance, ‘My Rama, my Krishna.’ If you must have pride, then feel like Bibhishana, who said, ‘I have touched the feet of Rama with my head; I will not bow this head before anyone else.’
It is said that truthfulness alone constitutes the spiritual discipline of the Kaliyuga. If a man clings tenaciously to truth he ultimately realizes God. Without this regard for truth, one gradually loses everything. … After my vision of the Divine Mother, I prayed to Her, taking a flower in my hands: ‘Mother, here is Thy knowledge and here is Thy ignorance. Take them both, and give me only pure love. Here is Thy holiness and here is Thy unholiness. Take them both, Mother, and give me pure love. Here is Thy good and here is Thy evil. Take them both, Mother, and give me pure love. Here is Thy righteousness and here is Thy unrighteousness. Take them both, Mother, and give me pure love.’ I mentioned all these, but I could not say: ‘Mother, here is Thy truth and here is Thy falsehood. Take them both.’ I gave up everything at Her feet but could not bring myself to give up truth.
God laughs on two occasions. He laughs when the physician says to the patient’s mother, ‘Don’t be afraid, mother; I shall certainly cure your boy.’ God laughs, saying to Himself, ‘I am going to take his life, and this man says he will save it!’ The physician thinks he is the master, forgetting that God is the Master. God laughs again when two brothers divide their land with a string, saying to each other, ‘This side is mine and that side is yours.’ He laughs and says to Himself, ‘The whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they own this portion or that portion.’
The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as ‘I am such an important man’ or ‘I am so and so’. Level the mound of ‘I’ to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.
One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides.
Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.
One cannot be spiritual as long as one has shame, hatred, or fear.
If one has faith one has everything.
By constantly repeating, ‘I am free, I am free’, a man verily becomes free. On the other hand, by constantly repeating, ‘I am bound, I am bound’, he certainly becomes bound to worldliness. The fool who says only, ‘I am a sinner, I am a sinner’, verily drowns himself in worldliness. One should rather say: ‘I have chanted the name of God. How can I be a sinner? How can I be bound?’
All will surely realize God. All will be liberated. It may be that some get their meal in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening; but none will go without food. All, without any exception, will certainly know their real Self.
There are three kinds of devotees: superior, mediocre, and inferior. The inferior devotee says, ‘God is out there.’ According to him God is different from His creation. The mediocre devotee says: ‘God is the Antaryami, the Inner Guide. God dwells in everyone’s heart.’ The mediocre devotee sees God in the heart. But the superior devotee sees that God alone has become everything; He alone has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. He finds that everything, above and below, is filled with God.
This māyā, that is to say, the ego, is like a cloud. The sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud; when that disappears one sees the sun. If by the grace of the guru one’s ego vanishes, then one sees God.
Imagine a limitless expanse of water: above and below, before and behind, right and left, everywhere there is water. In that water is placed a jar filled with water. There is water inside the jar and water outside, but the jar is still there. The ‘I’ is the jar.
Take the case of the infinite ocean. There is no limit to its water. Suppose a pot is immersed in it: there is water both inside and outside the pot. The jnani sees that both inside and outside there is nothing but Paramatman. Then what is this pot? It is ‘I-consciousness’. Because of the pot the water appears to be divided into two parts; because of the pot you seem to perceive an inside and an outside. One feels that way as long as this pot of ‘I’ exists. When the ‘I’ disappears, what is remains. That cannot be described in words.
You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man, because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
The vanities of all others may gradually die out, but the vanity of a saint regarding his sainthood is hard indeed to wear away.
That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true Knowledge, all else is only a negation of Knowledge.
Two friends went into an orchard. One of them possessing much worldly wisdom, immediately began to count the mango trees there and the number of mangoes each tree bore, and to estimate what might be the approximate value of the whole orchard. His companion went to the owner, made friends whith him, and then, quietly going into a tree, began at his host’s desire to pluck the fruits and eat them. Whom do you consider to be the wiser of the two? Eat mangoes. It will satisfy your hunger. What is the good of counting the trees and leaves and making calculations? The vain man of intellect busies himself with finding out the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore’ of creation, while the humble man of wisdom makes friends with the Creator and enjoys His gift of supreme bliss.
As a toy fruit or a toy elephant reminds one of the real fruit and the living animal, so do the images that are worshipped remind one of the God who is formless and eternal.
Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth.
Sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls; but only a bright surface like that of water, or of a mirror reflects it fully. So is the light Divine. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and pious hearts of holy men receive and reflect that light well.
Who is whose Guru? God alone is the guide and Guru of the universe.
Do yourself what you wish others to do.
As long as I live, so long do I learn.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Vivekananda's Quotes
Vivekananda's Quotes
"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls," and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.
"I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher." That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and everything shall be added unto you." This is the one great duty, this is renunciation. Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else. Let us put forth all our energies to acquire that which never fails--our spiritual perfection. If we have true yearning for realization, we must struggle, and through struggle growth will come. We shall make mistakes, but they may be angels unawares.
“Comfort” is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable.”
“Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them.
“I do not want to get material life. I do not want sense-life but something higher.” That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and everything else shall be added unto you.” This is the one great duty, this is renunciation. Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else.
“The earth is enjoyed by heroes”—this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.”
A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.
A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.
Above all, beware of compromises. Hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others’ “fads” through the greed of getting supporters. Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of?
Above all, beware of compromises. I do not mean that you are to get into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others “fads” thought the greed of getting supporters.
After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains--one iron, one gold; behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states, and states must ever change; but the nature of the Atman is bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash away the dross and see it.
All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.
All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.
All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that. Do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. Stand up and express the divinity within you.
All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and human beings is thus bridged. Thus we find how, by knowing God, we find the kingdom of heaven within us.
All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.
All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.
Always discriminate--your body, your house, the people and the world are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that the body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
Always discriminate—your body, your house, the people around, and the world are all unreal like a dream. Always think that this body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
Anything that brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it not with the toes of your feet.
Anything that is secret and mysterious in these systems of yoga should be at once rejected. The best guide in life is strength. In religion, as in all other matters, discard everything that weakens you, have nothing to do with it.
Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.
Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.
As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?
As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.
As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful.
Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.
Avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.
Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”
Be brave! Be strong! Be fearless! Once you have taken up the spiritual life, fight as long as there is any life in you. Even though you know you are going to be killed, fight till you “are killed.” Don’t die of fright. Die fighting. Don’t go down till you are knocked down.
Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work.
Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.
Be strong! … You talk of ghosts and devils. We are the living devils. The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it is strength, go down into hell and get hold of it! There is salvation only for the brave. "None but the brave deserves the fair." None but the bravest deserves salvation.
Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego. Hold fast to the real Self. Think only pure thoughts, and you will accomplish more than a regiment of mere preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.
Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.
Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.
Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies.
Brave, bold men and women, these are what we want. What we want is vigor in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion.
Brave, bold people, these are what we want. What we want is vigor in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion.
By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in our hands now, we make ourselves stronger; and improving our strength in this manner step by step, we may reach a state in which it shall be our privilege to do the most coveted and honored duties in life and in society.
By the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation sexisted before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world
Change is always subjective. All through evolution you find that the conquest of nature comes by change in the subject. Apply this to religion and morality, and you will find that the conquest of evil comes by the change in the subjective alone. That is how the Advaitic system gets its whole force, on the subjective side of man.
Change is always subjective. To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. If I am immune from all anger, I never feel angry. If am immune from all hatred, I never feel hatred.
Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?
Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you every felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.
Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.
Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.
Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery. The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the person who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.
Despondency is not religion, whatever else it may be.
Discriminate within yourself between the real and the unreal. Have you not read the Vedanta? Even when you sleep, keep the sword of discrimination at the head of your bed, so that covetousness cannot approach you even in dream. Practicing such strength, renunciation will gradually come, and then you will see the portals of heaven are wide open to you.
Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.
Do not go for glass beads leaving the mine of diamonds. This life is a great chance. What, seekest thou the pleasures of the world? He is the fountain of all bliss. See for the highest, aim at that highest, and you shall reach the highest.
Do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle.
Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!
Do you think these sannyasi children of Sri Ramakrishna are born to simply to sit under trees lighting dhuni-fires? Whenever any of them will take up some work, people will be astonished to see their energy. Learn from them how to work.
Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.
Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.
Every action that helps us manifest our divine nature more and more is good; every action that retards it is evil.
Every individual is a center for the manifestation of a certain force. This force has been stored up as the resultant of our previous works, and each one of us is born with this force at our back.
Every step I take in light is mine forever.
Everything must be sacrificed, if necessary, for that one sentiment: universality.
Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves.
Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in this world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.
First get rid of the delusion “I am the body,” then only will we want real knowledge.
First, believe in the world—that there is meaning behind everything.
Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.
Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven. Control the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but spiritual freedom.
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 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.
God is not to be reached by the weak. Never be weak. You have infinite strength within you. How else will you conquer anything? How else will you come to God?
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.
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.
Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.
Have faith in Guru, in his teachings, and in the surety that you can get free. Think day and night that this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.
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?
He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong.
Him I call a Mahatma ("great soul") whose heart bleeds for the poor, otherwise he is a Duratma ("wicked soul"). Let us unite our wills in continued prayer for their good.
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.
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 am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor. I see what they call the poor of this country and how many there are who feel for them!
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.
I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath and, above all, its sanctified shopkeeping!
I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath, and, above all, its sanctified shopkeeping.
I have been asked many times, "Why do you laugh so much and make so many jokes?" I become serious sometimes--when I have a stomachache! The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists. He is the goodness, the truth in everything. You are His incarnations. That is what is glorious. The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from Him, the more will long faces come. The more we know of Him, the more misery vanishes.
I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.
If a person who lives in God becomes miserable, what is the use of living in God? What is the use of such a God? Throw such a God overboard into the Pacific Ocean. We do not want such a 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.
If one who lives in the Lord becomes miserable, what is the use of living in Him? What is the use of such a God? Throw Him overboard into the Pacific Ocean. We do not want Him.
If superstition enters, the brain is gone.
If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished—mountains can be crumbled into atoms.
If there is no strength in body and mind, the Atman cannot be realized. First you have to build the body by good nutritious food—then only will the mind be strong.
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 you really want the good of others, the whole universe may stand against you and cannot hurt you. It must crumble before your power of the Lord Himself in you if you are sincere and really unselfish.
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 be a yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize the Self is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile, mistaking it for a log of wood.
If you want to be a Yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and, at the same time, wants to realize the Atman is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile mistaking it for a log of wood.
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.
Impurity is a mere superimposition under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong.
In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone’s door. In Shankaracharya we saw tremendous intellectual power, throwing the scorching light of reason upon everything. We want today that bright sun of intellectuality joined with the heart of Buddha, the wonderful infinite heart of love and mercy. This union will give us the highest philosophy. Science and religion will meet and shake hands. Poetry and philosophy will become friends.What! 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!
In real meditation you forget the body. You may be cut to pieces and not feel it at all. You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.
In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, butkeep out barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.
In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed on you. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.
In this external world, which is full of finite things, it is impossible to see and find the Infinite. The Infinite must be sought in that alone which is infinite, and the only thing infinite about us is that which is within us, our own soul. Neither the body, nor the mind, nor even our thoughts, nor the world we see around us, is infinite.
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!
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion—the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing, but to get the higher.
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion--the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher.
It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one's own good.
It is only work that is done as a free-will offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.
It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.
It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.
It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.
Jnana teaches that the world should be given up, but not on that account to be abandoned. To be in the world but not of it—is the true test of the sannyasin.
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.
Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Be free.
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds. Be âzâd ("free").
Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.
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.
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.
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. I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor.
Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.
Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.
Let us make our hearts as big as an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy the world without being in any way affected by it.
Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure.
Let us put forth all our energies to acquire that which never fails—our spiritual perfection. If we have true yearning for realization, we must struggle, and through struggle growth will come. We shall make mistakes, but they may be angels unawares.
Let us worship the spirit in spirit, standing on spirit. Let the foundation be spirit, the middle spirit, the culmination spirit.
Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.
Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.
Look here—we shall die! Bear this in mind always, and then the spirit within will wake up. Then meanness will vanish from you, practicality in work will come, you will get new vigor in mind and body, and those who come in contact with you will also feel that they have really got something uplifting from you.
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.
Love is always mutual and reflective. You may hate me, and if I want to love you, you repulse me. But if I persist, in a month or a year you are bound to love me. It is a well-known psychological phenomenon.
Many of us get many messages in our lives, or think we get them. As long as the message is regarding our own selves, go on doing what you please. But when it is in regard to our contact with and behavior to others, think a hundred times before you act upon it—and then you will be safe.
May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls--and, above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.
Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the thought-waves and the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate, you will keep your growth.
Mind you, this is life's experience: if you really want the good of others, the whole universe may stand against you and cannot hurt you. It must crumble before your power of the Lord Himself in you if you are sincere and really unselfish.
My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.
My name should not be made prominent. It is my ideas that I want to see realized. The disciples of all the prophets have always inextricably mixed up the ideas of the Master with person, and at last killed the ideas for the person. The disciples of Sri Ramakrishna must guard against doing the same thing. Work for the idea, not the person.
Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you get. In the long run, nature did her work through you, and when you die your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round.
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.
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.
No one should be judged by their defects. The great virtues a person has are his or her especially. But their errors are the common weakness of humanity and should never be counted in estimating a person’s character.
No one should be judged by their defects. The virtues a person has are his especially; his errors are the common weaknesses of humanity and should never be counted in estimating his character.
Not even the deepest sleep will give you such a rest as meditation can. The mind goes on jumping even in deepest sleep. Just those few moments in meditation your brain has almost stopped. … You forget the body. … You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.
Oh, to live even for a day in the full light of freedom, to breathe the free air of simplicity! Isn’t that the highest purity?
One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth.
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.
Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom—physical, mental, and spiritual—and help others to do so.
Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.
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.
Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward.
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.
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.
Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love.
Put God behind everything—people, animals, food, work. Make this a habit.
Realize your true nature. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are—infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will perish.
Realize yourself. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are—infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will vanish.
Religion as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have.
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.
Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream—the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother.
Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.
Renunciation is the very basis of our true life. Every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.
Say "So'ham, So'ham" whatever comes. Tell yourself this even in eating, walking, suffering. Tell the mind this incessantly—that what we see never existed, that there is only "I". Flash--the dream will break! Think day and night, this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.
Self-realization is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation—renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter.
So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every person a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them!
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.
Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn’t it be better for the pig to lose his pig-individuality if he can become God? Yes. But the poor pig does not think so at the time. Which state is my individuality? When I was a baby sprawling on the floor trying to swallow my thumb? Was that the individuality I should be sorry to lose? Fifty years hence I shall look upon this present state and laugh, just as I now look upon the baby state. Which of these individualities shall I keep?
Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe.
Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe.
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.
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 yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.
Stand upon the Atman, then only can we truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world.
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.
Stick to God! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else! Through the terrors of evil, say--my God, my love! Through the pangs of death, say--my God, my love! Through all the evils under the sun, say--my God, my love! Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. I am Thine, take me. I am not of the world’s but Thine, leave not then me.
Strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal. Weakness is constant strain and misery; weakness is death.
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.
Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life--think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines.
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.
That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore a careless and unsteady mind gets no clue to the Atman. But one who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating, ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.
That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore the careless and the unsteady mind gets no clue to it. But the person who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.
The animal has its happiness in the senses, the human beings in their intellect, and the gods in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful.
The Atman alone is eternal. Hospitals will tumble down. Railroad givers will all die.
This earth will be blown to pieces, suns wiped out. The Atman endures for ever.
The book one must read to learn natural sciences is the book of nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart.
The correct meaning of the statement “The Vedas are beginningless and eternal” is that the law or truth revealed by them is permanent and changeless.
The disciple must have great power of endurance. Bear all evil and misery without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance, and that you must acquire.
The disciple must have great power of endurance. Life seems comfortable; and you find the mind behaves well when everything is going well with you. But if something goes wrong, your mind loses its balance. That is not good. Bear all evil and misery without one murmur of hurt, without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance; and that you must acquire.
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.
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 first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.
The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.
The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine--and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.
The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! If you do not exist, how can God or anybody else exist?
The greatest sin is to think that you are weak. No one is greater: realize that you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it.
The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.
The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.
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 idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.
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 more you think of yourself as spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free from matter, body and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
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 more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. God is within us. He is the Soul of our souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. He is there. He is the soul of our souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom
The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.
The less the thought of the body, the better it is for us. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable.
The less the thought of the body, the better it is. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification which makes us miserable. That is the secret: to think that I am the spirit 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.
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.
The mind is but the subtle part of the body. You must retain great strength in your mind and words.
The mistake is that we cling to the body when it is the spirit that is really immortal.
The mistake is that we cling to the body when it is the spirit that is really immortal.
The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is the fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven in a moment.
The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the greatest cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven in a moment.
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you.
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe.
The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
The nature of the brute is to remain where he is, of a human being to seek good and to avoid evil, and of God to neither seek nor avoid but just to be eternally blissful.
Let us be Gods, let us make our hearts like an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy it without being in any way affected by it.
The nature of the brutes is to remain where they are, of human beings to seek good and avoid evil, and of God to neither seek nor avoid but just to be blissful eternally. Let us be like God.
The nearer we are to God, the less we will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from God, the more will long faces come. The more we know God, the more misery vanishes.
The one eternal religion is applied to the opinions of various minds and various races. There never was my religion or yours, my national religion or your national religion; there never existed many religions, there is only the one. One infinite religion existed all through eternity and will ever exist, and this religion is expressing itself in various countries in various ways.
The past was great no doubt, but I sincerely believe that the future will be more glorious still.
The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality. They never say “me” and “mine”; they are only blessed in being instruments.
The power of purity—it is a definite power.
The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.
The sages are often ignorant of physical science, because they read the wrong book—the book within; and the scientists are too often ignorant of religion, because they too read the wrong book—the book outside.
The secret of life is not enjoyment but education through experience.
The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
The Soul is not composed of any materials. It is unity indivisible. Therefore it must be indestructible.
The varieties of religious belief are an advantage, since all faiths are good, so far as they encourage us to lead a religious life. The more sects there are, the more opportunities there are for making a successful appeal to the divine instinct in all of us.
The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.
The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.
The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the Atman. You cannot undo what you have done; the effect must come. Face it, but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to God. Give all, both good and bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.
The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the Atman. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it, but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord. Give all, both good and bad. Do not keep the good and give only the bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.
The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.
The whole universe is one in the Atman. That Atman when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Atman when it appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul. This very soul, therefore, is the Atman in us.
The whole universe is one. There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence, and that One Existence, when it passes through the forms of time, space, causation, is called by different names, buddhi, fine matter, gross matter, all mental and physical forms. Everything in the universe is that One, appearing in various forms. When a little part of it comes, as it were, into this network of time, space and causation, it takes forms. Take off the network, and it is all one.
The whole universe is one. There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence.
The will is stronger than anything else. Everything must go down before the will, for it comes from God. A pure and strong will is omnipotent.
The wind of divine grace is always blowing. You just need to spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it. Think day and night, “I am of the essence of that Supreme Being-Consciousness-Bliss. What fear and anxiety have I?”
The wind of divine grace is blowing on for ever and ever. Do you spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it.
The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.
There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding us, but they cannot harm us unless we become weak, until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them.
There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened. This is the great fact: strength is life. Weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal. Weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death
There cannot be friendship without equality.
There is hope for all. None can die; none can be degraded forever. Life is but a playground, however gross the play may be. However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Atman is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.
There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself…. Burst your own cocoon and come out aw the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.
There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion--I am God--cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.
There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion—I am God—cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.
There is only one sin and it is: weakness. When I was a boy, I read Milton’s Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is that person who never weakens, faces everything, and determines die game.
There is only one sin. That is weakness.... The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.
There is only one sin—and that sin is weakness. When I was a boy, I read Milton’s Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is the soul who never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.
There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of the struggle toward freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that human beings are the same as this little body.
They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe, and the more we concentrate our lives on limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.
They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe. The more we concentrate our lives in limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.
Think always, “I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How I can do anything evil? Can I ever be fooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?” Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.
Think always: "I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How can I do anything evil? Can I ever be befooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?" Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.
Think day and night, "I am of the essence of that Supreme Existence, Knowledge, Bliss--what fear and anxiety have I? This body, mind, and intellect are all transient, and That which is beyond these is myself."
This earth is higher than all the heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe.
This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.
This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.
This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.
This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells—that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one’s spiritual Self (atman).
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.
This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.
This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Real is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence. Life on the plane of the Spirit is the only life, and let us all try to attain to this realization.
This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Reality is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence.
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Real. We must go to the Real. Renunciation will take us to It. Renunciation is the very basis of our true life; every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Reality. We must go to the Reality. Renunciation will take us to It.
Those who die, merely suffering the woes of life like cats and dogs, are they human beings? The worthy are those who, even when agitated by the sharp interaction of pleasure and pain, are discriminating and, knowing them to be of an evanescent nature, become passionately devoted to the Atman. This is all the difference between human beings and animals.
Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling they will lead a miserable life…. But those who do their duty putting their shoulder to the wheel will see the light, and higher and higher duties will fall to their share.
Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling, they will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But those who do their duties as they go, putting their shoulders to the wheel, will see the light, and higher duties will fall to their share.
Those who have succeeded in attaching or detaching their minds at will have succeeded in Pratyahara, which means "gathering towards," checking the outgoing powers of the mind, freeing it from the thralldom of the senses. When we can do this, we shall really possess character; then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom. Before that, we are mere machines.
Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.
To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.
To realize the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea.
To realize the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea. That realization is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation—renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter.
To succeed you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.
To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will rink the ocean," says the persevering soul, "at my will mountains will crumble up." Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.
To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. If I am immune against all anger, I never feel angry. If I am proof against all hatred, I never feel hatred.
To the person who desires nothing and does not get entangled in desires, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.
Tremendous purity, tremendous renunciation, is the one secret of spirituality. "Neither through wealth, nor through progeny, but through renunciation alone is immortality to be reached," say the Vedas. "Sell all that thou hast and give to poor, and follow me," says the Christ. So all great saints and prophets have expressed it, and have carried it out in their lives. How can great spirituality come without renunciation?
Tremendous purity, tremendous renunciation, is the one secret of spirituality. How can great spirituality come without renunciation? Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.
True religion is not talk, or doctrines, or theories, nor is it sectarianism. It is the relation between soul and God. Religion does not consist in erecting temples, or building churches, or attending public worship. It is not to be found in books, or in words, or in lectures, or in organizations. Religion consists in realization. We must realize God, feel God, see God, talk to God. That is religion.
Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.
Truth, purity, and unselfishness—wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition.
Try a little harder, and meditation comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system. Not even the deepest sleep will give you such a rest as that.
Understanding human nature is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing it can we know God. It is also a fact that the knowledge of God is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing God can we understand human nature.
Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.
Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person.
We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.
We are suffering from our own karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?
We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.
We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.
We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.
We can never lose what is really ours. Who can lose his being? Who can lose his very existence? If I am good, it is the existence first, and then that becomes colored with the quality of goodness. If I am evil, it is the existence first, and that becomes colored with the quality of badness. That existence is first, last, and always; it is never lost but ever present.
We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.
We get caught. How? Not by what we give but by what we expect. We get misery in return for our love: not from the fact that we love but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want. Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery.
We get caught. How? Not by what we give but by what we expect. We get misery in return for our love; not from the fact that we love, but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want.
We have to go back to philosophy to treat things as they are. We are suffering from our own karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?
We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.
We must be bright and cheerful. Long faces do not make religion. Religion should be the most joyful thing in the world, because it is the best.
We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful toward those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be indifferent. These attitudes will make the mind peaceful.
We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light.
We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
We want to know in order to make ourselves free. That is our life: one universal cry for freedom.
What about this marvelous experience of standing alone, discarding all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty, and of working a whole life, joyful, free -- not goaded on to work like slaves by false human love or ambition?Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you get. In the long run, nature did her work through you, and when you die your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round.
What do you gain in heaven? You become gods, drink nectar, and get rheumatism. There is less misery there than on earth, but also less truth.
What I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.
What is material and what is not material? When the world is the end and God the means to attain that end, then that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun.
What is material and what is not? When the world is the end and God is the means to attain that end, that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun.
What is the use of talking of one’s mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only with the strong and the powerful.
What is the world that is to be given up? It is here. I am carrying it all with me. My own body. It is all for this body that I put my hand voluntarily upon my fellow human beings, just to keep it nice and give it a little pleasure. It is all for the body that I injure others and make mistakes.
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love--selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt. Awake, awake, great souls! The world is burning in misery. Can you sleep?Work unto death--I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes--wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love—selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt. Aware, awake, great souls! The world is burning in misery. Can you sleep?
What the world wants today is twenty men and women who can dare to stand in the street yonder and say that they possess nothing but God. Who will go? Why should one fear? If this is true, what else could matter? If it is not true, what do our lives matter?
What the world wants today is twenty men and women who can dare to stand in the street yonder and say that they possess nothing but God. Who will go? Why should one fear? If this is true, what else could matter? If it is not true, what do our lives matter?
Whatever you believe, that you will be. If you believe yourselves to be sages, sages you will be tomorrow. There is nothing to obstruct you.
When once you consider an action, do not let anything dissuade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates.
When we can attach the mind to—or detach it from—the sense at our will, we shall really possess character. Then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom; before that, we are mere machines.
When we come to nonattachment, then we can understand the marvelous mystery of the universe: how it is intense activity and at the same time intense peace, how it is work every moment and rest every moment.
When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were but we shall understand the whole thing. The same phenomena will remain but with a new meaning.
When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were, only we shall understand the whole thing.
Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself.
Where God is, there is no other. Where the world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness. That is what I have understood from Christianity and the life of Jesus. Isn’t that also Buddhism? Isn’t that Hinduism? Isn’t that Islam? Isn’t that the teaching of all the great sages and teachers?
Where God is, there is no other. Where world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness.
Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.
Who will bring light to the poor? Who will travel from door to door bringing education to them? Let these people be your God—think of them, work for them, pray for them incessantly. The Lord will show you the way.
Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work.
Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.
Woman has suffered for eons, and that has given her infinite patience and infinite perseverance.
Women will work out their destinies—much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.
Work a little harder at meditation and it comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system.
Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.
Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.
Work unto death—I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes—wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!
Worship of society and popular opinions is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.
You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
You must avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.
You, as body, mind, or soul, are a dream, but what you really are, is Being, Consciousness, Bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating the whole universe and drawing it in.
Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of? Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.
"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls," and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.
"I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher." That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and everything shall be added unto you." This is the one great duty, this is renunciation. Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else. Let us put forth all our energies to acquire that which never fails--our spiritual perfection. If we have true yearning for realization, we must struggle, and through struggle growth will come. We shall make mistakes, but they may be angels unawares.
“Comfort” is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable.”
“Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them.
“I do not want to get material life. I do not want sense-life but something higher.” That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and everything else shall be added unto you.” This is the one great duty, this is renunciation. Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else.
“The earth is enjoyed by heroes”—this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.”
A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.
A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.
Above all, beware of compromises. Hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others’ “fads” through the greed of getting supporters. Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of?
Above all, beware of compromises. I do not mean that you are to get into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others “fads” thought the greed of getting supporters.
After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains--one iron, one gold; behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states, and states must ever change; but the nature of the Atman is bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash away the dross and see it.
All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.
All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.
All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that. Do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. Stand up and express the divinity within you.
All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and human beings is thus bridged. Thus we find how, by knowing God, we find the kingdom of heaven within us.
All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.
All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.
Always discriminate--your body, your house, the people and the world are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that the body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
Always discriminate—your body, your house, the people around, and the world are all unreal like a dream. Always think that this body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
Anything that brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it not with the toes of your feet.
Anything that is secret and mysterious in these systems of yoga should be at once rejected. The best guide in life is strength. In religion, as in all other matters, discard everything that weakens you, have nothing to do with it.
Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.
Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.
As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?
As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.
As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful.
Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.
Avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.
Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”
Be brave! Be strong! Be fearless! Once you have taken up the spiritual life, fight as long as there is any life in you. Even though you know you are going to be killed, fight till you “are killed.” Don’t die of fright. Die fighting. Don’t go down till you are knocked down.
Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work.
Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.
Be strong! … You talk of ghosts and devils. We are the living devils. The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it is strength, go down into hell and get hold of it! There is salvation only for the brave. "None but the brave deserves the fair." None but the bravest deserves salvation.
Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego. Hold fast to the real Self. Think only pure thoughts, and you will accomplish more than a regiment of mere preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.
Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.
Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.
Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies.
Brave, bold men and women, these are what we want. What we want is vigor in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion.
Brave, bold people, these are what we want. What we want is vigor in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion.
By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in our hands now, we make ourselves stronger; and improving our strength in this manner step by step, we may reach a state in which it shall be our privilege to do the most coveted and honored duties in life and in society.
By the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation sexisted before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world
Change is always subjective. All through evolution you find that the conquest of nature comes by change in the subject. Apply this to religion and morality, and you will find that the conquest of evil comes by the change in the subjective alone. That is how the Advaitic system gets its whole force, on the subjective side of man.
Change is always subjective. To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. If I am immune from all anger, I never feel angry. If am immune from all hatred, I never feel hatred.
Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?
Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you every felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.
Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.
Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.
Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery. The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the person who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.
Despondency is not religion, whatever else it may be.
Discriminate within yourself between the real and the unreal. Have you not read the Vedanta? Even when you sleep, keep the sword of discrimination at the head of your bed, so that covetousness cannot approach you even in dream. Practicing such strength, renunciation will gradually come, and then you will see the portals of heaven are wide open to you.
Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.
Do not go for glass beads leaving the mine of diamonds. This life is a great chance. What, seekest thou the pleasures of the world? He is the fountain of all bliss. See for the highest, aim at that highest, and you shall reach the highest.
Do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle.
Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!
Do you think these sannyasi children of Sri Ramakrishna are born to simply to sit under trees lighting dhuni-fires? Whenever any of them will take up some work, people will be astonished to see their energy. Learn from them how to work.
Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.
Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.
Every action that helps us manifest our divine nature more and more is good; every action that retards it is evil.
Every individual is a center for the manifestation of a certain force. This force has been stored up as the resultant of our previous works, and each one of us is born with this force at our back.
Every step I take in light is mine forever.
Everything must be sacrificed, if necessary, for that one sentiment: universality.
Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves.
Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in this world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.
First get rid of the delusion “I am the body,” then only will we want real knowledge.
First, believe in the world—that there is meaning behind everything.
Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.
Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven. Control the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but spiritual freedom.
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 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.
God is not to be reached by the weak. Never be weak. You have infinite strength within you. How else will you conquer anything? How else will you come to God?
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.
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.
Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.
Have faith in Guru, in his teachings, and in the surety that you can get free. Think day and night that this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.
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?
He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong.
Him I call a Mahatma ("great soul") whose heart bleeds for the poor, otherwise he is a Duratma ("wicked soul"). Let us unite our wills in continued prayer for their good.
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.
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 am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor. I see what they call the poor of this country and how many there are who feel for them!
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.
I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath and, above all, its sanctified shopkeeping!
I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath, and, above all, its sanctified shopkeeping.
I have been asked many times, "Why do you laugh so much and make so many jokes?" I become serious sometimes--when I have a stomachache! The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists. He is the goodness, the truth in everything. You are His incarnations. That is what is glorious. The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from Him, the more will long faces come. The more we know of Him, the more misery vanishes.
I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.
If a person who lives in God becomes miserable, what is the use of living in God? What is the use of such a God? Throw such a God overboard into the Pacific Ocean. We do not want such a 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.
If one who lives in the Lord becomes miserable, what is the use of living in Him? What is the use of such a God? Throw Him overboard into the Pacific Ocean. We do not want Him.
If superstition enters, the brain is gone.
If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished—mountains can be crumbled into atoms.
If there is no strength in body and mind, the Atman cannot be realized. First you have to build the body by good nutritious food—then only will the mind be strong.
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 you really want the good of others, the whole universe may stand against you and cannot hurt you. It must crumble before your power of the Lord Himself in you if you are sincere and really unselfish.
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 be a yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize the Self is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile, mistaking it for a log of wood.
If you want to be a Yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and, at the same time, wants to realize the Atman is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile mistaking it for a log of wood.
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.
Impurity is a mere superimposition under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong.
In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone’s door. In Shankaracharya we saw tremendous intellectual power, throwing the scorching light of reason upon everything. We want today that bright sun of intellectuality joined with the heart of Buddha, the wonderful infinite heart of love and mercy. This union will give us the highest philosophy. Science and religion will meet and shake hands. Poetry and philosophy will become friends.What! 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!
In real meditation you forget the body. You may be cut to pieces and not feel it at all. You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.
In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, butkeep out barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.
In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed on you. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.
In this external world, which is full of finite things, it is impossible to see and find the Infinite. The Infinite must be sought in that alone which is infinite, and the only thing infinite about us is that which is within us, our own soul. Neither the body, nor the mind, nor even our thoughts, nor the world we see around us, is infinite.
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!
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion—the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing, but to get the higher.
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion--the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher.
It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one's own good.
It is only work that is done as a free-will offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.
It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.
It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.
It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.
Jnana teaches that the world should be given up, but not on that account to be abandoned. To be in the world but not of it—is the true test of the sannyasin.
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.
Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Be free.
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds. Be âzâd ("free").
Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.
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.
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.
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. I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor.
Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.
Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.
Let us make our hearts as big as an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy the world without being in any way affected by it.
Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure.
Let us put forth all our energies to acquire that which never fails—our spiritual perfection. If we have true yearning for realization, we must struggle, and through struggle growth will come. We shall make mistakes, but they may be angels unawares.
Let us worship the spirit in spirit, standing on spirit. Let the foundation be spirit, the middle spirit, the culmination spirit.
Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.
Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.
Look here—we shall die! Bear this in mind always, and then the spirit within will wake up. Then meanness will vanish from you, practicality in work will come, you will get new vigor in mind and body, and those who come in contact with you will also feel that they have really got something uplifting from you.
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.
Love is always mutual and reflective. You may hate me, and if I want to love you, you repulse me. But if I persist, in a month or a year you are bound to love me. It is a well-known psychological phenomenon.
Many of us get many messages in our lives, or think we get them. As long as the message is regarding our own selves, go on doing what you please. But when it is in regard to our contact with and behavior to others, think a hundred times before you act upon it—and then you will be safe.
May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls--and, above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.
Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the thought-waves and the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate, you will keep your growth.
Mind you, this is life's experience: if you really want the good of others, the whole universe may stand against you and cannot hurt you. It must crumble before your power of the Lord Himself in you if you are sincere and really unselfish.
My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.
My name should not be made prominent. It is my ideas that I want to see realized. The disciples of all the prophets have always inextricably mixed up the ideas of the Master with person, and at last killed the ideas for the person. The disciples of Sri Ramakrishna must guard against doing the same thing. Work for the idea, not the person.
Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you get. In the long run, nature did her work through you, and when you die your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round.
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.
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.
No one should be judged by their defects. The great virtues a person has are his or her especially. But their errors are the common weakness of humanity and should never be counted in estimating a person’s character.
No one should be judged by their defects. The virtues a person has are his especially; his errors are the common weaknesses of humanity and should never be counted in estimating his character.
Not even the deepest sleep will give you such a rest as meditation can. The mind goes on jumping even in deepest sleep. Just those few moments in meditation your brain has almost stopped. … You forget the body. … You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.
Oh, to live even for a day in the full light of freedom, to breathe the free air of simplicity! Isn’t that the highest purity?
One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth.
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.
Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom—physical, mental, and spiritual—and help others to do so.
Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.
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.
Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward.
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.
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.
Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love.
Put God behind everything—people, animals, food, work. Make this a habit.
Realize your true nature. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are—infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will perish.
Realize yourself. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are—infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will vanish.
Religion as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have.
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.
Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream—the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother.
Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.
Renunciation is the very basis of our true life. Every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.
Say "So'ham, So'ham" whatever comes. Tell yourself this even in eating, walking, suffering. Tell the mind this incessantly—that what we see never existed, that there is only "I". Flash--the dream will break! Think day and night, this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free.
Self-realization is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation—renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter.
So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every person a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them!
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.
Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn’t it be better for the pig to lose his pig-individuality if he can become God? Yes. But the poor pig does not think so at the time. Which state is my individuality? When I was a baby sprawling on the floor trying to swallow my thumb? Was that the individuality I should be sorry to lose? Fifty years hence I shall look upon this present state and laugh, just as I now look upon the baby state. Which of these individualities shall I keep?
Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe.
Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe.
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.
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 yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.
Stand upon the Atman, then only can we truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world.
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.
Stick to God! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else! Through the terrors of evil, say--my God, my love! Through the pangs of death, say--my God, my love! Through all the evils under the sun, say--my God, my love! Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. I am Thine, take me. I am not of the world’s but Thine, leave not then me.
Strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal. Weakness is constant strain and misery; weakness is death.
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.
Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life--think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines.
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.
That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore a careless and unsteady mind gets no clue to the Atman. But one who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating, ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.
That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore the careless and the unsteady mind gets no clue to it. But the person who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.
The animal has its happiness in the senses, the human beings in their intellect, and the gods in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful.
The Atman alone is eternal. Hospitals will tumble down. Railroad givers will all die.
This earth will be blown to pieces, suns wiped out. The Atman endures for ever.
The book one must read to learn natural sciences is the book of nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart.
The correct meaning of the statement “The Vedas are beginningless and eternal” is that the law or truth revealed by them is permanent and changeless.
The disciple must have great power of endurance. Bear all evil and misery without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance, and that you must acquire.
The disciple must have great power of endurance. Life seems comfortable; and you find the mind behaves well when everything is going well with you. But if something goes wrong, your mind loses its balance. That is not good. Bear all evil and misery without one murmur of hurt, without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance; and that you must acquire.
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.
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 first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.
The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.
The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine--and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.
The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! If you do not exist, how can God or anybody else exist?
The greatest sin is to think that you are weak. No one is greater: realize that you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it.
The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.
The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.
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 idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.
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 more you think of yourself as spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free from matter, body and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
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 more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. God is within us. He is the Soul of our souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. He is there. He is the soul of our souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom
The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.
The less the thought of the body, the better it is for us. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable.
The less the thought of the body, the better it is. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification which makes us miserable. That is the secret: to think that I am the spirit 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.
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.
The mind is but the subtle part of the body. You must retain great strength in your mind and words.
The mistake is that we cling to the body when it is the spirit that is really immortal.
The mistake is that we cling to the body when it is the spirit that is really immortal.
The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is the fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven in a moment.
The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the greatest cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven in a moment.
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you.
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe.
The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
The nature of the brute is to remain where he is, of a human being to seek good and to avoid evil, and of God to neither seek nor avoid but just to be eternally blissful.
Let us be Gods, let us make our hearts like an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy it without being in any way affected by it.
The nature of the brutes is to remain where they are, of human beings to seek good and avoid evil, and of God to neither seek nor avoid but just to be blissful eternally. Let us be like God.
The nearer we are to God, the less we will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from God, the more will long faces come. The more we know God, the more misery vanishes.
The one eternal religion is applied to the opinions of various minds and various races. There never was my religion or yours, my national religion or your national religion; there never existed many religions, there is only the one. One infinite religion existed all through eternity and will ever exist, and this religion is expressing itself in various countries in various ways.
The past was great no doubt, but I sincerely believe that the future will be more glorious still.
The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality. They never say “me” and “mine”; they are only blessed in being instruments.
The power of purity—it is a definite power.
The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.
The sages are often ignorant of physical science, because they read the wrong book—the book within; and the scientists are too often ignorant of religion, because they too read the wrong book—the book outside.
The secret of life is not enjoyment but education through experience.
The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
The Soul is not composed of any materials. It is unity indivisible. Therefore it must be indestructible.
The varieties of religious belief are an advantage, since all faiths are good, so far as they encourage us to lead a religious life. The more sects there are, the more opportunities there are for making a successful appeal to the divine instinct in all of us.
The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.
The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.
The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the Atman. You cannot undo what you have done; the effect must come. Face it, but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to God. Give all, both good and bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.
The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the Atman. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it, but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord. Give all, both good and bad. Do not keep the good and give only the bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.
The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.
The whole universe is one in the Atman. That Atman when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Atman when it appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul. This very soul, therefore, is the Atman in us.
The whole universe is one. There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence, and that One Existence, when it passes through the forms of time, space, causation, is called by different names, buddhi, fine matter, gross matter, all mental and physical forms. Everything in the universe is that One, appearing in various forms. When a little part of it comes, as it were, into this network of time, space and causation, it takes forms. Take off the network, and it is all one.
The whole universe is one. There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence.
The will is stronger than anything else. Everything must go down before the will, for it comes from God. A pure and strong will is omnipotent.
The wind of divine grace is always blowing. You just need to spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it. Think day and night, “I am of the essence of that Supreme Being-Consciousness-Bliss. What fear and anxiety have I?”
The wind of divine grace is blowing on for ever and ever. Do you spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it.
The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.
There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding us, but they cannot harm us unless we become weak, until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them.
There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened. This is the great fact: strength is life. Weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal. Weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death
There cannot be friendship without equality.
There is hope for all. None can die; none can be degraded forever. Life is but a playground, however gross the play may be. However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Atman is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.
There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself…. Burst your own cocoon and come out aw the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.
There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion--I am God--cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.
There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion—I am God—cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.
There is only one sin and it is: weakness. When I was a boy, I read Milton’s Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is that person who never weakens, faces everything, and determines die game.
There is only one sin. That is weakness.... The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.
There is only one sin—and that sin is weakness. When I was a boy, I read Milton’s Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is the soul who never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.
There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of the struggle toward freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that human beings are the same as this little body.
They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe, and the more we concentrate our lives on limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.
They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe. The more we concentrate our lives in limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.
Think always, “I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How I can do anything evil? Can I ever be fooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?” Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.
Think always: "I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How can I do anything evil? Can I ever be befooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?" Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.
Think day and night, "I am of the essence of that Supreme Existence, Knowledge, Bliss--what fear and anxiety have I? This body, mind, and intellect are all transient, and That which is beyond these is myself."
This earth is higher than all the heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe.
This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.
This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.
This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.
This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells—that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one’s spiritual Self (atman).
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.
This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.
This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Real is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence. Life on the plane of the Spirit is the only life, and let us all try to attain to this realization.
This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Reality is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence.
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Real. We must go to the Real. Renunciation will take us to It. Renunciation is the very basis of our true life; every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Reality. We must go to the Reality. Renunciation will take us to It.
Those who die, merely suffering the woes of life like cats and dogs, are they human beings? The worthy are those who, even when agitated by the sharp interaction of pleasure and pain, are discriminating and, knowing them to be of an evanescent nature, become passionately devoted to the Atman. This is all the difference between human beings and animals.
Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling they will lead a miserable life…. But those who do their duty putting their shoulder to the wheel will see the light, and higher and higher duties will fall to their share.
Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling, they will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But those who do their duties as they go, putting their shoulders to the wheel, will see the light, and higher duties will fall to their share.
Those who have succeeded in attaching or detaching their minds at will have succeeded in Pratyahara, which means "gathering towards," checking the outgoing powers of the mind, freeing it from the thralldom of the senses. When we can do this, we shall really possess character; then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom. Before that, we are mere machines.
Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.
To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.
To realize the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea.
To realize the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea. That realization is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation—renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter.
To succeed you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.
To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will rink the ocean," says the persevering soul, "at my will mountains will crumble up." Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.
To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. If I am immune against all anger, I never feel angry. If I am proof against all hatred, I never feel hatred.
To the person who desires nothing and does not get entangled in desires, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.
Tremendous purity, tremendous renunciation, is the one secret of spirituality. "Neither through wealth, nor through progeny, but through renunciation alone is immortality to be reached," say the Vedas. "Sell all that thou hast and give to poor, and follow me," says the Christ. So all great saints and prophets have expressed it, and have carried it out in their lives. How can great spirituality come without renunciation?
Tremendous purity, tremendous renunciation, is the one secret of spirituality. How can great spirituality come without renunciation? Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.
True religion is not talk, or doctrines, or theories, nor is it sectarianism. It is the relation between soul and God. Religion does not consist in erecting temples, or building churches, or attending public worship. It is not to be found in books, or in words, or in lectures, or in organizations. Religion consists in realization. We must realize God, feel God, see God, talk to God. That is religion.
Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.
Truth, purity, and unselfishness—wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition.
Try a little harder, and meditation comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system. Not even the deepest sleep will give you such a rest as that.
Understanding human nature is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing it can we know God. It is also a fact that the knowledge of God is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing God can we understand human nature.
Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.
Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person.
We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.
We are suffering from our own karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?
We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.
We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.
We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.
We can never lose what is really ours. Who can lose his being? Who can lose his very existence? If I am good, it is the existence first, and then that becomes colored with the quality of goodness. If I am evil, it is the existence first, and that becomes colored with the quality of badness. That existence is first, last, and always; it is never lost but ever present.
We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.
We get caught. How? Not by what we give but by what we expect. We get misery in return for our love: not from the fact that we love but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want. Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery.
We get caught. How? Not by what we give but by what we expect. We get misery in return for our love; not from the fact that we love, but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want.
We have to go back to philosophy to treat things as they are. We are suffering from our own karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?
We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.
We must be bright and cheerful. Long faces do not make religion. Religion should be the most joyful thing in the world, because it is the best.
We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful toward those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be indifferent. These attitudes will make the mind peaceful.
We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light.
We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
We want to know in order to make ourselves free. That is our life: one universal cry for freedom.
What about this marvelous experience of standing alone, discarding all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty, and of working a whole life, joyful, free -- not goaded on to work like slaves by false human love or ambition?Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you get. In the long run, nature did her work through you, and when you die your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round.
What do you gain in heaven? You become gods, drink nectar, and get rheumatism. There is less misery there than on earth, but also less truth.
What I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.
What is material and what is not material? When the world is the end and God the means to attain that end, then that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun.
What is material and what is not? When the world is the end and God is the means to attain that end, that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun.
What is the use of talking of one’s mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only with the strong and the powerful.
What is the world that is to be given up? It is here. I am carrying it all with me. My own body. It is all for this body that I put my hand voluntarily upon my fellow human beings, just to keep it nice and give it a little pleasure. It is all for the body that I injure others and make mistakes.
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love--selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt. Awake, awake, great souls! The world is burning in misery. Can you sleep?Work unto death--I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes--wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love—selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt. Aware, awake, great souls! The world is burning in misery. Can you sleep?
What the world wants today is twenty men and women who can dare to stand in the street yonder and say that they possess nothing but God. Who will go? Why should one fear? If this is true, what else could matter? If it is not true, what do our lives matter?
What the world wants today is twenty men and women who can dare to stand in the street yonder and say that they possess nothing but God. Who will go? Why should one fear? If this is true, what else could matter? If it is not true, what do our lives matter?
Whatever you believe, that you will be. If you believe yourselves to be sages, sages you will be tomorrow. There is nothing to obstruct you.
When once you consider an action, do not let anything dissuade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates.
When we can attach the mind to—or detach it from—the sense at our will, we shall really possess character. Then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom; before that, we are mere machines.
When we come to nonattachment, then we can understand the marvelous mystery of the universe: how it is intense activity and at the same time intense peace, how it is work every moment and rest every moment.
When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were but we shall understand the whole thing. The same phenomena will remain but with a new meaning.
When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were, only we shall understand the whole thing.
Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself.
Where God is, there is no other. Where the world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness. That is what I have understood from Christianity and the life of Jesus. Isn’t that also Buddhism? Isn’t that Hinduism? Isn’t that Islam? Isn’t that the teaching of all the great sages and teachers?
Where God is, there is no other. Where world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness.
Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.
Who will bring light to the poor? Who will travel from door to door bringing education to them? Let these people be your God—think of them, work for them, pray for them incessantly. The Lord will show you the way.
Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work.
Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.
Woman has suffered for eons, and that has given her infinite patience and infinite perseverance.
Women will work out their destinies—much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.
Work a little harder at meditation and it comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system.
Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.
Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.
Work unto death—I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes—wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance!
Worship of society and popular opinions is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.
You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
You must avoid excessive merriment. A mind in that state never becomes calm; it becomes fickle. Excessive merriment will always be followed by sorrow. Tears and laughter are near kin. People so often run from one extreme to the other.
You, as body, mind, or soul, are a dream, but what you really are, is Being, Consciousness, Bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating the whole universe and drawing it in.
Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of? Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.
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