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Explore all of the quotations in our Living Book…
A man should orient his will and all his works to God and having only God in view go forward unafraid, not thinking, “Am I right or am I wrong?” One who worked out all the chances before starting his first fight would never fight at all. And if, going to someplace, we must think how to set the front foot down, we shall never get there. It is our duty to do the next thing: go straight on, that is the right way.
Life is not happening to you, it unfolds as it does… for you.
The “resurrection” is not of the so-called dead, but of the living who are “dead” in the sense of never having entered upon true life.
To live in the light of the universal order is to be awake. To turn aside into our own microcosm is to go to sleep.
When the ocean surges,
don’t let me just hear it.
Let it splash inside my chest!
It is the Way of Heaven not to strive, and yet it knows how to overcome; not to speak, and yet it knows how to win a response.
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.
To be nothing is the precondition of being.
Mental pleasures never clog; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.
This is a country whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. You do not find it by travelling but by standing still. Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.
If you cannot pray over a thing, and cannot ask God to bless you in it, don’t do that thing. A secret that you would keep from God is a secret that you should keep from your own heart. Open thy heart to God, if He be there, the outspread world will be thy book of prayer.
The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.
When you know that you are eternal you can play your true role in time. When you know you are divine you can become completely human. When you know you are one with God you are free to become absolutely yourself, individual and holy and my child.
Here a man shall be free from the noise and from the hurryings of this life: all states are full of noise and confusion; only the Valley of Humiliation is that empty and solitary place. Here a man shall not be so let and hindered in his contemplation as in other places he is apt to be. This is a valley that nobody walks in but those that love a pilgrim’s life… in former times men have met with angels here; have found pearls here; and have in this place found the words of life.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.
At bottom there is but one subject of study… the mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies bring us back to this study.
He raises the afflicted from a dunghill,
For he will settle him with the Rulers of the people.
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
Patience child, patience. Remember, life is a journey. If you got everything you wanted all at once there’d be no point to living. Enjoy the ride, and in the end you’ll see these “setbacks” as giant leaps forward, only you couldn’t see the bigger picture in the moment. Remain calm, all is within reach; all you have to do is show up every day, stay true to the path and you will surely find the treasure you seek.
