Give up awful disease that is creeping into our national blood, that idea of ridiculing everything, that loss of seriousness. Give that up. Be strong and have…Shraddha, and everything else is bound to follow.
– Swami Vivekananda.

If you teach Vedanta to the fisherman, he will say, I am as good a man as you; I am a fisherman, you are a philosopher, but I have the same God in me as you have in you. And that is what we want, no privilege for anyone, equal chances for all.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Inspiration is not filtered out to the world through one channel, however great. Each generation should be inspired afresh.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Look upon every man, woman, and every one as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve : serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself…Do it only as a worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord, coming in the shape of the diseased, coming in the shape of the lunatic, the leper, and the sinner !
– Swami Vivekananda.

Remember that the nation lives in the cottage. But alas ! nobody ever did anything for them. …Can you raise them ? Can you give them back their lost individuality without making them lose their innate spiritual nature ? .. This is to be done and we will do it.
– Swami Vivekananda.

I consider that the great national sin is the neglect of the masses, and that is one of the causes of our downfall. No amount of politics would be of any avail until the masses in India are once more well educated, well fed, and well cared for.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Women will work out their own destinies – much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.
– Swami Vivekananda.

When the life blood is strong and pure, no disease germ can live in that body. Our life-blood is spirituality. If it flows clear, if it flows strong and pure and vigorous, everything is right; political, social, any other material defects, even the poverty of the land, will all be cured if that blood is pure.
– Swami Vivekananda.

The solution is not by bringing down the higher, but by raising the lower up to the level of the higher. And that is the line of work that is found in all our books.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Build up your character and manifest your Real Nature, the Effulgent, the Resplendent, the Ever Pure, and call it up in everyone that you see… Our only work is to arouse this knowledge in our fellow-beings. We see that they too are the same pure self. Only they do not know it; we must help them to rouse up their infinite nature.
– Swami Vivekananda.