Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one's own good
Interpretation
What this quote means
Doing good for others leads to personal fulfillment and well-being.
This quote implies that the path to personal happiness and satisfaction is through contributing positively to the lives of others. It highlights the interconnectedness of human beings and suggests that our own well-being is enhanced when we focus on the welfare of those around us, thus advocating for a selfless approach to life.
Themes
GoodOthersServiceHappinessFulfillment
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about community service, one might use this quote to inspire volunteers.
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
We really are All One....this is the very philosophy that has kept me virtually anonymous in America for fifteen years.
Bill HicksRead
There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing.
Christopher LeeRead
He Who is your Lord, the All-Merciful cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body.
Baha'U'LlahRead
No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts.
Wallace StegnerRead
Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.
John Quincy AdamsRead
The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.
Terry PratchettRead