Swami Vivekananda Quotes on Service

1. God allows you to work. He allows you to exercise your muscles in this great gymnasium, not in order to help Him but that you may help yourself. Do you think even an ant will die or want of your help? Most arrant blasphemy
2. Call up the divinity within you, which will enable you to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold. Sitting in luxurious homes, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and doling out a little amateur religion may be good for other lands, but India has a truer instinct. It intuitively detects the mask. You must give up. Be great. No great work can be done without sacrifice…….”
3. Have vairagya. Your ancestors gave up the world for doing great things. At the present times there are men who give up the world to help their own salvation. Throw away everything, even your own salvation, and go and help others.
4. With the conviction firmly rooted in your heart that you are the servants of the Lord, His children, helpers in the fulfillment of His purpose, enter the arena of work.
5. Set yourselves to work - to work! Do not tarry…Do not sit idle, thinking that everything will be done in time, later. Mind - nothing will be done that way.
6. Now is wanted intense Karma-Yoga with unbounded courage and indomitable strength in the heart. Then only will the people of the country be roused.
7. All work is simply to bring out the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. The power is inside every man, so is knowing; the different works are like blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.
8. Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.
9. The wind of divine grace is always blowing. You just need to spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it. Think day and night, “I am of the essence of that Supreme Being-Consciousness-Bliss. What fear and anxiety have I?”
10. Always first learn to be a servant, and then you will be fit to be a master. Avoid jealousy, and you will do great works that are yet to be done.” (Can be in success as well)
11. The men of mighty will, the world has produced have all been tremendous workers — gigantic souls, with wills powerful enough to overturn worlds, wills they got by persistent work, through ages, and ages.
12. Machines or instruments, cities, ships, or men-of-war, all these are simply the manifestation of the will of man; and this will is caused by character, and character is manufactured by Karma. As is Karma, so is the manifestation of the will.
13. Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.
14. Go from village to village; do good to humanity and to the world at large. Go to hell yourself to buy salvation for others.
15. Now is wanted intense Karma-Yoga with unbounded courage and indomitable strength in the heart. Then only will the people of the country be roused.
16. Give up jealousy and conceit. Learn to work unitedly for others. That is the great need of our country. Have patience and be faithful unto death. Do not fight among yourselves.
17. Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.”
18. Cultivate the virtue of obedience, but you must not sacrifice your own faith…Give up jealousy and conceit. Learn to work unitedly for others. This is the great need of our country.
19. We must be merciful towards those that are in misery; and to the wicked we must be indifferent"
20. In this world always take the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no returns. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.”
21. Have faith in yourselves, great convictions are the mother of great deeds"
22. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all.”
23. Let us work on, doing as we go whatever happens to be our duty, and being ever ready to put our shoulders to the wheel. Then surely shall we see the Light!
24. Let there be action without reaction; action is pleasant, all misery is reaction…The happiest moments we ever know are when we entirely forget ourselves. Work of your own free will, not from duty”
25. To attain liberation through work, join yourself to work but without desire, looking for no result. Such work leads to knowledge, which in turn brings emancipation. To give up work before you know, leads to misery.”
26. Even thinking of the least good of others gradually instills into the heart, the strength of a lion.
27. I do not care of liberation…’doing good to others (silently) like the spring’ this is my religion.”
28. Set yourselves to work - to work! Do not tarry - the time of death is approaching day by day! Do not sit idle, thinking that everything will be done in time, later. Mind - nothing will be done that way.”
29. What Karma-Yoga means; even at the point of death to help anyone, without asking questions. Never vaunt of your gifts to the poor or expect their gratitude, but rather be grateful to them for giving you the occasion of practicing charity to them.”
30. Let us perfect the means; the end will take care of itself. For the world can be good and pure, only if our lives are good and pure. It is an effect, and we are the means. Therefore, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect.”
31. Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you — but do not think of that now, it will come back multiplied a thousand fold — but the attention must not be on that. Yet have the power to give: give, and there it ends.”
32. Desire to live a hundred years, have all earthly desires, if you wish, only deify them, convert them into heaven. Have the desire to live a long life of helpfulness, of blissfulness and activity on this earth. Thus working, you will find the way out.”
33. When you help a poor man, do not feel the least pride. That is worship for you, and not the cause of pride. Is not the whole universe you? Where is there any one that is not you? You are the Soul of this universe. You are the sun, moon, and stars, it is you that are shining everywhere.”
34. All work is simply to bring out the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. The power is inside every man, so is knowing; the different works are like blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.
35. Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.
36. Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.
37. Every duty is holy, and devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God.”
38. The ideal of work is to work for work’s sake.
39. Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others