This is the great fact: Strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery, weakness is death. (II.3)

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be; if you think yourselves impure, impure you will be; if you think yourselves pure, pure you will be. This teaches us not to think ourselves as weak, but as strong, omnipotent, omniscient. (III.130)

Strength is the medicine for the world’s disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must have when tyrannised over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned. (II.201)

You may meditate on whatever you like, but I shall meditate on the heart of a lion. That gives strength.

My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made. Strength, manhood, Kshatra-Veerya combined with Brahma-Teja. (V.117)

The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death. There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding us, but they cannot harm us unless we become weak, until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them. There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened. This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery; weakness is death.

Stand and die in your own strength; if there is any sin in the world, it is weakness ; avoid all weakness, for weakness is sin, weakness is death.

Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison.

If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. And of the Upanishads, it is only that one idea strength. The quintessence of the Vedas and Vedanta and all lies in that one word.

Strength,it is that we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery.

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak.

Know that all sins and all evils can be summed up in that one word, weakness. It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil-doing; it is weakness that is the source of all selfishness; it is weakness that makes them manifest what they are not in reality.

What is sin and what is misery, and what are all these, but the results of weakness? Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immortality, even those who are the weakest in manifestation. Let positive, strong, helpful thoughts enter into their brains from very childhood. Lay yourselves open to these thoughts, and not to weakening and paralysing ones.

My friend, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength and the Upanishads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them.

Can anything be done unless everybody exerts himself to his atmost? “It is the man of action, the lion-heart, the Goddess of Wealth resorts to.” No need of looking behind. Forward! We want infinite energy, infinite zeal, infinite courage, and infinite patience, then only will great things be achieved. (VI.383-384)

That is all I have to say to the world. Be strong! …… The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death! If it is strength, go down into hell and get hold of it!