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Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the same God who worketh all in all.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Everyone of us has had experiences which we have not been able to explain: A sudden sense of loneliness, or a feeling of wonder or awe in the face of the universal vastness. Or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world, that our origins are divine.
One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special definite qualities: that he is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, and so on. Men are not like that. We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, more often wise than stupid, more often energetic than apathetic, or the reverse; but it would not be true to say of one man that he is kind and wise, of another that he is bad and stupid. And yet we always classify mankind in this way. And this is false. Men are like rivers: the water is the same in one and all; but every river is narrow here, more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now dull, now cold, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man bears in himself the germs of every human quality; but sometimes one quality manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.
We would be quite surprised if we knew what the soul sometimes says to God, who seems to take such great pleasure in these conversations that He permits the soul complete freedom, provided that it wishes to remain always with Him and rely on Him. And, as though He were afraid that the soul might return to created things, God takes care to supply it so well with all that it can desire that over and over it finds deep within itself a source of nourishment that is very savory and delicious to its taste, although it never desired it or procured it in any way, and without its having contributed anything on its part other than its consent.
All the doors that lead inward to the secret place of the most high are doors outward: out of self — out of smallness — out of wrong.
When I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment, I attained absolutely nothing. That is why it is called Absolute Perfect Enlightenment.
The most virtuous of all men is he who contents himself with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.
There are people in the world, who, having renounced all the laws of God and nature, have made laws for themselves which they strictly obey.
Glory be to God who has not given to his creatures any way to attain knowledge of Him except by means of their helplessness and hopelessness of ever reaching such attainment.
Weak people prefer to be dependent in order to be protected. Those who fear men love the laws of the land.
In the same degree in which a man’s mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.
Patience is powerful.
He who has found the bliss of the Eternal has no fear from any quarter.
Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy.
All is whole;
Not one word more of the consumed time.
Let’s take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them.
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.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.
The spiritual path wrecks the body and afterwards restores it to health. It destroys the house to unearth the treasure, and with that treasure builds it better than before.
