• India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with

the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but
with the flag of peace and love, the garb of the Sannyasin;
not by the power of wealth, but by the power of begging
bowl…………..But one vision I see clear as life before me,
that the ancient mother has awakened once more, sitting on
her throne---------------rejuvenated, more glorious than ever.
• Your country requires heroes; be heroes. Stand firm like a
rock. Truth always triumphs. What India wants is a new
electric fire to stir up a fresh vigour in the national veins. Be
brave, be brave; man dies but once. My disciples must not
be cowards. I hate cowardice. Keep the deepest mental
poise; take not even the slightest notice of what puerile
creatures may be saying against you. Indifference!
Indifference! Indifference! Bear in mind the eyes are two in
number, and so the ears, but the mouth is but one. All great
undertakings are achieved through mighty obstacles. Put
forth your manly effort. Wretched people under the grip of
lust and gold deserve to be looked upon with indifference.
• And if we were all brave and had stout hearts, and with
absolute sincerity put our shoulders to the wheel, in twenty-
five years the whole problem [of India] would be solved, and
there would be nothing here to fight about.
• Hold on with faith and strength; be true, be honest, be pure,
and don’t quarrel among yourselves. Jealousy is the bane of
our race.
• We must go out, we must conquer the world through our
spirituality and philosophy. There is no other alternative, we
must do it or die.
• Hold on with faith and strength; be true, be honest, be pure,
and don’t quarrel among yourselves. Jealousy is the bane of
our race.
• With five hundred men………….the conquest of India might
take fifty years; with as many women, not more than a few
weeks.
• We have to learn from others.
• So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold
every man a traitor who, having been educated at their
expense, pays not the least heed to them.
• So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold
every man a traitor who, having been educated at their
expense, pays not the least heed to them.
• First bread and then religion. We stuff them too much with
religion, when the poor fellows have been starving. No
dogmas will satisfy the cravings of hunger…………..You
may talk doctrines by the millions, you may have sects by the
hundreds of millions; ay, but it is nothing until you have
the heart to feel. Feel for them as your Veda teaches you, till
you find they are parts of your own bodies, till you realise
that you and they, the poor and the rich, the saint and the
sinner, are all parts of One Infinite Whole, which you call
Brahman.
• Only have faith. Do not look up to the so called rich
and great; do not care for the heartless intellectual
writers, and their cold-blooded newspaper articles.
Faith, sympathy-fiery faith and fiery sympathy! Life is
nothing, death is nothing, hunger nothing, cold nothing.
Glory unto the Lord----------march on, the Lord is our
General.
• The one vital duty incumbent on you, if you really love
your religion, if you really love your country, is that
you must struggle hard to be up and doing, with this
one great idea of bringing out the treasures from your
closed books and delivering them over to their
rightful heirs.
• My idea is to bring to the poor of the meanest, the
poorest, the noble ideas that the human race has
developed both in and out of India, and let them think
for themselves.
• Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant,
the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain
reels and you think you will go mad------------then pour
the soul out at the feet of the Lord, and then will come
the power, help, and indomitable energy.
• Who will bring light to the poor? Who will travel from
door to door bringing education to them? Let these
people be your God—think of them, work for them,
pray for them incessantly. The Lord will show you the
way.
• All the wealth of the world cannot help one little Indian
village, if the people are not taught to help themselves.
Our work should be mainly educational, both moral and
intellectual.
• Do something for the nation; then they will help you,
then the nation will be with you.
• We have not done badly in the past, certainly not. We
are not bad but good, only I want you to be better still.
• Think not that you are poor; money is not power, but
goodness, holiness.
• May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands
of miseries, so that I may worship the only God that
exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all
souls; and above all, my God the wicked, my God the
miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all
species, is the special object of my worship.
• Truce to all quarrels and jealousies and bigotry!
These will spoil everything.
• Rouse yourselves, therefore, or life is short. There are
greater works to be done than aspiring to become
lawyers and picking quarrels and such things.
• Then only will India awake, when hundreds of large-
hearted men and women, giving up all desires of
enjoying the luxuries of life, will long and exert
themselves to their utmost for the well-being of the
millions of their countrymen who are gradually sinking
lower and lower in the vortex of destitution and
ignorance.
• Give up jealousy and conceit. Learn to work unitedly
for others. This is the great need of our country.
• Love makes no distinction between man and man,
between an Aryan and a Mlechchha, between a
Brahmana and a Pariah, nor even between a man and a
woman. Love makes the whole universe as one’s own
home. True progress is slow but sure. Work among
those young men who can devote heart and sole to this
one duty------------the duty of raising the masses of
India. Awake them, unite them, and inspire them with
this spirit of renunciation. It depends on wholly on the
young people of India.
• What we want are brave young men, who will work;
not tomfools.
• Vow, then, to devote your whole lives to the cause of
the redemption of these three hundred millions, going
down and down everyday.
• What we want are some young men who will renounce
everything and sacrifice their lives for their country’s
sake. We should first form their lives and then some
real work can be expected.
• Bring forth the power of the spirit, and pour it over the
length and breadth of India; and all that is necessary
will come of itself.
• Before flooding someone with socialistic or political
ideas, first deluge her with spiritual ideas.
• Ever praying that the Lord may make of you a great
instrument for the help of mankind, and especially of
our poor, poor motherland.
• Let each one of us pray day and night for the down-
trodden millions in India who are held fast by
poverty-----------------pray day and night for them.
• Until the absence of jealousy and obedience to leaders
are learnt by the Hindu, there will be no power of
organisation.
• God comes to you in the blind, in the halt, in the poor,
in the weak, in the diabolical.
• Men, men, these are wanted; everything else will be
ready, but strong, vigorous, believing young men,
sincere to the backbone, are wanted. A hundred such
and the world becomes revolutionized.
• Be a man and try to make those immediately under your care,
brave, moral and sympathising. No religion for you, my
children, but morality and bravery. No cowardice, no sin, no
crime, no weakness--------------the rest will come of itself.
• …………….. forget not------------------that the lower
classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler,
the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers.
Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud, that
thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim---------------“I
am an Indian---------------every Indian is my brother”.
Say, “The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute
Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the pariah Indian, is my
brother”………………..Say brother: “The soil of India
is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good and
repeat and pray day and night,……………O Thou
Mother of Strength, take away my weakness, take away
my unmanliness, and make me a man!”
•