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Explore all of the quotations in our Living Book…
I have sought to know myself.
There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity in self-examination.
Prayer that craves a particular commodity — anything less than all good — is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.
No heart that holds one right desire treads the road of loss.
To meditate is to transcend time. Time is the distance that thought travels in its achievements. The traveling is always along the old path covered over with a new coating, new sights, but always the same road, leading nowhere — except to pain and sorrow. It is only when the mind transcends time that truth ceases to be an abstraction.
Three brothers were in the habit of going to see the blessed Anthony every year. The first two would ask him questions about their thoughts and the salvation of the soul. But the third would keep silence without asking anything. Eventually Abba Anthony said to him, “You have been coming here to see me for a long time now and you never ask me any questions.” The other replied, “One thing is enough for me, Father… to see you.”
Truly, I see he that will but stand to the truth, it will carry him out.
Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind’s eye to read its oracles.
A man’s own vanity is a swindler.
The mind should be kept independent of any thoughts that arise within it. If the mind depends on anything, it has no sure haven.
He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his life, is like a man who labors in his field, but did not sow.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
But by never coming to an end it seems to make some attempt at rivialing that which it can never fully realize in its being.
It (an authentic teaching) must give us an explanation of our opposition to God and to our own good. It must teach us the remedies for these infirmities, and the means of obtaining these remedies.
The Indian believes profoundly in silence — the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his self-hood is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence. What are the fruits of silence? They are self control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character.
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more quiet and gentle we become towards the defects of others.
How our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.
This science is not theoretical, but practical, in which experience surpasses the most polished and clever speculation.
Diogenes was free. How so? Not because he was of free parentage, for that was not the case, but because he was himself a free man. He had cast aside every handle by which he might be enslaved… All things sat loosely upon him, all things were attached by slender ties.
Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.
