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Share in the accounts and discoveries of the many individuals who, just like you, set out to find new, true answers that could stand up to the test of passing time with its ever-changing conditions. Welcome these inward and uplifting thoughts as if they were your own, for in one sense… they are.
The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
All men who know not where to look for truth, save in the narrow well of self, will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking.
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.
Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others.
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged
you onward with me, and still urge you,
without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or
utterly quell’d and defeated.
A sound direction is not so much indicated by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.
The precious, the living, the effectual part… is that of which he sees the reasonableness and excellence; that which approves itself to his intelligence, his conscience, his heart; that which answers to deep wants in his own soul, and of which he has the witness in his own inward and outward experience.
The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
There is no need of words; believe in facts.
How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses, and how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears!
Jews call this Word the Law; Christians call it the Logos or the blueprint; Taoists call it the Eternal Tao; Buddhists call it Emptiness or the Great Compassion; Hindus call it Brahman; Sufi Muslims call it the dance; and science speaks of universal theories. But we are all pointing to one underlying truth that we all strive toward in ten thousand ways. We all somehow believe it is a coherent and even a benevolent universe. Maybe that is the very heart of the meaning of faith. It is surely the Perennial Tradition discovered by all people of goodwill and sincere search.
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so.
I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that there was no escape from the labyrinth of contradictions in which we live except by an entirely new road, unlike anything hitherto known or used by us.
Himself is the source of the best and most a man can be or achieve. The more this is so — the more a man finds his sources of pleasure in himself — the happier he will be… For all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain.
Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians — the inability to pronounce the word “No.” To be able to speak that word and to live alone, are the only two means to preserve one’s freedom and one’s character.
Set aside all reflection, for you will find it hard to reason about how God leads you. If you are determined to pursue reasoning you may become very good at it and convince yourself to follow your own way. Or worse, you will reason that you are following God.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses, but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one.
You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer.
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.
We are very near to greatness. One step and we are safe. Can we not take the leap?
Human improvement is from within outwards.
It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in whatever conditions we are, and money signifies no more to it than it does to the gods.
Our rash faults
Make trivial price of serious things we have,
Not knowing them until we know their grave:
Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
Destroy our friends and after weep their dust:
Our own love waking cries to see what’s done,
While shame full late sleeps out the afternoon.