Swami Vivekananda as Seen by Great Personalities

"At the soul of all activities of today’s youth is the message of Swami Vivekananda which calls out the soul of a man, not his fingers. If you want to know India, study Vivekananda. In him, there is nothing negative, everything positive."

―Rabindranath Tagore, Noble laureate.
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"He was so great, so profound, so complex. 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." 

―Subhash Chandra Bose.
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"It is an undisputed fact that it was Swami Vivekananda who first held aloft the banner of Hinduism as a challenge against the material science of the West. It was Swami Vivekananda who first took on his shoulders this stupendous task of establishing the glory of Hinduism in different countries across the borders. And he, with his erudition, oratorical power, enthusiasm, and inner force, laid that work upon a solid foundation. Twelve centuries ago Shankara was the only great personality who not only spoke of the purity of our religion... but also brought all this into action. Swami Vivekananda is a person of that stature." 

―Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
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"Vivekananda was a soul of puissance if ever there was one, a very lion among men, but the definitive work he has left behind is quite incommensurate with our impression of his creative might and energy. 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, upheaving that has entered the soul of India and we say, "Behold, Vivekananda still lives in the soul of his Mother and in the souls of her children." 

―Sri Aurobindo.
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"Swami Vivekananda will be remembered as one of the most significant figures in the whole history of Indian religion, comparable in importance to such great teachers as Shankara and Ramanuja. Since the days of the Indian missionaries who traveled in Southeast Asia and China preaching Buddhism and Hinduism more than a thousand years earlier, he was the first Indian religious teacher to make such an impression outside India." 

―Arthur Llewellyn Basham, Ideologists.
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"One of the very greatest historical figures that India has ever produced."

―Christopher Isherwood.
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"I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of this book at thirty 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!" 

―Romain Rolland, Noble laurate.
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"Swami 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."

―C. Rajgopalachari
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