• We have wept long enough; no more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. It is man-making education all around that we want. And here is the test of truth-anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, Truth is all knowledge. Truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating.

• All morality can be divided into the positive and the negative elements. It says either "Do this" or "Do not do this." When it says, "Do not," it is evident that it is a check to a certain desire which would make us slaves. When it says, "Do," its scope is to show the way to freedom and to the breaking down of a certain degradation which has already seized the human heart.
• We cannot add happiness to the world. Similarly, we cannot add pain to it either. The sum total of the energies of pleasure and pain displayed here on earth will be the same throughout. We just push it from this side to the other side, and from that side to this, but it will remain the same, because to remain so is its very nature. This ebb and flow, this rising and falling, is in the world's very nature; it would be as logical to hold otherwise as to say that we may have life without death.

· You have not caught my fire yet--you do not understand me! You run in the old ruts of sloth and enjoyments. Down with all sloth, down with all enjoyments here or hereafter. Plunge into the fire and bring the people towards the Lord. That you may catch my fire, that you may be intensely sincere, that you may die the heroes' death on the field of battle--is the constant prayer of Vivekananda.

· The Highest Form of the Worship of God

Every duty is holy, and devotion to duty is the highest form of the worship of God.

· From all of you I want this that you must discard for ever self-aggrandisement, faction-mongering, and jealousy. You must be all-forbearing like Mother Earth. If you can achieve this, the world will be at your feet.

• This universe is simply a gymnasium in which the soul is taking exercise; and after these exercise we become GODS. So the value of everything is to be decided by how far it is a manifestation of God. Civilisation is the manifestation of that divinity in Man.
• What we want is to see the man who is harmoniously developed.....................great in heart, great in mind,(great in deed)......................We want the man whose heart feels intensely the miseries and sorrows of the world..........................And(we want)the man who not only can feel but can find the meaning of things, who delves deeply into the heart of nature and understanding.(We want)the man who will not even stop there,(but)who wants to work out(the feeling and meaning by actual deeds).Such a combination of head, heart, and hand is what we want.
• Now, a good deal of our physical evil we can get rid of, if we have control over the fine parts; a good many worries we can throw off, if we have control over the fine movements; a good many failures can be averted, if we have control over these fine powers.
• Now freedom is only possible when no external power can exert any influence, produce any change. Freedom is only possible to the being who is beyond all conditions, all laws, all bondages of cause and effect. In other words, the unchangeable alone can be free and therefore, immortal. This Being, this Atman, this real Self of man, the free, the unchangeable is beyond all conditions, and as such, it has neither birth nor death.
• Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, and that he learns as much from evil as from good.......................Good and evil have an equal share in moulding character, and in some instances misery is a greater teacher than happiness. In studying the great characters the world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than praise.