— Swami Vivekananda, lectures, Complete Works
About this quote
हिन्दी में
सुविधा सत्य की कसौटी नहीं है। सत्य अक्सर सुविधाजनक होने से बहुत दूर होता है।
What it means
The sentence rejects one specific test for truth: that a belief soothes you. And it is carefully unsymmetrical — comfort is no test at all, while truth is only often uncomfortable. The second half is a report on how things tend to be, not a rule you can run backwards.
That asymmetry is exactly what the popular use destroys. Quoted as ‘the truth hurts’, it becomes a licence for anyone selling a harsh claim to treat your discomfort as proof of their case. The line gives them nothing: it removes a bad test, it does not install the mirror image of one.
What it teaches you
Two checks. When you notice you are holding a belief because the alternative would be unbearable — about a diagnosis, a marriage, a business that is not working — mark that the comfort is not evidence, and go looking for evidence separately. And when someone frames a claim as a bitter truth you are too soft to accept, ask for the same evidence you would want from a pleasant claim; bitterness is not a credential.
अर्थ और सीख
यह वाक्य सत्य की एक ग़लत कसौटी ख़ारिज करता है — किसी बात से मन को चैन मिलना इस बात का प्रमाण नहीं कि वह सच है। पर उल्टा भी नहीं कहा गया: कड़वा होना भी सच होने का प्रमाण नहीं, बस सच अक्सर असुविधाजनक होता है। इसलिए जिस विश्वास को आप सिर्फ़ इसलिए थामे हैं कि उसके बिना सहना कठिन है, उसे अलग से प्रमाण पर परखिए — और जो अपनी कठोर बात को ‘कड़वा सच’ कहकर बेचे, उससे भी उतना ही प्रमाण माँगिए।
Where it comes from
Genuine Vivekananda, from his lectures collected in the Complete Works. It is his standing rebuke to religion-as-consolation: truth is to be pursued whether or not it soothes.
