Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
No one is to blame for our miseries but ourselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We are responsible for our own suffering and challenges in life.
Swami Vivekananda emphasizes the idea that we hold the key to our own happiness and unhappiness. The quote suggests that rather than blaming external circumstances or others for our miseries, we should take responsibility for our choices and actions that lead to our current state, thus empowering us to change our situation.
Themes
ResponsibilityMiseriesSelfChoicesAccountability
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth, one could say, 'Remember, no one is to blame for our miseries but ourselves.'
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
Forgiveness is a favor we do for ourselves, not a favor we do to the other party.
Harold S. KushnerRead
A musk deer searches for the source of the fragrance of musk, but it won't find it because the fragrance comes from within itself. Bliss is not to be found outside of us; it exists within us.
Mata AmritanandamayiRead
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn Vos SavantRead
Decisions are constantly before us. To make them wisely, courage is needed-the courage to say no, the courage to say yes. Decisions do determine destiny. I plead with you to make a determination right here, right now, not to deviate from the path which will lead to our goal: eternal life with our Father in Heaven.
Thomas S. MonsonRead
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
Paul JohnsonRead
The beauty of getting older is the surprise of what else you can do to make the world a better place with the wisdom that you've accrued over those years.
Goldie HawnRead