A list of quotes that I have been collecting throughout my life.

Anonymous:

“And therefore swink and sweat in all that thou canst and mayest, for to get thee a true knowing and a feeling of thyself as thou art; and then I trow that soon after that thou shalt have a true knowing and a feeling of God as He is.” From The Cloud of Unknowing (late 1300s).

Aquinas, Thomas:

“All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origins in the Spirit.”

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

Confucius:

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

D’Arcy, Paula:

“God comes to you disguised as your life.”

“I used to ask God to show me; now I ask God to teach me to see.”

Didion, Joan:

“We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”

Dillard, Annie:

“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”

Evans, Rachel Held:

“Some Christians are more offended by the idea of everyone going to heaven than by the idea of everyone going to hell.”

“What makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in.”

Faulkner, William:

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

Gandhi, Mahatma:

“If I have read the Bible correctly, I know many men who have never heard the name of ­Jesus Christ or have even rejected the official interpretation of Christianity who will, probably, if ­Jesus came in our midst today in the flesh, be owned by him more than many of us.”

Griffiths, Bede:

“Stillness within one individual can affect society beyond measure.”

Halprin, Anna:

“Aging is enlightenment at gunpoint.”

Heschel, Abraham Joshua:

“Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time? It is so embarrassing to live!  How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings!  Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfil.  It is gratefulness that makes the soul great.”

Justice, Donald:

Men at 40

Learn to close softly

The doors they will not be

Coming back to.

Kierkegaard, Soren:

“The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet.”

Kipling, Rudyard:

“Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”

L’Engle, Madeleine:

“We are all asked to do more than we can do. Every hero and heroine of the Bible does more than he or she would have thought it possible to do, from Gideon to Esther to Mary. Jacob, one of my favorite characters, certainly wasn’t qualified. He was a liar and a cheat; and yet he was given the extraordinary vision of angels and archangels ascending and descending a ladder which reached from earth to heaven.”

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth:

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

Meister Eckhart:

“I pray God to rid me of God.”

Merton, Thomas:

Quote 1: “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”

Quote 2: “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

Murdoch, Iris:

“Philosophy ought to clarify, literature ought to mystify.”

Nin, Anais:

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Oliver, Mary

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

Orwell, George:

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”

Picasso, Pablo:

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Robbins, Tony:

“Energy flows where attention goes.”

Rohr, Richard:

“The contemplative mind can see things in a non-dualistic way, without being rebellious or enmeshed, neither reactionary nor hateful. Whenever you move to a higher level of consciousness, you always include the previous stages. That’s what makes it a higher level of consciousness!”

Sauder, Jonathan:

“Static faithfulness to a dynamic tradition is impossible. People who “conserve” the Christian tradition by trying to stop it in its tracks and make it “timeless” are far more effective assassins of their heritage than any liberal could ever aspire to be.”

Simons, Menno:

“But I dare not go higher nor lower, more stringent nor lenient than the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit teach me; and that out of great fear and anxiety of my conscience, lest I again burden the god-fearing hearts who now have renounced the commandments of men, with those commandments. Self-conceit and human opinions I hate, nor do I desire them; for I know what tribulation and affliction they have caused me for many years.”

St. Seraphim of Sarev:

“Acquire inward peace and a multitude of people around you will find their salvation.”

Teresa of Avila :

“What he [God] wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. If you have humility, this is easy. It is a great thing to be glad when your friends’ virtues are celebrated.”

Tolstoy, Leo:

“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one’s neighbor – such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps – what more can the heart of a man desire?”

Tozer, A.W.:

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

Willard, Dallas:

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”

Yutzy, Yours Truly:

“You have but to show me a true artist, and I will show you an egoist, a dork, a misfit, an eccentric, a misanthrope, and a maverick .”

“A sophisticated lie is just as untrue as an unsophisticated one.”

“If you can read you can cook–unless you’re a man.”