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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!
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.
When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides.
Learn to know thyself.
Who knows himself, knows his Lord.
Forgiveness is commendable, but apply not ointment to the wound of an oppressor.
No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind. As rain does not break through a well-thatched house, passion will not break through a well-reflecting mind.
I am not a day of season,
For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
In me at once: but to the brightest beams
Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;
The time is fair again.
