Mahatma Gandhi
My homage and respect to the very revered memory of Swami Vivekananda. After having gone through [his works], the love that I had for my country became a thousand fold.

Romain Rolland
I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of this book at thirty years distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shock, what transport, must have been produced when, in burning words, they issued from the lips of the hero! The thought of this warrior prophet of India left a deep mark upon the United States. He embraced all the paths of spirit; the four Yogas in their entirety, renunciation and service, art and science, religion and action from the most spiritual to the most practical. He was the personification of the harmony of all Human Energy.

Jawaharlal Nehru
Rooted in the past and full of pride in India's heritage, Vivekananda was yet modern in his approach to life's problems and was a kind of bridge between the past of India and her present. Vivekananda came as a tonic to the depressed and demoralized Hindu mind and gave it self-reliance and some roots in the past.

Sister Nivedita
It is this which adds its crowning significance to our Master's (Vivekananda) life, for here he becomes the meeting-point, not only of East and West, but also of past and future. If the many and the One be, indeed, the same Reality, then it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths of realization. No distinction, henceforth, between sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is itself religion. To have and to hold is as stern a trust as to quit and to avoid. To him, the worship, the study, the farmyard and the field, are as true and fit scenes for the meeting God with man, as the cell of the monk or the door of the temple. To him, there is no difference between service of man and worship of God, between manliness and faith, between the true righteousness and spirituality.

Rabindranath Tagore
If you want to know India, study Vivekananda. In him, everything is positive and nothing negative. Vivekananda's gospel marked the awakening of man in his fullness.

Annie Besant
A striking figure, clad in yellow and orange, shining like the sun of India in the midst of the heavy atmosphere of Chicago, a lion head, piercing eyes, mobile lips, movements swift and fast - such was my first impression of Swami Vivekananda. On the platform (at the parliament of religions in Chicago) another side came out. The dignity and inborn sense of worth and power still were there, but all was subdued to the exquisite beauty of the spiritual message which he had brought, to the sublimity of the matchless evangel of the East which is the heart, the life of India, the wondrous teaching of the Self. Enraptured, the huge multitudes hung upon his words; not a syllable must be lost, not a cadence missed!

Leo Tolstoy
In Vivekananda's passionate tirades directed against the contemporary bourgeois civilization, in his affirmations of the priority of the spiritual essence of man over his material cover. What English has Vivekananda! He has learnt all its subtleties.. We are preparing a publication of selected thoughts of Vivekananda whom I appreciate very much.

Sri Aurobindo
The going forth of Vivekananda marked out by the Master (Sri Ramakrishna) as the heroic soul destined take the world between his two hands and change it, was the first visible sign to the world that India was awake, not only to survive but to conquer. Swami Vivekananda was a soul of puissance, if ever there was one, a very lion among men. We perceive his influence still working gigantically, we know not well how, we know not well where, in something that is not yet formed, something leonine, grand, intuitive, up heaving, that has entered the soul of India, and we say, Behold! Vivekananda still live in the soul of his Mother, and in the Soul of her children.

William James
"The man [Vivekananda] is simply a wonder for oratorical power... the Swami is an honour to humanity."

Subhash Chandra Bose
I can go on for hours and yet fail to do the slightest justice to that great man. He was so great, so profound, so complex. I cannot write about Vivekananda without going into raptures. His personality was rich, profound and complex... Reckless in his sacrifice, unceasing in his activity, boundless in his love, profound and versatile in his wisdom, exuberant in his emotions, merciless in his attacks but yet simple as a child, he was a rare personality in this world of ours.

A Yogi of the highest spiritual level in direct communion with the Truth, who had, for the time being, consecrated his whole life to the moral and spiritual uplift of his nation and of humanity that is how I would describe him. If he had been alive, I would have been at his feet. Modern India is his creation - if I err not.

Christopher Isherwood
"[Vivekananda is] one of the very greatest historical figures that India has ever produced. When one sees the full range of his mind, one is astounded."

C Rajagopalachari
"Vivekananda saved Hinduism and saved India. But for him, we would have lost our religion and would not have gained our freedom. We therefore owe everything to Swami Vivekananda."

Dr. M. H. Logan
Many are the moments of sadness since the Swamiji has gone away. It seems that all the gods had left us, for his divine presence spread peace and tranquility wherever he went; the tumult of uncertainty departed from my soul at the sound of his magic voice. His very form and every mood were those of tender compassion and sympathy. None knew him but to love him; those of us who have had the royal good fortune to have met him in the flesh will some day realize that we have met the true incarnation of Divine One.

E. P. Chelishev
Together with the Indian people, Soviet people who already know some of the works of Vivekananda published in the USSR, highly revere the memory of the great Indian patriot, humanist a democrat, impassioned fighter for a better future for his people and all mankind.

Will Durant
He preached to his countrymen a more virile creed than any Hindu had them since Vedic days.

Suggested Readings on Swami Vivekananda

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Pub: Ramakrishna Math, Chennai Raja Yoga By Swami Vivekananda Bhakti Yoga By Swami Vivekananda Karma Yoga By Swami Vivekenanda Jnana Yoga By Swami Vivekananda