Barack Obama Quotes Swami Vivekananda

Instead of resisting the global economy, you became one of its engines 

--reforming the licensing raj and unleashing an economic marvel that has lifted tens of millions of people from poverty and created one of the world’s largest middle classes. Instead of succumbing to division, you have shown that the strength of India -the very idea of India - is its embrace of all colors, all castes, all creeds. (Applause.) It's the diversity represented in this chamber today. It’s the richness of faiths celebrated by a visitor to my hometown of Chicago more than a century ago, the renowned Swami Vivekananda said that, "holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character."

Swamiji at Parliament of Religions

(Excerpted from a speech by Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States addressed to the parliament of India during his official visit to India in November 2010.)