c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
O heavenly Father,protect and bless all thingsthat have breath: guard themfrom all evil and let them sleep in peace.
— Albert Schweitzer
Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance
— T.S. Eliot
My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him. 
— David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sprouting of the second group and transforming the first group.
— Amit Ray
Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.
— Eckhart Tolle
Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.
— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
I understand once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things.
— Paulo Coelho, Like the Flowing River
If you have time to chatter,Read books.If you have time to read,Walk into mountain, desert and ocean.If you have time to walk,Sing songs and dance.If you have time to dance,Sit quietly, you happy, lucky idiot.
— Nanao Sakaki
To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.
— Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
To be a princess is to play at life. To be a queen is to be a serious player...The purpose of life as a woman is to ascend to the throne and rule with heart.
— Marianne Williamson
All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings there’s too much corruption in the world 
— Aristotle
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
— Bill Wilson
Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.
— Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind
If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?
— Stephen Crane, The Open Boat and Other Stories
God help us to live slowly:To move simply:To look softly:To allow emptiness:To let the heart create for us.Amen.
— Michael Leunig
I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and deeply spiritual, glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars.
— Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain
Sometimes resilience arrives in the moment you discover your own unshakeable goodness.
— Gregory J. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.
— Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
At this moment, you are seamlessly flowing with the cosmos. There is no difference between your breathing and the breathing of the rain forest, between your bloodstream and the world’s rivers, between your bones and the chalk cliffs of Dover.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
When angels speak of love they tell us it is only by loving that we enter an earthly paradise. They tell us paradise is our home and love our true destiny.
— bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Anaïs Nin
The symbol of Goddess gives us permission. She teaches us to embrace the holiness of every natural, ordinary, sensual dying moment. Patriarchy may try to negate body and flee earth with its constant heartbeat of death, but Goddess forces us back to embrace them, to take our human life in our arms and clasp it for the divine life it is - the nice, sanitary, harmonious moment as well as the painful, dark, splintered ones.If such a consciousness truly is set loose in the world, nothing will be the same. It will free us to be in a sacred body, on a sacred planet, in sacred communion with all of it. It will infect the universe with holiness. We will discover the Divine deep within the earth and the cells of our bodies, and we will lover her there with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds.
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body.
— Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life: slow down and let go.
— Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance: Moving To the Rhythms of Your True Self
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Peaceful is the one who's not concerned with having more or less.Unbound by name and fame, he is free from sorrow from the world and mostly from himself.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
If you have a good idea, use it so that you will not only accomplish something, but so that you can make room for new ones to flow into you.
— Ming-Dao Deng, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony
The dripping blood our only drink,The bloody flesh our only food:In spite of which we like to thinkThat we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
— T.S. Eliot
When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice. Only in this moment can we discover that which is timeless. Only here can we find the love that we seek. Love in the past is simply memory, and love in the future is fantasy. Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.
— Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
To live was to be a fragment of the cosmere that was experiencing itself.
— Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance
There is far more spiritual potential within than most people realize. The potential is so great that to define it in words would be impossible.
— Belsebuub, Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living
Samadhi is the journey from individual to collective consciousness. The steps of Samadhi are the steps towards reaching the collective consciousness. In meditation, the more we radiate love, compassion, peace, harmony and tranquility, the more is our contribution towards the collective consciousness. The more we positively contribute towards the collective consciousness the more is our progress in Samadhi.
— Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style
I picture it like Judgement Day,' he says finally, his eyes on the water. 'We'll rise up out of our bodies and find each other again in spirit form. We'll meet in that new place, all of us together, and first it'll seem strange, and pretty soon it'll seem strange that you could ever lose someone, or get lost.
— Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
the real mission you have in life is to make yourself happy, and in order to be happy, you have to look at what you believe, the way you judge yourself, the way you victimize yourself
— Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship --Toltec Wisdom Book
As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate. (39)
— Ravi Ravindra, The Wisdom of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: A New Translation and Guide by Ravi Ravindra
We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sat silent and sucked his pipe All the evening, from his empty mug With gleaming eye glanced towards us: "I seen 'em myself!" he said fiercely.
— C.S. Lewis
One can never "fall" in love, you must rise to it's level of consciousness. Love is not a feeling, it's a state of MIND!
— T.C. Carrier
Your life is your practice. Your spiritual practice does not occur someplace other than in your life right now, and your life is nowhere other than where you are. You are looking for answers, insight, and wisdom that you already possess. Live the life in front of you, be the life you are, and see what you find out for yourself.
— Karen Maezen Miller, Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood
I bought salvation from a man on the street. He said, "Go down to the beach and let the waves wash your feet.
— Gabriel Rheaume
This silence, this moment, every moment, if it’s genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There’s nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty.Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, ‘Be more silent.’ Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.Live in silence.
— Jalaluddin Rumi, Rumi: Poems
So I stood up and did a handstand on my Guru's roof, to celebrate the notion of liberation. I felt the dusty tiles under my hands. I felt my own strength and balance. I felt the easy night breeze on the palms of my bare feet. This kind of thing -- a spontaneous handstand--isn't something a disembodied cool blue soul can do, but a human being can do it. We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands. 
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
We are not here to match and homogenize and agree on every point. One size of spirituality does not fit all. We are here to be our divine selves, boldly, passionately, respectfully, to the absolute best of our ability — and this, this is more than enough.
— sera break
I can almost picture the disciples faces. "No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We'll never get on the list of fastest-growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you!
— David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
There is a light within our soul that burns brighter than the sun. And we ignore it.
— Basith, Autopsy of the seasons
The Queen is coming to reclaim her girls.
— Marianne Williamson
I don't think that God says, "Go to church and pray all day and everything will be fine." No. For me God says, "Go out and make the changes that need to be made, and I'll be there to help you.
— Elvia Alvarado, Don't Be Afraid, Gringo
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.
— Bono
Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state.
— Hamza Yusuf, Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart
We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us to realize the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness. We need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a 'resource.' This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet.
— Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth
reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.
— Robert J. Ringer
When we touch the place in our lives where sexuality and spirituality come together, we touch our wholeness and the fullness of our power, and at the same time our connection with a power larger than ourselves.
— Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective
I did not tell Fat this, but technically he had become a Buddha. It did not seem to me like a good idea to let him know. After all, if you are a Buddha you should be able to figure it out for yourself.
— Philip K. Dick, VALIS
Aloneness is a gift. A beautiful gift to the human soul. True and consistent satisfaction comes from the bond you form with yourself. Nobody else is a constant
— Mohadesa Najumi
When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.
— Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
Jesus-shaped spirituality hears Jesus say "believe and repent," but the call that resonates most closely in the heart of a disciple is "follow me." The command to follow requires that we take a daily journey in the company of other students. It demands that we be lifelong learners and that we commit to constant growth in spiritual maturity. Discipleship is a call to me, but it is a journey of "we.
— Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality
... the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.
— D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers
Perhaps a creature of so much ingenuity and deep memory is almost bound to grow alienated from his world, his fellows, and the objects around him. He suffers from a nostalgia for which there is no remedy upon earth except as it is to be found in the enlightenment of the spirit--some ability to have a perceptive rather than an exploitive relationship with his fellow creatures.
— Loren Eiseley
Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world.
— Paramahansa Yogananda, In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer
A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
The Christian's whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.
— D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers
It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
— Dalai Lama XIV
Oh Woman, come before us, before our eyes longing for beauty, and tired of the ugliness of civilization, come in simple tunics, letting us see the line and harmony of the body beneath, and dance for us. Dance us the sweetness of life. Give us again the sweetness and the beauty of the true dance, give us again the joy of seeing the simple unconscious pure body of a woman. Like a great call it has come, and women must hear it and answer it.
— Isadora  Duncan, Art of the Dance
I've decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn't only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth. No, not one.
— Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God
It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is.
— Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam
I think the highest forgiveness is to accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality given outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all that there is only one life and each of us is free to shape it through the choices we make. Seeking can’t get anyone out of the tangle because everything is tangled up…it’s much easier to keep up the fight between good and evil, holy and profane, us and them. But as awareness grows, these opposites begin to calm down in their clashes, and something else emerges- a world you feel at home in.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
THE GOOD LIFE requires that we take pleasure in new things A GOOD LIFE requires that we take pleasure in moments.To enjoy THE GOOD LIFE we have to get ahead to enjoy A GOOD LIFE we have to make the trip A GOOD LIFE is supported by feeding our souls.  Worthwhile.THE GOOD LIFE is supported by feeding our pocketbooks 
— Steve Goodier
For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine.
— Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Dreaming is what you do when your eyes are closed...living is what you do with that dream once you open your eyes!
— Nathan Parks, The Nephelium (The Eternals)
...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
In the track of fear we have so many conditions, expectations, and obligations that we create a lot of rules just to protect ourselves against emotional pain, when the truth is that there shouldn't be any rules. These rules affect the quality of the channels of communication between us, because when we are afraid, we lie. If you have the expectation that I have to be a certain way, then I feel the obligation to be that way.The truth is I am bot what you want me to be. When I am honest and I am what I am, you are already hurt, you are mad. Then I lie to you, because I'm afraid of your judgment. I am afraid you are going to blame me, find me guilty, and punish me.
— Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship --Toltec Wisdom Book
Don’t let a day go by without asking who you are…each time you let a new ingredient to enter your awareness.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile.(From Ketut Liyer, the Balinese healer)
— Elizabeth Gilbert
People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change.
— Anthony de Mello, Awareness: A de Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Words
Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own
— Emanuel Swedenborg
...What you are is a force--a force that makes it possible for your body to live, a force that makes it possible for your whole mind to dream...You are life
— Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship --Toltec Wisdom Book
Our lack of community is intensely painful. A TV talk show is not community. A couple of hours in a church pew each Sabbath is not community. A multinational corporation is neither a human nor a community, and in the sweatshops, defiled agribusiness fields, genetic mutation labs, ecological dead zones, the inhumanity is showing. Without genuine spiritual community, life becomes a struggle so lonely and grim that even Hillary Clinton has admitted "it takes a village".
— David James Duncan
My interpretation can only be as inerrant as I am, and that's good to keep in mind.
— Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions
Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit.
— Joan D. Chittister, In a High Spiritual Season
To bring about the new takes not just a development of the old, but a radical leap forward - revolutionary and transforming - and that requires extra factors that were not present before.
— Belsebuub, Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living
For all that "I was lost, I am found," it is probably more accurate to say, "I was really lost, I'm a little less so at the moment.
— Bono, U2 by U2
Understanding the beauty of our humanity unlocks the power of our spirituality.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Life is all about practicing for heaven." p 101.
— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
The potential for loss of soul--to one degree or another--is the affliction of a society that as a collective has lost its sense of the holy, of a culture that values everything else above the spiritual. We live in such a spiritually impoverished culture--and in such a time. Loss of soul, to one degree or another, is a constant teasing possibility. We are invited at every corner to hedge on the truth, indulge outselves, act as if our words and actions have no ultimate consequence, make an absolute of the material world, and treat the spiritual world as if it were some kind of frothy, angelic fantasy. In such a world the soul struggles for survival; in such a world a man can lose his own soul and have the whole culture support him, and in such a world, conversely, the light of a single, great soul that lives in integrity can truly illumine the world.
— Daphne Rose Kingma
We sometimes fail to realise that when we pray to Allah we are in fact performing a great act of ibadah (worship). On the surface it might seem as if we are asking out of self-interest, but we are really proving the sincerity of our belief in the tauhid (Oneness) of Allah and our submission to the True God. Thus the Prophet pbuh said: "Supplication is itself the worship." (Reported by Abu Daud and al-Tirmizi, sahih.) If a servant prays the whole night to Allah, he therefore performs a great ibadah all night long.
— Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, Islam in Malaysia: Perceptions & Facts
They said I would never live. I lived. They said I would never think. I think. They said I would never walk. I walked. They said I would never dance, but I never danced anyway.
— Benedict J. Groeschel
Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is
It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us...
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It comes from the mind’s mysterious instinct to believe that pain is good, or that it cannot be escaped, or that the person deserves it.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
Creativity is the state of consciousness in which you enter into the treasury of your innermost being and bring the beauty into manifestation.” (p.232)
— Torkom Saraydarian, The Solar Angel
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery.
— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
I believe that around us there is only one word on all sides, one immense word which reveals our solitude and extinguishes our radiance: Nothing! I believe that that word does not point to our insignificance or our unhappiness, but on the contrary to our fulfillment and our divinity, since everything is in ourselves.
— Henri Barbusse, Hell
Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost. (111)
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
Life is a purposeful action.
— Asa Don Brown
Within what is allotted to us, we can have spiritual contentment.
— Neal A. Maxwell, The Complete Works of Neal A. Maxwell
The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to understand that a silence that is not clamorous with vexation and worried self-regard can become part of the texture of your mind, can seep into you, moment by moment, and gradually change you.
— Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
And once you've been to this Center, this Truth, you'll know your way everywhere. You are never lost again.
— David Housholder, The Blackberry Bush
Such deluded persons, symptomatically, dwell in dualities of dishonor and honor, misery and happiness, woman and man, good and bad, pleasure and pain, etc., thinking, "This is my wife; this is my house; I am the master of this house; I am the husband of this wife." These are the dualities of delusion. Those who are so deluded by dualities are completely foolish and therefore cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is
Because materialists cannot understand Krsna spiritually, they are advised to concentrate the mind on physical things and try to see how Krsna is manifested by physical representations.
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is
Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.
— Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom from the Patterns That Bind You
every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.
— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.
— Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Your pain is a school unto itself–– and your joy a lovely temple.
— Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams
Joy is thankfulness, and when we are joyful, that is the best expression of thanks we can offer the Lord, Who delivers us from sorrow and sin.
— Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives:  The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica
Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.
— Anthony de Mello
Be yourself and become wealthy!
— Stephen Richards
Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.
— Dag Hammarskjöld
Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
The practice of giving thanks...eucharisteo...this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see. Only the way we see.
— Ann Voskamp
How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.
— W.B. Yeats, Rosa Alchemica
Frequently we do not leave the past behind. We clasp on to it. We dissect it, and let fears for the future, tempered by the past, unconsciously prevent us from taking up the task eternal.
— Ray Simpson, Exploring Celtic Spirituality
Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will.
— Ann Voskamp
I'd rather be single, happy, and lonely sometimes than married, lonely, and happy sometimes.
— Mark Fiore, You Are Loved . . . an email memoir
When you are standing at a crossroads in your life, realizethat the greatest block that you can put in front of your Self is the ideathat there is a ‘right’ choice.
— Story Waters, The Messiah Seed Volume I
When you plant a seed of love, it is you that blossoms.
— Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom from the Patterns That Bind You
It may actually be more healthy to be disturbed, confused, or searching than confident, certain, and secure.
— Mark Scandrette, Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus
I've never heard anyone say "I wish I hadn't forgiven.
— Katerina Stoykova Klemer
Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce that it is not genteel comedy even that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential dearth in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. 
— Henry James Sr.
AS YOU GIVE OUT SO SHALL YOU RECEIVE.
— Michelangelo Buonarroti
To put it simply, the lizard brain is purely concerned with survival.
— Stephen Richards
Those [things] that we encounter for the first time immediately have a spiritual effect upon us. A child, for whom every object is new, experiences the world in this way: it sees light, is attracted by it, wants to grasp it, burns its finger in the process, and thus learns fear and respect for the flame. 
— Wassily Kandinsky
Becoming wealthy is about accumulating wealth.
— Stephen Richards
I am neither male nor female, nor am I sexless. I am the Peaceful One, whose form is self-effulgent, powerful radiance.
— Guru Nanak
There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence, but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it.
— N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn
Perfectionists are not all negative, miserable, unhappy and over controlling individuals
— Asa Don Brown
Love transforms pleasure into pain.
— Al-Busiri, The Burda of al-Busiri: The Poem of the Cloak
She was startled. "But you're human, aren't you?"In some ways yes. But in other ways I'm a stranger to your kind. I have a friend who calls you plucked angels, and he claims you're a total waste of spirit. Do you ever think like that?"Of course, in honest moments. But I can be just as honest and think that we aren't a spiritual waste but a spiritual potential waiting to grow.
— Deepak Chopra, The Return of Merlin
As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings, and fits of emotions begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior. We see clearly that choices are possible: we can say yes, or we can say no.... "All we are is the result of what we have thought." By changing our mode of thinking, we can remake ourselves completely.
— Eknath Easwaran, Meditation: A Simple Eight-Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideals into Daily Life
I believe that God gives you hopes and dreams in a size that's too large, so you have something to grow into.
— Lynn A. Robinson, Divine Intuition: Your Inner Guide to Purpose, Peace, and Prosperity, Revised and Updated
There is a place for what my heart tells me about you, and there is no shame or guilt in it. God Himself is free to look in my heart right this instant and I know He would not shame or admonish me about what He would see there because the pure, ego-less truth of how I hold you in my heart deserves to be kept alive.
— Mark Fiore, You Are Loved . . . an email memoir
Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.
— Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perserverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?
— Ann Voskamp
Introverted seekers need introverted evangelists. It's not that extroverts can't communicate the gospel, either verbally or nonverbally, in ways that introverts find appealing, it's that introverted seekers need to know and see that it's possible to lead the Christian life as themselves. It's imperative for them to understand that becoming a Christian is not tantamount with becoming an extrovert.
— Adam S. McHugh, Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture
Perhaps the day will come where the validity of one's spirituality will be judged not by the correctness of one's theology but by the authenticity of one's spiritual life. When that day comes, an authentically spiritual Buddhist and an authentically spiritual Christian may find that they have more in common with each other than they do with those in their respective religions who have failed to develop their spirituality. (Beyond Religion, p. 98)
— David N. Elkins
When flowing water...meets with obstacles on its path, a blockage in its journey, it pauses. It increases in volume and strength, filling up in front of the obstacle and eventually spilling past it...Do not turn and run, for there is nowhere worthwhile for you to go. Do not attempt to push ahead into the danger... emulate the example of the water: Pause and build up your strength until the obstacle no longer represents a blockage.
— Thomas Cleary, I Ching
The freshness of my eyes is given to me in prayer.
— Anonymous, The Qur'an / القرآن الكريم
To reach back and help, and expect neither reward nor even thanks.To reach back and help, because that is what spiritual beings do.
— Brian L. Weiss, Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love
Don't seek love externally, it's fleeting. Go beyond the ego and awaken thelove that already exists within; it will encompass everyone andeverything in your life; it will permeate your very being.
— Danielle Pierre
Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, of self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.
— Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Truth is not a path you follow, but one created by your footsteps.
— Frederick Dodson, Parallel Universes of Self
The whole banquet is in the first spoonful.
— Deepak Chopra, The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.Piet MondrianThe Artist's Way A Spiritual Path to Greater Creativity by Julia Cameron
— Piet Mondrian
CULTIVATE THE GOOD WITHIN
— William H. Cormier
On some dimension or other, every event in life can be causing only one of two things: either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you. Evolution is win-win…life is self-correcting.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
Situations seem to happen to people, but in reality, they unfold from deeper karmic causes. The universe unfolds to itself, bringing to bear any cause that needs to be included. Don’t take this process personally. The working out of cause and effect is eternal. You are part of this rising and falling that never ends, and only by riding the wave can you ensure that the waves don’t drown you. The ego takes everything personally, leaving no room for higher guidance or purpose. If you can, realize that a cosmic plan is unfolding and appreciate the incredibly woven tapestry for what it is, a design of unparalleled marvel.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything-prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Remember that self-doubt is as self-centered as self-inflation. Your obligation is to reach as deeply as you can and offer your unique and authentic gifts as bravely and beautifully as you're able.
— Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World
Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more completely. Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say that meditation showed me that the other side of anxiety is desire. They exist in relationship to each other, not independently.
— Mark Epstein, Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life - Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy
when the need is in the mind, you cannot satisfy the need
— Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship --Toltec Wisdom Book
In the light of trust, as it develops slowly over time, you will find that you are a privileged child of the universe, entirely safe, entirely supported, entirely loved.
— Deepak Chopra, The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want
People don’t realize, he said, how important it is to wake up every morning with a song in your heart.” J. Krishnamurti. “The song stands for a sense of joy in existence, a joy that is free of any good or bad choices.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
Without silence, there cannot be any real appreciation in life, which is as delicate in its inner fabric as a closed rosebud.
— Deepak Chopra, The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want
If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
— C.S. Lewis
The true Love Dare. To move into His presence and listen to His love unending and know the grace uncontainable. This is the vault of the miracles. The only thing that can change us, the world, is this- all His love.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
It would seem that unless we see through and beyond the physical, we shall not even see the physical as we ought to see it: as the very vehicle for the glory of God
— Elisabeth Elliot, The Mark of a Man
You have no choice. You must leave your ego on the doorstep before you enter love.
— Kamand Kojouri
Mentally I can die, Emotionally I can cry, Physically I can sigh, Spirituality I can fly. If I just try.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch,but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives.
— John (Fire) Lame Deer, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
You is.Within Me!We are ONE.
— Arnaud Saint-Paul, The Human Project
There’s no value in digging shallow wells in a hundred places. Decide on one place and dig deep. Even if you encounter a rock, use dynamite and keep going down. If you leave that to dig another well, all the first effort is wasted and there is no proof you won’t hit rock again. (52)
— Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras
Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.
— Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Love is sacrifice. Love sacrifices itself for its neighbor.
— Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives:  The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica
Wake up, live your life and sing the melody of your soul.
— Amit Ray, Enlightenment Step by Step
If I told you about a land of love...would you swallow it as a remedy?
— Yunus Emre, The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems
Look at your life as your main career and your divine classroom.
— Judith Orloff
Our kingdom is our life, and our life is our kingdom. We are all meant to rule from a glorious place. When God is on the throne, then so are we. When God is in exile, our lands are at war and our kingdoms are in chaos.
— Marianne Williamson
[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124)
— Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
There may be hostility and ambivalence, there may even be no responses and those are the worst because it means people do not care. Yet all of these are part of the parcel of land that we call human experience and spirituality. The deep lows and pinnacled heights as well as the wonderful things in what one priest called the lowlands of mundania. This book is not for you if you are looking for hatred on atheists, religionists or just looking for reasons to justify yourself.
— Leviak B. Kelly, Religion: The Ultimate STD: Living a Spiritual Life without Dogmatics or Cultural Destruction
We think we've seen it all before, we think we know it all by heart.
— Luanne Rice, Silver Bells
A culture that does not teach prayer soon runs mad with desire.
— Laurence Freeman