Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
What is marriage but the renunciation of unchastity? The savage does not marry. Man marries because he renounces.
Interpretation
Marriage is a commitment that involves giving up certain freedoms for a deeper connection with another person.
Swami Vivekananda's quote emphasizes that marriage is not just a social contract, but a conscious decision to forsake previous ways of living in order to forge a meaningful bond with another person. It suggests that the essence of marriage lies in the commitment and sacrifice one makes, which distinguishes civilized human relationships from the more primitive instincts of the savage.
In practice
In a wedding speech to highlight the significance of commitment.
Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
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.
I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans - because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.
People often think of America as a classless society, but, of course, that isn't true. Within immigrant communities, there's an enormous distinction of class, depending on who your parents are, and that kind of thing comes out really quick in things like marriage and interpersonal relationships.
Every couple needs to argue now and then. Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive. Long-term relationships, the ones that matter, are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys.
When you wept it was just over yourself and not because of the marvelous impossibility of reaching her through the difference that separates you.
Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the crudest words.
I was in control of what people thought of me, but I had no control over what they thought of my mother. When I asked my mother, 'How do I tell people about you?' her answer was, 'Tell the truth'. But of course, the truth is never simple.
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