Rabindranath Tagore

Vivekananda said that there was the power of God in every man, that God wanted to have our service through the poor. This is what I call real gospel. This gospel showed the path of infinite freedom from man’s tiny egocentric self beyond the limits of all selfishness. This was no sermon relating to a particular ritual, nor was it a narrow injunction to be imposed upon one’s external life. Vivekananda’s gospel marked the awakening of man in his fullness…If you want to know India , study Vivekananda.
–Rabindranath Tagore (May 7, 1861 – Aug 7, 1941)

Ramdhari Singh Dinkar

What new India has to say, has come out from the mouth of Vivekananda. The direction, which New India was to take, was hinted clearly by Vivekananda.

Vivekananda is the bridge on which Old and New India embrace each other. Vivekananda is that ocean in which go and merge all—religion and politics, nationalism and inter-nationalism, Upanishads and science. . .

The cyclone, which arose from the centre of English language and European Intellectualism, and proceeded to swallow Hinduism, got subsided after hitting the Himalayan chest of Swami Vivekananda. It is a solemn duty of Hindu race that as long as it survives, it must keep the memory of Vivekananda with the same regard, as with which it remembers Vyasa and Valmiki.’

– Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (Rashtra-Kavi Dinkar), (1908 – Apr 24, 1974) The Jnanapith Award winner,  from  ‘Samskriti ke char Adhyaya’ (The four phases of Culture).