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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!
Lovers do not themselves seek and yearn. In all the world there is no one seeking but He!
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
Father Pedro Arrupe (1907 – 1991)
A man’s gift is called an upright life. It is that gift that makes room for him and makes him worthy of the fullness of God. It is that very thing which is called the “throne” of the holy powers.
Fear is the parent of cruelty.
Instead of every man directing his energies to freeing himself, to transforming his conception of life, people seek for an external united method of gaining freedom, and continue to rivet their chains faster and faster.
Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy condition. The pain of this one spot will completely absorb our attention, causing us to lose the sense of general well-being, and destroying our comfort in life. In the same way, when all our affairs but one turn out as we wish, the single instance in which our aims are frustrated is a constant trouble to us, even though it is something quite trivial.
Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot,
And drifted out upon an ebbing sea!
My soul that was at rest now resteth not,
For I am with myself and not with thee.
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide. Him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. “To the persevering mortal,” said Zoroaster, “the blessed Immortals are swift.”
To change what you get you must change who you are.
Your real influence is measured by your treatment of yourself.
I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.
If we do depend on others psychologically, we become secondhand people; which we are. The whole history of mankind is in us… and we don’t know how to read that… You’re not the reader… you are the book. When you read the book as a reader it has no meaning. But if you are the book, and the book is telling you; showing you the story, then you’ll not depend on a single person. Then one will be a light to one’s self.
All things must be set right in yourself first, before you can rightly assist others towards the attaining to the same state.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Do you wish to be praised by a man who curses himself three times an hour? Do you wish to please a man who cannot please himself?
It is said that if Noah’s Ark had had to be built by a company, they would not have laid the keel yet, and it may be so. What is many men’s business is nobody’s business. The greatest things are accomplished by individuals.
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
The philosopher laughs, for he alone escapes being duped, while he sees other men the victims of persistent illusion. He is like some mischievous spectator of a ball who has cleverly taken all the strings from the violins, and yet sees musicians and dancers moving and pirouetting before him as though the music were still going on.
Love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you. For those who are near you are far, you say, and that shows it is beginning to grow wide about you. And when what is near you is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very large; rejoice in your growth, in which you naturally can take no one with you, and be kind to those who remain behind, and be sure and calm before them and do not torment them with your doubts and do not frighten them with your confidence or joy which they could not understand.
