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Abba Lot came one day to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Father, I keep my little rule to the best of my ability. I observe my modest fast and my contemplative silence. I say my prayers and do my meditation. I endeavour as far as I can to drive useless thoughts out of my heart. What more can I do?”
The elder rose to answer and lifted his hands to heaven. His fingers looked like lighted candles and he said, “Why not become wholly fire?”
What is natural is never disgraceful.
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
God must act and pour himself into you the moment He finds you ready. Don’t imagine that God can be compared to an earthly carpenter, who acts or doesn’t act, as he wishes… who can will to do something or leave it undone, according to his pleasure. It is not that way with God: where and when God finds you ready, He must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that.
God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.
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.
He who knows not,
And knows not that he knows not,
Is a fool — shun him.
He who knows not,
And knows that he knows not,
Is a child — teach him.
He who knows,
And knows not that he knows,
Is asleep — wake him.
He who knows,
And knows that he knows,
Is wise — follow him.
I am fully qualified to work as a doorkeeper,
and for this reason:
What is inside me, I don’t let out:
What is outside me, I don’t let in.
If someone comes in, he goes right out again —
He has nothing to do with me at all.
I am a Doorkeeper of the Heart, not a lump of wet clay.
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors.
It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense — that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, or aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza’s pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? What objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you and all other conscious beings as such are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance.
Energy is Eternal Delight.
Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.
A mind that is completely discontented can jump into reality — not a mind that is content, not a mind that is respectable, hedged about by beliefs.
Many persons use greater care to avoid injuries to the body rather than to shun harm to the soul. Thou art not flesh and hair but a will. If thou keep this beautiful then will you be beautiful.
If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity… you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge — a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it should be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral.
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
On this road, therefore, to abandon one’s own way is to enter on the true way, or, to speak more correctly, to advance to the goal… for the spirit which has courageously resolved on passing, inwardly and outwardly, beyond the limits of its own nature, enters the limitless higher world.
Obedience ensures greatness, while disobedience leads to defeat.
I saw you last night in the gathering, but could not take you openly in my arms, so I put my lips next to your cheek, pretending to talk privately.
