Swami Vivekananda’s Quotes On Resolution

In this article you’ll find Swami Vivekananda‘s quotes on resolution.

General quotes

• Here is a dissolution of thought, and there is a resolution of thought. It is a roundabout process.^[Source]
• My resolve is something like “either to lay down my life or realise my ideal”.^[Source]
• Remember the words of Jesus: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” This very moment let everyone of us make a staunch resolution: “I will become a Prophet, I will become a messenger of Light, I will become a child of God, nay, I will become a God!”^[Source]
• You know, I have a dogged resolution, and whatever I set my heart on, I always carry out.^[Source]

Different resolutions

(Click on the section headers to see more quotes. The links will open in the same tab, so you may press Ctrl+Click)

Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached

1. Arise and awake, for the time is passing and all our energies will be: frittered away in vain talking. Arise and awake, let minor things, and quarrels over little details and fights over little doctrines be thrown aside, for here is the greatest of all works, here are the sinking millions.^[Source]
2. Arise! Awake! and stop not till the goal is reached.” Life is ever expanding, contraction is death. The self-seeking man who is looking after his personal comforts and leading a lazy life — there is no room for him even in hell.^[Source]
3. Proclaim the glory of the Atman with the roar of a lion, and impart fearlessness unto all beings by saying, “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.”^[Source]

Bad habits or Habits

1. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits. Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions. Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.^[Source]
2. We are lions in sheep’s clothing of habit, we are hypnotised into weakness by our surroundings.^[Source]

Becoming fearless

1. उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत । — Arise, awake and stop not till the desired end is reached. Young men of Calcutta, arise, awake, for the time is propitious. Already everything is opening out before us. Be bold and fear not. It is only in our scriptures that this adjective is given unto the Lord — Abhih, Abhih. We have to become Abhih, fearless, and our task will be done. Arise, awake, for your country needs this tremendous sacrifice.^[Source]
2. Stand up and be strong! No fear. No superstition. Face the truth as it is! If death comes — that is the worst of our miseries — let it come! We are determined to die game.^[Source]
3. The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you.^[Source]

Building character

1. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.^[Source]
2. First form character, first earn spirituality and results will come of themselves.^[Source]
3. Money does not pay, nor name; fame does not pay, nor learning. It is love that pays; it is character that cleaves its way through adamantine walls of difficulties.^[Source]

Giving

1. If you do good at all, you do it to yourself; feel that the receiver is the higher one. You serve the other because you are lower than he, not because he is low and you are high. Give as the rose gives perfume, because it is its own nature, utterly unconscious of giving.^[Source]
2. Let the giver kneel down and give thanks, let the receiver stand up and permit.^[Source]

Helping others

1. Be grateful to the man you help, think of him as God. Is it not a great privilege to be allowed to worship God by helping our fellow men?^[Source]
2. We should always try to help the world, that should be the highest motive in us; but if we consider well, we find that the world does not require our help at all. This world was not made that you or I should come and help it. I once read a sermon in which it was said, “All this beautiful world is very good, because it gives us time and opportunity to help others.” Apparently, this is a very beautiful sentiment, but is it not a blasphemy to say that the world needs our help?^[Source]

Love

1. Beggar’s love is no love at all. The first sign of love is when love asks nothing, [when it] gives everything.^[Source]
2. Do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle.^[Source]
3. Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.^[Source]

No cowardice

1. Always keep the mind cheerful. Everyone will die once. Cowards suffer the pangs of death again and again, solely due to the fear in their own minds.^[Source]
2. I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance.^[Source]
3. Please everybody without becoming a hypocrite and without being a coward.^[Source]

Meditate

1. Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all these processes purification of the elements — making the one melt the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit.^[Source]
2. The meditative state is the highest state of existence. So long as there is desire, no real happiness can come. It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness.
3. Try a little harder, and meditation comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system. Not even the deepest sleep will give you such a rest as that.

Off with Laziness

1. Off with laziness. Spread! Spread! Run like fire to all places.^[Source]
2. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything for ourselves.^[Source]
3. We know how often in our lives through laziness and cowardice we give up the battle and try to hypnotise our minds into the belief that we are brave.^[Source]

On desire

1. As desire increases, so increases the power of pleasure, so the power of pain.^[Source]
2. Desire is infinite, its fulfilment limited. Desire is unlimited in everyone; the power of fulfilment varies. Thus some are more successful than others in life.^[Source]
3. Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery.^[Source]

Practice

1.  It is practice first, and knowledge afterwards.^[Source]
2.  One ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk.^[Source]
3.  We must patiently practice every day.[Source]