NO GOOD WILL COME OF SITTING IDLE AND HAVING PRINCELY DISHES, AND SAYING " Ramakrishna, O Lord!" - UNLESS YOU CAN DO SOME GOOD TO THE POOR

Go from door to door amongst the poor and lower classes of the town of Khetri and teach them religion. Also, let them have oral lessons on geography and such other subjects. No good will come of sitting idle and having princely dishes, and saying "Ramakrishna..., O Lord!" — unless you can do some good to the poor. Go to other villages from time to time, and teach the people the arts of life as well as religion. Work, worship, and Jnana (knowledge) — first work, and your mind will be purified; otherwise everything will be fruitless like pouring oblations on a pile of ashes instead of in the sacred fire.

- Swami Vivekananda
(March or April?) 1894. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/LV Akhandananda

THE WORK BEGINS WITH CONTROL OF THE BREATH - IF THE MAN IS EQUALLY POWERFUL IN BOTH - THAT MAN HAS ATTAINED MANHOOD

That is the great difficulty. By great struggle we get a certain power of concentration, the power of attachment of the mind to certain things. But then there is not the power of detachment. I would give half my life to take my mind off that object! I cannot. It is the power of co...ncentration and attachment as well as the power of detachment [that we must develop]. [If] the man [is] equally powerful in both — that man has attained manhood. You cannot make him miserable even if the whole universe tumbles about his ears. What books can teach you that? You may read any amount of books.... Crowd into the child fifty thousand words a moment, teach him all the theories and philosophies.... There is only one science that will teach him facts, and that is psychology.... And the work begins with control of the breath.

- Swami Vivekananda
(Delivered in San Francisco, March 28, 1900)The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Lectures And Discourses/Breathing