Top Ten Self-Help quotes

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  • If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then your work will bring no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return
  • If working like slaves results in selfishness and attachment, working as master of our own mind gives rise to bliss. When work becomes worship, it becomes the greatest.
  • Continuous denial of low desires results in our unlimited expansion
  • The desire to do good is the highest motive power we have and know that, it is a privilege to help others. All good acts tend to make us pure and perfect
  • No beggar whom we have helped, has ever owed a single cent to us; we owe everything to him, because he has allowed us to exercise our charity on him. It is entirely wrong to be proud of what we have done to 'help' people. Such thoughts only bring misery
  • The world does not owe us anything. It is a great privilege for all of us to be allowed to do anything for the world. In helping the world we really help ourselves
  • When we know that this world is like a dog's curly tail and will never get straightened, we shall not become fanatics. If there were no fanaticism in the world, we would make much more progress than it does now
  • It is the level-headed man, the calm man, of good judgment and cool nerves, of great sympathy and love, who does good work and so does good to himself
  • We ought not to hate anyone. This world will always continue to be a mixture of good and evil.The world is a grand moral gymnasium wherein we have all to take exercise so as to become stronger and stronger
  • The calmer we are and the less disturbed our nerves, the more shall we love and the better will our work be.

[Extracted from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Volume 1 / Karma Yoga / Chapter 3 : The Secret of Work, Chapter 4 : What is Duty?, Chapter 5 : We help ourselves, not the world]

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