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Explore all of the quotations in our Living Book…
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
It is not necessary to think of revelation as a source of knowledge which is either contrary to reason or above reason… On the contrary it would not be difficult to show that the true idea of revelation, that which is most honoring to God, is at the same time that which is most ennobling to man — the idea, that is, of a revelation which addresses itself not to the ear or the logical understanding only, but to the whole spiritual nature.
Let a prince be guarded with soldiers, attended by counsellors, and protected by a fort, yet if his thoughts disturb him, he is miserable.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.
His individual dignity, not derived from birth, from success, from wealth, from outward show, but consisting in the indestructible principles of his soul — this ought to enter into his habitual consciousness.
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, winding through unknown country home.
On every mountain height is rest.
There is no path to truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery.
Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery — the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets — is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.
The freer you feel yourself in the presence of another, the more free is he.
Loud clamour is always more or less insane.
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.
It follows absolutely, that one who uses his understanding correctly, can fall a prey to no sorrow.
We know that when the rich man asked how he could gain eternal life the answer was: “If you will be perfect follow me.” The meaning, in the Greek, is to reach one’s goal. “Sin” meant, in the original, “missing the mark.” The psychological idea emerges quite clearly when we consider the real meaning of these two words. The goal is to perfect oneself, to become complete, and sin is all that that causes one to miss the goal.
The only elevation of a human being consists in the exercise, growth, energy of the higher principles and powers of his soul. A bird may be shot upwards to the skies by a foreign force; but it rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings and soars by its own living power.
Let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness.
Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life’s relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.
Man has inner necessities. His emotional life is not satisfied by outer things. His organization is not only to be explained in terms of adaptation to outer life. He needs ideas to give meaning to his existence. There is that in him that can grow and develop — some further state of himself — not lying in “tomorrow,” but above him.
When he tries to extend his power over objects
Those objects gain control of him.
He who is controlled by objects
Loses possession of his inner self.
If he no longer values himself,
How can he value others?
If he no longer values others,
He is abandoned.
He has nothing left.
We survive in adversity and perish in ease and comfort.
