Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Interpretation
Truth is the ultimate value, and one should be willing to sacrifice everything for it, but never compromise truth for anything else.
This quote emphasizes the paramount importance of truth in our lives. Swami Vivekananda suggests that while individuals may need to give up their possessions, relationships, and desires in pursuit of the truth, the truth itself is incomparable and should not be compromised to fulfill any other need or desire. It highlights the idea that integrity and authenticity should take precedence over all else, emphasizing the idea that some values, like truth, are absolute.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech to encourage people to pursue honesty in their lives.
Rama, 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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
...we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.
I've always said that at the end of the day, on a legal issue, I think a wise old woman and a wise old man are going to reach the same conclusion.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
...no matter how avid they themselves may be for praise and appreciation, people are often niggardly in giving it to others, however merited it is.
The fool who loves giving advice on our garden never tends his own plants
In the space of no-mind, truth descends like light
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