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Here you will read the innermost thoughts and feelings of inspired seekers who have gone before you. Some names you may know… others you will be glad to meet!
Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but which stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
All of us who are human beings are in the image of God. But to be in his likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God.
I exist as I am — that is enough. If no other in the world be aware, I sit content.
Today I have escaped from all trouble, or rather, I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside me, but within, and in my opinions.
The usual excuse of those who hurt others is that they do it for their own good.
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.
Character is the habit of action from the permanent vision of truth. It carries a superiority to all the accidents of life. It compels right relation to every other man — domesticates itself with strangers and enemies.
Those who are believed to be the most mild and humble are usually the most ambitious and envious.
But tell me true —
For I must ever doubt, though ne’er so sure —
Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,
If not a usuring kindness, and, as rich men deal gifts,
Expecting in return twenty for one?
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
We are slow to believe those things which, if believed, would hurt our feelings.
I have often said that all the misfortunes of men spring from their not knowing how to live quietly at home, in their own rooms.
I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instructions from abroad not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt, its own energies.
I stood in the midst of the world and revealed myself to them in the flesh. I have found them all intoxicated, not one of them was thirsty and my soul grieved for the children of humanity.
The Weaver’s Prayer
My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me
I cannot see the colors He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow and I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper and I the underside.
Not till the looms are silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver’s skillful hands
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.
Being overly concerned with your faults is worse for your spiritual condition than the fault itself.
The fault… is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
We lop away that bearing boughs may live.
In this high place
it is as simple as this,
Leave everything you know behind.
Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.
Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished,
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow,
the true shape of your own face.