Quote collection
608 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing."
"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."
"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."
"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."
""Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy."
"The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds"
"To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference."
"Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
"It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own."
"The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived."
"It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as Gods will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe youtry to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as Gods will yourself!"
"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul."
"Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn't already been said better by the wind in the pine trees."
"May God prevent us from becoming "right-thinking men"-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police."