Mark Vernon > Quotes

“If you want to have a friend, then be a friend.”
― Mark Vernon, Love: All That Matters

“If you are not careful, you can end up with many friends to do stuff with and to enjoy stuff with, but when it comes to sharing in the most intimate ways, is there anyone there?”
― Mark Vernon, Love: All That Matters

“After all, who would say life was good if they had no friend?”
― Mark Vernon, Love: All That Matters

“he gradually realizes that actively participating in God’s life is about being free, desirous, comprehending, and aware: in short, having all that we are consciously aligned with all that God is. Ultimately, nothing can separate people from the divine, because that would be to fall out of existence altogether and, conversely, awakening to the fullness of divine life is a matter of complete perception, not perfected behavior. That’s our destiny: Dante invites his readers to learn its wisdom and truth.”
― Mark Vernon, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey

“STILLNESS is quite a skill to master in a world that is constantly on the move. It’s difficult literally to be still; only the dead truly manage it. And it’s as difficult to attain an inner stillness, the two being intimately linked. It’s a tricky concept for the Western mind too, as the good life for us is almost invariably about activity, about doing something. Flourishing implies doing, not letting be. Stillness looks like doing nothing, so how can that be part of an engaged life? And yet there’s something in stillness that is definitely worth teasing out. ‘We all have within us a centre of stillness surrounded by silence.’ Dag Hammarskjöld”
― Mark Vernon, The Good Life: 30 Steps to Perfecting the Art of Living

“offering spiritual goods for temporal goods, and confusing the two, is a daily hazard for churches. Simony, as the sin came to be called, can become a way of life, wittingly or unwittingly. That is why it is important.”
― Mark Vernon, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey