Swami Vivekananda is quoted on posters, in classrooms and on every National Youth Day, 12 January. Everything he wrote and said that survives is collected in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, nine volumes that are free and searchable online. That makes checking easy, and it shows that many of the most shared “Vivekananda quotes” are not his.
Tags: No source not found in the Complete Works · Someone else written by another person. Beside each fake is something he really said on the same theme. More on Vivekananda’s life and ideas, and real Vivekananda quotes with sources.
“Take risks in your life. If you win, you can lead! If you lose, you can guide!”
No source One of the most shared lines in his name, and not in the Complete Works. Vivekananda did preach courage, but in starker terms:
What he actually said
“Strength is life, weakness is death.”Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works
“Talk to yourself once in a day, otherwise you may miss meeting an excellent person in this world.”
No source A modern self-help line, not in the Complete Works. His real teaching on the inner self is less cosy and more demanding:
What he actually said
“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.”Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works
“In a day, when you don’t come across any problems, you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path.”
No source Shared everywhere under his name, especially in India, but it is not in the Complete Works.
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
Someone else Also credited to W. B. Yeats and Socrates, and said by none of them. Quote Investigator traced the idea to the Greek writer Plutarch, about 1,900 years ago, in his essay On Listening to Lectures: the mind “does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling”. Vivekananda had his own famous definition of education:
What he actually wrote
“Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.”Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, vol. 4, “What we Believe in”
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Someone else These are the words of the Irish writer Samuel Beckett, from his late prose piece Worstward Ho (1983), eighty years after Vivekananda’s death. The closest thing in his own words is his call never to stop:
What he actually said
“Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.”His rendering of the Katha Upanishad (1.3.14), used repeatedly in his 1897 lectures in India
All of these circulate under his name, and none is found in the Complete Works:
“If I love myself despite my infinite faults, how can I hate anyone at the glimpse of a few faults.”
No source
“Mind is not a dustbin to keep anger, hatred and jealousy…”
No source
“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.”
No source
“Words may lie, but actions will always tell the truth.”
No source
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
No source
Genuine
“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal.”Raja Yoga (1896), preface
The summary he himself gave of his teaching.
Genuine
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.”Raja Yoga (1896)
Often shared, and real. It comes from his advice on concentration.
More misattributions: Quotes They Never Said, Fake Marcus Aurelius Quotes, Fake Chanakya Quotes, Fake Gandhi Quotes, Fake Buddha Quotes.
The Complete Works on Wikisource · A volunteer list of false Vivekananda quotes · Quote Investigator: the mind is not a vessel · Swami Vivekananda
