The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can real good come about for the country, for India.
– Swami Vivekananda.

A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord, and nerved to Lion’s courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising up–the gospel of equality.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Life is nothing, death is nothing, hunger nothing, cold nothing. Glory unto the Lord–march on, the Lord is our General. Do not look back to see who falls–forward–onward! Thus and thus we shall go on, brethren. One falls, and another takes up the work.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Teach the masses in the vernaculars, give them ideas; they will get information, but something more is necessary; give them culture. Until you give them that, there can be no permanence in the raised condition of the masses.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Man is like an infinite spring, coiled up in a small box, and that spring is trying to unfold itself; and all the social phenomena that we see are the result of this trying to unfold.
– Swami Vivekananda.

Our duty is to encourage everyone in his struggle to live up to his own highest ideal, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the truth.
– Swami Vivekananda.

…good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of hypocrites and brutes :
– Swami Vivekananda.

Rouse yourselves, therefore, for life is short. There are greater works to be done than aspiring to become lawyers, and picking quarrels, and such things. A far greater work is this sacrifice of yourselves for the benefit of your race, for the welfare of humanity.
– Swami Vivekananda.

The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.
– Swami Vivekananda.

All expansion is life, all contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love’s sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.
– Swami Vivekananda.