To desire Him to be merciful to us is to acknowledge Him as God. To seek His pity when we deserve no pity is to ask Him to be just with a justice so holy that it knows no evil and shows mercy to everyone who does not fly from Him in despair

Each individual Christian and each new age of the Church has to make this rediscovery, this return to the source of Christian life

Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are

The logic of the poet – that is, the logic of language or the experience itself – develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant

To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor

Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love’s sake.

There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God.

The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom

How far have I to go to find you in whom I have already arrived

What I do is live, how I pray is breathe, what I wear is pants.

We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen.

It is by desiring to grow in love that we receive the Holy Spirit, and the thirst for more charity is the effect of this more abundant reception

Lovely morning! How lovely life can be!

The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy, and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration.

AN ELDER was asked by a certain soldier if God would forgive a sinner. And he said to him: Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away? The soldier replied and said: No. I will mend it and put it back on. The elder said to him: If you take care of your cloak, will God not be merciful to His own image?

If Zen has any preference it is for glass that is plain, has no color, and is “just glass

The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical

It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives

Charity is without fear: having given all that it has, it has nothing left to lose

The fruitfulness of our lives depends in large measure in our ability to doubt our own words and to question the value of our own work. The man who completely trusts his own estimate of himself is doomed to sterility

Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being’s awareness of itself in us

I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me

Thinking prevents the unconscious from speaking

The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them

The truth never becomes clear as long as we assume that each one of us, individually, is the center of the universe

We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full

Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the inner life of the persons who compose it, they rebel and seek false solitudes

Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but in the end when we become used to the new light, we gain a new view of all reality transfigured and elevated in the light itself

Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy

We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear

Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it

It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God

Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.

In the devil’s theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrongs

The goal of fasting is inner unity

On Pride: This sickness is most dangerous when it succeeds in looking like humility. When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless

You pray best when the mirror of your soul is empty of every image except the Image of the Invisible Father

To be unknown to God is altogether too much privacy

Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves

There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ

We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us

In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart

The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith

If you have love you will do all things well

We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.

The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God’s will and his grace.

Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found

Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need to waste their efforts in defending them

While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance

The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error

Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice

For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point verged between darkness and light, between being and nonbeing. You can tell yourself the time by their waking, if you are experienced. But that is your folly, not theirs.

Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains

We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others

If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.

For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be.

To be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom of men without visions.

Teach me to go to the country beyond words and beyond names.

Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us.

Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist

In an age where there is much talk about “being yourself,” I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else

Every other man is a piece of myself, for I am a part and a member of mankind

The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.

The fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the wind, and join in the general Dance

To be alone by being part of the universe-fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you do becomes a unity and a prayer. Unity within and without

But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question

Saints are what they are not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everyone else

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell

We are already ONE. We just think we are separate

Music and art and poetry attune the soul to God

Nevertheless, the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is not focused on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy, and the just do not need a savior.

The end of the world will be legal

Before we can become who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person who we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger

When we are strong, we are always much greater than the things that happen to us

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to… fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another?

Ultimately faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on which all our happiness depends cannot be found in any other way

God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present

Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell

It might be good to open our eyes and see

The God of peace is never glorified by human violence

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am

The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent.

If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts

Our minds are like crows. They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?

One might say I have decided to marry the silence of the forest. The sweet dark warmth of the whole world will have to be my wife

Whose silence are you?

The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived

Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is my shortcut to your soul.

True happiness is not found in any other reward than that of being united with God. If I seek some other reward besides God Himself, I may get my reward but I cannot be happy.

Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.

There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.

Our real journey in life is interior.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone

To hope is to risk frustration. Make up your mind to risk frustration

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves

Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.

That is God’s call to us – simply to be people who are content to live close to him and to renew the kind of life in which the closeness is felt and experienced.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God.

The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by nonviolent methods most easily succumbs; activism and overwork.

Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves.

If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

You are made in the image of what you desire.

The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a man of faith.

Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself

For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air

My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.

The great thing, and the only thing, is to adore and praise GOD

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

Do not be one of those who, rather than risk failure, never attempts anything

A faith that is afraid of other people is not faith at all

Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost

The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer

We do not exist for ourselves

Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God

The gate of heaven is everywhere

True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared

Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast

Take more time, cover less ground

One has to be alone, under the sky, Before everything falls into place and one finds his or her own place in the midst of it all. We have to have the humility to realize ourselves as part of nature

Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine treesf

Love is the door to eternity

Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder

The root of war is fear

My God, I pray better to you by breathing. I pray better to you by walking than by talking

The gift of love is the gift of the power and capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received

One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other menfir

True encounter with Christ liberates something within us, a power we did not know we had, a capacity to grow and change.

Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone.

Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness.

Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live

For me to be a saint means to be myself

Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward

Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.

Humility is the surest sign of strength.

The meaning of life is found in openness to being and “being present” in full awareness.

We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.

Today will never come again.

There is in all visible things – a hidden wholeness.

Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence is a grace.

The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds

The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.

When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.

Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

The speech of God is silence. His Word is solitude.

People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.

In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.

Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.

A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God.

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself

Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy

If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another

Perhaps I am stronger than I think

Pride makes us artificial; humility makes us real.