Browse by: Quotation Source | Entire Living Book | The Seeker | The Search
Despite the many differences that seem to exist between peoples the world over — regardless of culture, tradition, environment, or heredity — there is but one seeker, one search, and one sacred object of our desire. The celestial source of this sacred being doesn’t just live within us… we are, in fact, one with it.
Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
This sentiment is divine and deifying. It is the beatitude of man. It makes him illimitable. Through it, the soul first knows itself. It corrects the capital mistake of the infant man, who seeks to be great by following the great, and hopes to derive advantages from another — by showing the fountain of all good to be in himself, and that he, equally with every man, is an inlet into the deeps of Reason… then, deep melodies wander through his soul from Supreme Wisdom.
Peace of mind produces right values,
right values produce right thoughts.
Right thoughts produce right actions
and right actions produce
work which will be a
material reflection
for others to see
of the serenity
of it all.
The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us, coming through matter.
Truth is not something lying in time, in the future, but is something here, now, only above us, above our present consciousness.
If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found the Truth, you need not fear being defeated.
Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.
There is nothing more flattering than the bare truth, boldly uttered. But, all the same, those who can bear it are the rare exceptions in human nature.
Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
The Formless is in the midst of all forms.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
Christ would never have made the impression He did on His followers if He had not expressed something that was alive and active in their unconscious. Christianity would never have spread through the pagan world with such astonishing rapidity had its ideas not found an analogous psychic readiness to receive them. It is this fact which also makes it possible to say that whoever believes in Christ is not only contained in Him, but that Christ then dwells in the believer as the perfect man formed in the image of God.
Had I been born on a desert island, or had never seen a human creature beside myself; had I never been informed of what had formerly happened in a certain corner of the world, I might yet have learned, by the exercise and cultivation of my reason, and by the proper use of the faculties God has given me, to know and to love Him… and to have properly discharged my duty here on earth. What can the knowledge of the learned man teach me more?
We may quarrel with men about things on Earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit.
Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind’s eye to read its oracles.
How would you be
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips
Like man new mad.
In general we must not wish for the disappearance of any of our troubles, but grace to transform them.
What is virtue but repose of the mind?
A good disposition I far prefer to gold, for gold is the gift of fortune, while goodness of disposition is the gift of nature. I prefer much rather to be called good than fortunate.
Language does not touch the one who lives in each of us.
The more detached and the purer the prayer, the more acceptable is it in the presence of God.
The well-cultivated soul has the Logos as its King.
Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future. And time future contained in time past.
The creation of a permanent ‘I’ must take place somewhere beyond the sphere of self-love. It must be brought into existence through a series of acts which cannot be initiated by self-love and so cannot start from the admiration of oneself. And for this reason many things are necessary before such acts can be self-initiated. The whole standpoint must change. The standpoint of materialism or sensualism cannot provide the right basis from which to start. Only the recognition that there are higher degrees of reality, and the emotions that such a recognition can rouse, can begin to give the right starting point. For such emotions do not lie in the sphere of the self-love.
So the life of love is hidden, but its secret life is itself in motion and has eternity in it. As the quiet lake, however placidly it lies, is really running water — for is there not a wellspring at bottom? — so love, however quiet it is in its concealment, is ever flowing. But the quiet lake can become dry if its source sometime fails. The life of love, on the contrary, has an eternal wellspring. This life is fresh and everlasting — no cold can chill it — it is too fervent for that. And no heat can exhaust it, its coolness is too fresh for that. But it is hidden.
