Shemariah > Shemariah's Quotes

“The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
― Brother David Steindl-Rast

“We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.”
― Brother David Steindl-Rast

“Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefullness, and gratefullness is a measure of our aliveness.”
― Brother David Steindl-Rast, Jesus and Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.”
― Brother David Steindl-Rast

“Any place is sacred ground, for it can become a place of encounter with the divine Presence.”
― David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart: The Spirituality of Sacred Sensuousness

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Translations from the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other. ”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.”
― Paul Brunton

“Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness.”
― Paul Brunton, Healing of the Self, the Negatives: Notebooks

“Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines.”
― Paul Brunton

“When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength.”
― Paul Brunton

“Man is more miserable, more restless and unsatisfied than ever before, simply because half his nature--the spiritual--is starving for true food, and the other half--the material--is fed with bad food.”
― Paul Brunton

“If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
― Dogen

“What you think in your own mind to be good, or what people of the world think is good, is not necessarily good.”
― Dogen Zenji

“You have succeeded in life when all you really WANT is only what you really NEED.”
― Vernon Howard

“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.”
― Vernon Howard

“We are exactly where we have chosen to be.”
― Vernon Howard

“Let love lead your soul.
Make it a place to retire to,
a kind of cave, a retreat
for the deep core of being.”
― Farid Al-Din Attar

“Lift your head out of this hurricane to find solace and tranquillity. If you stay caught in the storm, your head will whirl as fast as a millstone and you will know so little peace that even a single fly can buzz away your peace. Parable”
― Farid al-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds

“Strive to discover the mystery
before life is taken from you.
If while living you fail to find yourself,
to know yourself,
how will you be able to understand
the secret of your existence
after you die?”
― Farid Al-Din Attar

“Had I known how listening is superior to speaking, I would not have wasted my life preaching.”
― Attar of Nishapur

“The people of this world are like the three butterflies
in front of a candle's flame.

The first one went closer and said:
I know about love.

The second one touched the flame
lightly with his wings and said:
I know how love's fire can burn.

The third one threw himself into the heart of the flame
and was consumed. He alone knows what true love is.”
― Attar of Nishapur

“The hardest role to play is the one where you play yourself and allow yourself to remove the mask and be yourself.”
― Vadim Zeland, Reality Transurfing Steps I-V

“If you think neuro-electric or neuro-electromagnetic weapons or mind-control methods are far out, consider this. If you Google “Voice-to-Skull device” the U.S. Army’s Website appears. However, when you click on the link, you discover that the page has been taken down. Still, a description remains on the Federation of American Scientist’s Website. The device is described there as: Nonlethal weapon which includes (1) a neuro-electromagnetic device which uses microwave transmission of sound into the skull of persons or animals by way of pulsed-modulated microwave radiation; and (2) a silent sound device which can transmit sound into the skull of persons or animals. Note: The sound modulation may be voice or audio subliminal messages. One application of V2K is use as an electronic scarecrow to frighten birds in the vicinity of airports.37”
― Eldon Taylor, Mind Programming: From Persuasion and Brainwashing, to Self-Help and Practical Metaphysics

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi

“The ignorant man affirms, the scientist doubts, the wise man reflects. —ARISTOTLE”
― Jean-François Marmion, The Psychology of Stupidity

“Fighting stupidity tends to reinforce it.”
― Jean-François Marmion, The Psychology of Stupidity

“God’, by definition, cannot be an extra item in the universe (a very big one) to be known, and so controlled, by human intellect, will, or imagination. God is, rather, that without which there would be nothing at all; God is the source and sustainer of all being, and, as such, the dizzying mystery encountered in the act of contemplation as precisely the ‘blanking’ of the human ambition to knowledge, control, and mastery. To know God is unlike any other knowledge; indeed, it is more truly to be known, and so transformed.”
― Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay 'On the Trinity'