Excerpt from Vivekananda's letter

Never during his life did Ramakrishna refuse a single prayer of mine. Millions of offenses has he forgiven me. Such great love even my parents never had for me. There is no poetry, no exaggeration in all this. It is the bare truth and every disciple of his knows it.

Swami Vivekananda in Letter to Pramada Das Mitra. Written in Bengali from Ghazipur on March 3, 1890. Complete Works, 6.232.

selfishness and misery

With the sense of possession comes selfishness,
and selfishness brings on misery.

Swami Vivekananda : Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.100

God is one who can alter the destiny of people

How to recognize God when he assumes a human form?

Vivekananda: God is one who can alter the destiny of people. No sâdhu, however advanced, can claim this unique position. I don't see anyone who truly recognizes Ramakrishna as God. We sometimes feel it hazily, that is all. To realize Ramakrishna as God and yet be attached to the world is inconsistent.

Swami Vivekananda : Selections from the Belur Math Diary. Complete Works, 5.325.

the pains and the miseries

All this that you see, the pains and the miseries, are but the necessary conditions of this world. Poverty and wealth and happiness are but momentary. They do not belong to our real nature at all. Our nature is far beyond misery and happiness, beyond every object of the senses, beyond the imagination. And yet we must go on working all the time.

Swami Vivekananda : Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.100.

There is not one spark of real enjoyment there...

The idea that the gratification of the senses constitutes enjoyment is purely materialistic.There is not one spark of real enjoyment there; all the joy you find in it is a mere reflection of the true bliss.

Swami Vivekananda at a retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 25, 1895. Complete Works, 7.16.

The Lord looks into a man's heart...

The Lord looks into a man's heart and does not judge him by what he does or where he lives.   
p. 204 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna