In this article we’ll make a collection of Swami Vivekananda‘s quotes and comments on Moses.
- Concepts grow, but there is no historical value in the allegories which present them. Moses’ visions are more likely to be wrong than ours are, because we have more knowledge and are less likely to be deceived by illusions.[Source]
- Confucius, Moses, and Pythagoras; Buddha, Christ, Mohammed; Luther, Calvin, and the Sikhs; Theosophy, Spiritualism, and the like; all these mean only the preaching of the Divine – in – man.[Source]
- How can we understand that Moses saw God unless we too see Him? If God ever came to anyone, He will come to me.[Source]
- In modern times, if a man quotes a Moses or a Buddha or a Christ, he is laughed at; but let him give the name of a Huxley, a Tyndall, or a Darwin, and it is swallowed without salt. “Huxley has said it”, that is enough for many. We are free from superstitions indeed! That was a religious superstition, and this a scientific superstition.[Source]
- Many of you may think that the cross first came into existence as a symbol in connection with the Christian religion, but as a matter of fact it existed before Christianity was, before Moses was born. . .[Source]
- Moses saw God in a burning bush. Does what Moses did when he saw God save you? No man’s seeing God can help you the least bit except that it may excite you and urge you to do the same thing.[Source]
- Moses was a tiny bubble, greater and greater ones came. Sometime, however, all will be bubbles and escape; but creation, ever new, will bring new water to go through the process all over again.[Source]
- There was an ancient superstition that because Moses gave a revelation of the will of God, therefore everything Moses wrote must be true. There is a modern superstition that, because there are mistakes in the writings of Moses, therefore nothing Moses wrote is true. When Moses wrote the tables of the law he was inspired. When he told of the creation what he said was merely the speculations of Moses the Jew.[Source]
- We find Moses occupying most of the space of the Hebrew literature.[Source]
- What has it to do with you that Moses saw God in the burning bush? The fact that Moses saw God in the burning bush does not constitute your seeing Him, does it? If it does, then the fact that Moses ate is enough for you; you ought to stop eating. One is just as sensible as the other. Records of great spiritual men of the past do us no good whatever except that they urge us onward to do the same, to experience religion ourselves. Whatever Christ or Moses or anybody else did does not help us in the least, except to urge us on.[Source]
- You remember in the Old Testament where Moses was told, “Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” We must always approach the study of religion with that reverent attitude. He who comes with a pure heart and a reverent attitude, his heart will be opened; the doors will open for him, and he will see the truth.[Source]