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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!
So hath God by rational methods enabled us to love others better than ourselves, and thereby made us the most glorious creatures. Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love. But when we do love ourselves, and self-love is satisfied infinitely in all its desires and possible demands, then it is easily led to regard the Benefactor more than itself, and for His sake overflows abundantly to all others. So that God by satisfying my self-love, hath enabled and engaged me to love others.
There exists no other evil in nature than what you either do or suffer, and you are equally the author of both… Particular evil exists only in the sentiment of the suffering being; and this sentiment is not given to man by nature, but is of his own acquisition… Take away our errors and our vices… take away, in short, everything that is the work of man, and all that remains is good.
Nature has not said to me, “Be not poor,” still less, “Be rich.” She calls out to me, “Be independent!”
Peter of Damascus assures us that “nothing is better than to realize one’s weakness and ignorance, and nothing is worse than not to be aware of them.”
We are accustomed to see men scorn what they do not understand, and snarl at the good and the beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies.
A thinker erects an immense building, a system, a system which embraces the whole of existence and world-history, etc. And if we contemplate his personal life, we discover to our astonishment this terrible and ludicrous fact, that he himself personally does not live in this immense high-vaulted palace, but in a barn alongside of it, or in a dog kennel, or at the most in the porter’s lodge. If one were to take the liberty of calling his attention to this by a single word, he would be offended. For he has no fear of being under a delusion, if only he can get the system completed… by means of the delusion.
There is no pleasing the fear that you may displease others.
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men; wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
He who would distinguish the true from the false must have a clear idea of what is true and false.
We run carelessly to the cliff, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift, he prostrates himself; for your second, kisses your hand; for the third, fawns; for the fourth, just nods his head once; for the fifth, becomes too familiar; for the sixth, insults you; and for the seventh, sues you because he was not given enough.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
The moment that any man really comes to recognize that which is absolute Truth — namely, that one Spirit, even the Father, being made manifest in the Son, ever lives at the center of all human beings — he will know that he can cease forever from any undue anxiety about bringing others into the same external fold that he is in. If your friend or your son or your husband or your brother does not see Truth as you see it, do not try by repeated external arguments to convert him.
What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself.
He is well paid that is well satisfied.
The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.
Our moods do not believe in each other.
Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness.
What an alteration of honour
Has desperate want made!
What viler thing upon the earth than friends
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
How rarely does it meet with this time’s guise,
When man was wish’d to love his enemies!
