In this page we’ll make a collection of Swami Vivekananda‘s quotes on Misery. Related articles are listed at the bottom of the page.
- After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near.[Source]
- All happiness and misery are inextricably connected with the senses, and body is necessary to experience them.[Source]
- All misery comes from fear, from unsatisfied desire.[Source]
- All separations are misery. Naturally. Depending upon wealth for happiness? There is fluctuation of wealth. Depending upon health or upon anything except the unchangeable spirit must bring misery today or tomorrow.[Source]
- All the misery in the world is in the senses.[Source]
- All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the sense-life—the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world.[Source]
- All the misery we have is of our own choosing; such is our nature.[Source]
- As soon as I begin to feel that I am separate from this universe, then first comes fear, and then comes misery. “Where one hears another, one sees another, that is small.[Source]
- Dependence is misery. Independence is happiness.[Source]
- Do not make the mistake of giving the heart to anything that is changing, because that is misery.[Source]
- Even misery can be enjoyed when there is no selfishness, when we have become the witness of our own lives.[Source]
- I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not?[Source]
- Ignorance is the cause of all misery. . . Knowledge will remove all misery.[Source]
- Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery we see.[Source]
- In practical daily life we are hurt by small things; we are enslaved by little beings. Misery comes because we think we are finite — we are little beings. And yet, how difficult it is to believe that we are infinite beings! In the midst of all this misery and trouble, when a little thing may throw me off my balance, it must be my care to believe that I am infinite. And the fact is that we are, and that consciously or unconsciously we are all searching after that something which is infinite; we are always seeking for something that is free.[Source]
- In this world we find that all happiness is followed by misery as its shadow. Life has its shadow, death. They must go together, because they are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but different manifestations of the same unit, life and death, sorrow and happiness, good and evil.[Source]
- Life is of very little value, if it is a life in the dark, groping through ignorance and misery.[Source]
- Misery comes because we think we are finite — we are little beings. And yet, how difficult it is to believe that we are infinite beings! In the midst of all this misery and trouble, when a little thing may throw me off my balance, it must be my care to believe that I am infinite. And the fact is that we are, and that consciously or unconsciously we are all searching after that something which is infinite; we are always seeking for something that is free.[Source]
- Misery begins with the birth of the child. Weak and helpless, he enters the world. The first sign of life is weeping.[Source]
- Misery is caused by sin, and by no other.[Source]
- One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else.[Source]
- Our duty to others means helping others; doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves. 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? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run, we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves. As a boy I had some white mice. They were kept in a little box in which there were little wheels, and when the mice tried to cross the wheels, the wheels turned and turned, and the mice never got anywhere. So it is with the world and our helping it. The only help is that we get moral exercise. This world is neither good nor evil; each man manufactures a world for himself. If a blind man begins to think of the world, it is either as soft or hard, or as cold or hot. We are a mass of happiness or misery; we have seen that hundreds of times in our lives. As a rule, the young are optimistic and the old pessimistic. The young have life before them; the old complain their day is gone; hundreds of desires, which they cannot fulfil struggle in their hearts. Both are foolish nevertheless. Life is good or evil according to the state of mind in which we look at it, it is neither by itself. Fire, by itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps us warm we say, “How beautiful is fire!” When it burns our fingers, we blame it. Still, in itself it is neither good nor bad. According as we use it, it produces in us the feeling of good or bad; so also is this world. It is perfect. By perfection is meant that it is perfectly fitted to meet its ends. We may all be perfectly sure that it will go on beautifully well without us, and we need not bother our heads wishing to help it.[Source]
- The ideal of all religions, all sects, is the same — the attaining of liberty and cessation of misery. Wherever you find religion, you find this ideal working in one form or other. Of course in lower stages of religion it is not so well expressed; but still, well or ill-expressed, it is the one goal to which every religion approaches. All of us want to get rid of misery; we are struggling to attain to liberty — physical, mental, spiritual. This is the whole idea upon which the world is working.[Source]
- The misery that we suffer comes from ignorance, from non-discrimination between the real and the unreal.[Source]
- The world will go on with its happiness and misery through eternity.[Source]
- There is no misery where there is no want. Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery.[Source]
- This world will always be a mixture of good and evil, of happiness and misery; this wheel will ever go up and come down; dissolution and resolution is the inevitable law.[Source]
- To give up work before you know, leads to misery. Work done for the Self gives no bondage.[Source]
- To you, a man of wisdom, what can this misery do?[Source]
- Want of sympathy and lack of energy are at the root of all misery, and you must therefore give these two up.[Source]
- We seek neither misery nor happiness, but freedom.[Source]
- Why is there misery in the world? He answers: “It is all our own foolishness, not having proper mastery of our own bodies. That is all.” He advises the means by which this misery can be [overcome]. If you can thus get mastery of your body, all the misery of the world will vanish.[Source]
- Why so much more misery than happiness, and so much more wickedness than good? We may shut our eyes to all these things, but the fact still remains that this world is a hideous world.[Source]
- “Why should there be so much sorrow if there is a God?” The worshipper replies! ” … There is misery in the world; [but] because of that I do not cease to love God. I do not worship Him to take away my [misery]. I love Him because He is love itself.”[Source]
- You should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave’s work. Do you not see how everybody works? Nobody can be altogether at rest; ninety-nine per cent of mankind work like slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish work.[Source]
- Why weepest thou, my friend? There is neither birth nor death for thee. Why weepest thou? There is no disease nor misery for thee, but thou art like the infinite sky; clouds of various colours come over it, play for a moment, then vanish. But the sky is ever the same eternal blue.[Source]
Related articles
Recommended reading
- Unity in Diversity from Jnana Yoga
