— Swami Vivekananda, letters and lectures, Complete Works
About this quote
हिन्दी में
अगर धन से किसी का भला हो सके, तो उसका कुछ मूल्य है; वरना वह बुराई का ढेर भर है, और जितनी जल्दी उससे छुटकारा मिल जाए, उतना अच्छा।
What it means
Look at how faint the praise is. Even in the best case money gets only some value, and borrowed value at that — it never earns worth of its own. The second half is far less measured: not useless, not neutral, but a mass of evil, with a prescription attached. And the prescription is addressed to the holder, not to the state or to fate.
The line is usually quoted as a slogan against wealth, which softens it in one direction and hardens it in another. It is not a rule about amounts; a large sum that moves outward passes the test and a small hoard fails it. What is being graded is function, not quantity — the same rupee passes or fails depending on where it goes next.
What it teaches you
Run the test on a number you actually have rather than on wealth as an idea. Take what has sat in your account untouched for a year and ask what it has done in that year — not what it is being saved for, what it has done. The sentence grades by movement, so the honest answer is either a transaction you can name or nothing.
अर्थ और सीख
इस वाक्य में धन को कभी अपने आप में मूल्यवान नहीं माना गया — वह कुछ मूल्य तभी पाता है जब किसी और के काम आए। और जब वह न चले, तो उसे बेकार नहीं, बुराई का ढेर कहा गया है, और उसे हटाने की ज़िम्मेदारी रखने वाले पर डाली गई है। सीख यह है कि कसौटी रकम का आकार नहीं, उसकी गति है — इसलिए अपने जमा पैसे से पूछिए कि पिछले साल उसने किया क्या।
Where it comes from
Vivekananda was neither romantic about poverty nor impressed by wealth. Money here is an instrument and nothing else: useful when it moves outward, actively corrosive when it does not. Coming from a monk who raised funds relentlessly for famine relief and education, the judgement carries weight.
From his letters and lectures in the Complete Works. Swami Vivekananda’s lectures and letters are collected in the nine-volume Complete Works, which is fully searchable — so his sayings can be checked, and we flag the ones that cannot.
