Swami Vivekananda Quotes on Faith

“Faith, faith, faith in ourselves, faith, faith in God—this is the secret of greatness.”

“All the difference between man and man is owing to the existence or non-existence of faith in himself. Faith in ourselves will do everything. I have experienced it in my own life.”

“Let people say whatever they like, stick to your own convictions, and rest assured, the world will be at your feet. They say, 'Have faith in this fellow or that fellow,' but I say, 'Have faith in yourself first,' that's the way. Have faith in yourself—all power is in you—be conscious and bring it out. Say, "I can do everything." "Even the poison of a snake is powerless if you can firmly deny it."”

“The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith, death comes.”

“Throughout the history of mankind, if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of all great men and women, it is that of faith in themselves. Born with the consciousness that they were to be great, they became great.”

“The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.”

“Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself. But it is better for us that we should know it from the very first. Why should we have all these bitter experiences in order to gain faith in ourselves? Believe first in yourself, then in God.”

“Shraddha is what I want, and what all of us here want, this faith in ourselves, and before you is the great task to get that faith. Give up the awful disease that is creeping into our national blood, that idea of ridiculing everything, that loss of seriousness. Give that up. Be strong and have this Shraddha, and everything else is bound to follow.”

“Have faith in yourselves, great convictions are the mothers of great deeds. Onward for ever!”

“Never say, 'No,' never say, 'I cannot,' for you are infinite. Even time and space are as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almighty.”

“So long as you have faith and honesty and devotion, everything will prosper.”

“Try to be a magnetic speaker. Electrify the people. Everything will come to you if you have faith.”

“Freedom is never to be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.”

“Cultivate always 'faith in yourself.'”

“Discard fear. Let not your faith be shaken. …Has danger any power over one whom the Lord has taken into His fold?”

“We must not pin our faith to any man, however great; we too must become Buddhas and Christs.”

“Faith in God and in one's own Self is virtue; doubt is sin.”

“One must have tremendous faith in religion and God. Until one has it, one cannot aspire to be a Jnâni.”

“Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.”

“The whole world has been made by the energy of man, by the power of enthusiasm, by the power of faith.”

“Losing faith in one's self means losing faith in God. Do you believe in that Infinite, good Providence working in and through you? If you believe that this Omnipresent One is present in every atom, is through and through, Ota-Prota, as the Sanskrit word goes, penetrating your body, mind, and soul, how can you lose heart?”

“To preach the doctrine of Shraddhā or genuine faith is the mission of my life. Let me repeat to you that this faith is one of the potent factors of humanity and of all religions. First, have faith in yourselves. Know that though one may be a little bubble and another may be a mountain-high wave, yet behind both the bubble and the wave there is the infinite ocean. Therefore there is hope for every one. There is salvation for every one.”

“The idea of true Shraddha must be brought back once more to us, the faith in our own selves must be reawakened, and, then only, all the problems which face our country will gradually be solved by ourselves.”

“Why start with the belief that man is degraded and degenerated? I have never failed in my faith in man in any case, even taking him at his worst. Wherever I had faith in man, though at first the prospect was not always bright, yet it triumphed in the long run. Have faith in man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one or a most ignorant one.”

“Have faith in man, whether he appears to be an angel or the very devil himself. Have faith in man first, and then having faith in him, believe that if there are defects in him, if he makes mistakes, if he embraces the crudest and the vilest doctrines, believe that it is not from his real nature that they come, but from the want of higher ideals.”

“Come up, you can do everything, and you must do everything. Many will follow your example, poor though you are. Be steady, and, above all, be pure and sincere to the backbone. Have faith in your destiny.”

“It is faith that makes a lion of a man.”

“Strong faith in God and the consequent eagerness to reach Him constitute Shraddha.”

“Have faith, as Nachiketa. I wish that faith would come to each of you; and everyone of you would stand up a giant, a world–mover with a gigantic intellect— an infinite God in every respect. That is what I want you to become.”

“Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things! Let not the barks of puppies frighten you—no, not even the thunderbolts of heaven—but stand up and work!”