IT IS THESE OBSTACLES WHICH KNOCK AND SHAPE GREAT CHARACTERS

It gives me great pleasure to learn that Shashi and others are making a stir. We must create a stir, nothing short of this will do. You will be throwing the whole world into convulsion. Victory to the Guru! You know, " — Great undertakings are always fraught with many obstacles." It is these obstacles which knock and shape great characters....

- Swami Vivekananda
25th September, 1894 NEW YORK
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/XLVII Brother disciples

ON WARD, BROTHER - THEY ASK TO BE UP AND DOING

These [great souls] are signposts on the way. That is all they are. They say, "Onward, brothers!" We cling to them; we never want to move. We do not want to think; we want others to think for us. The messengers fulfil their mission. They ask to be up and doing. A hundred years later we cling to the message and go to sleep.

- Swami Vivekananda
(Delivered on March 25, 1900, in the San Francisco Bay Area)The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Lectures And Discourses/Mohammed