Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
The attempt to remove evil from the world by killing a thousand evil - doers, only adds to the evil in the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Violence against wrongdoers creates more evil rather than solving the problem.
This quote from Swami Vivekananda suggests that seeking to eliminate evil through violent means will not result in a reduction of evil but rather perpetuates a cycle of negativity. Instead of diminishing wrongdoing, such actions can lead to further conflict, suffering, and a deeper entrenchment of the very issues one seeks to eradicate. It highlights the idea that understanding, compassion, and constructive solutions are more effective in addressing underlying problems.
Themes
EvilViolenceCompassionUnderstandingPeace
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech discussing the importance of nonviolent solutions to conflict.
More from Swami Vivekananda
All quotes βRama, the ancient idol of the heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the ideal husband, and above all, the ideal king, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can be purer, none chaster, none more beautiful, and at the same time simpler, than the language in which the great poet has depicted the life of Rama.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists".
Swami VivekanandaRead
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.
Swami VivekanandaRead
I have come to deal with principles. I have only to preach that God comes again and again, and that He came in India as Krishna, Rama, and Buddha, and that He will come again. It can almost be demonstrated that after each 500 years the world sinks, and a tremendous spiritual wave comes, and on the top of the wave is a Christ.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Similar quotes
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.
William ShakespeareRead
For the record, feminism by definition is: 'The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.'
Emma WatsonRead
I have won important things for myself, but I'm going to destroy them, because I tell myself they have lost their meaning. I know that is not true. I know they are important, and that if I destroy them, I'll be destroying myself, as well.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.
Thomas JeffersonRead
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
George Bernard ShawRead
The judgment: You are now before Yama, King of the Dead. In vain will you try to...deny or conceal the evil deeds you have done. ... the mirror in which Yama seems to read your past is your own memory, and also his judgment is your own. It is you yourself who pronounce your own judgment.
Gautama BuddhaRead