Swami Vivekananda On Competition ~ Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Black and white painting of warriors riding horses

Competition rouses envy, and it kills the kindliness of the heart.

—Swami Vivekananda

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In this article you'll find a collection of Swami Vivekananda's quotes on competition.

Competition and merciless cruelty will be the watchword of the day.^[Source]
Competition — cruel, cold, and heartless — is the law of Europe.^[Source]
Competition gets keener.^[Source]
Competition rouses envy, and it kills the kindliness of the heart.^[Source]
Everything that has selfishness for its basis, competition as its right hand, and enjoyment as its goal, must die sooner or later.^[Source]
Give up all these mad pursuits, and then play your part in the universe, as an actor on the stage. The whole vision is changed, and instead of an eternal prison this world has become a playground; instead of a land of competition it is a land of bliss, where there is perpetual spring, flowers bloom and butterflies flit about. This very world becomes heaven, which formerly was hell.^[Source]
How do all the formative forces of the universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict.^[Source]
If there be no eternal life, still the enjoyment of spiritual thoughts as ideals is keener and makes a man happier, whilst the foolery of materialism leads to competition and undue ambition and ultimate death, individual and national.^[Source]
In my opinion, struggle and competition sometimes stand in the way of a being's attaining its perfection.^[Source]
It seems that such a tide of world-weariness has come upon the Western world. There, too, they have their thinkers, great men; and they are already finding out that this race after gold and power is all vanity of vanities; many, nay, most of the cultured men and women there, are already weary of this competition, this struggle, this brutality of their commercial civilisation, and they are looking forward towards something better.^[Source]
More and more anxiety, and more and more competition.^[Source]
One animal tears another to pieces, and every man tries to get the better of his own brother. This competition, cruelty, horror, and sighs rending hearts day and night is the state of things in this world of ours.^[Source]
Our law is caste — the breaking of competition, checking its forces, mitigating its cruelties, smoothing the passage of the human soul through this mystery of life.^[Source]
Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force, and competition its ceremonies, and the human soul its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be.^[Source]
"Take the world as it is, sit down as calmly and comfortably as you can and be contented with all these miseries. When you receive blows, say they are not blows but flowers; and when you are driven about like slaves, say that you are free. Day and night tell lies to others and to your own souls, because that is the only way to live happily." This is what is called practical wisdom, and never was it more prevalent in the world than in this nineteenth century; because never were harder blows hit than at the present time, never was competition keener, never were men so cruel to their fellow-men as now; and, therefore, must this consolation be offered.^[Source]
The European says, it is competition, natural and sexual selection, etc. that forces one body to take the form of another.^[Source]
The same world which was the ghastly battle-field of Maya is now changed into something good and beautiful. We no longer curse nature, nor say that the world is horrible and that it is all vain; we need no longer weep and wail. As soon as we understand the voice, we see the reassert why this struggle should be here, this fight, this competition, this difficulty, this cruelty, these little pleasures and joys; we see that they are in the nature of things, because without them there would be no going towards the voice, to attain which we are destined, whether we know it or not.^[Source]
The tremendous engine of competition will destroy everything.^[Source]
The worst feature of the caste is that is suppresses competition, and the checking of competition has really been the cause of the political downfall of India and its conquest by foreign races.^[Source]
These competitions and struggles and evils that we see are not the effect of the involution or the cause, but they are in the way. If they did not exist, still man would go on and evolve as God, because it is the very nature of that God to come out and manifest Himself. To my mind this seems very hopeful, instead of that horrible idea of competition.^[Source]
This old crude system of religion was better than the modern system, namely — competition and gold.^[Source]
What makes everything alive? Competition. Hereditary trade kills.^[Source]
With the introduction of modern competition, see how caste is disappearing fast!^[Source]
Yesterday, competition was the law. Today, cooperation is the law. Tomorrow there is no law.^[Source]