Civilisations have arisen in other parts of the world.
In ancient times and in modern times, great ideas have emanated from strong and great races. In ancient and in modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another. In ancient and in modern times, seeds of great truth and power have been cast abroad by the advancing tides of national life; but mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and with the march of embattled cohorts.
Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood.
Each idea had to wade through the blood of millions of our fellow - beings. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows.
This, in the main, other nations have taught; but India has for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fathers of the modern Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves blue.
Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from then until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it.
We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Colombo,
Lectures From Colombo to Almora
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