Carlos’s Reviews > No Man Is an Island > Status Update

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but a balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”

“Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.”

“If we have no rest, God does not bless our work.” 127

“Life is not a matter of getting something out of everything.” 128

“It is not necessary that we succeed in everything. A man can be perfect and still reap no fruit from his work, and it may happen that a man who is able to accomplish very little is much more of a person than another who seems to accomplish very much.” 126

“The lower our estimate of our ourselves and the lower our expectations, the greater chance we have of using what we have.” 127

“Our being is not to be enriched merely by activity or experience as such. Everything depends on the quality of our acts and our experiences.”

“There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing.” 123

“We must be content to live without watching ourselves live…” 121

…but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves.” 122

“The soul that throws itself outdoors in order to find itself in the effects of its own work is like a fire that has no desire to burn but seeks only to go up in smoke.” 118

“Being means nothing to those who hate and fear what they themselves are.” 119

“Self-contemplation leads to the most terrible despair: the despair of a god that hates himself to death.” 120

“Stagnation and inactivity bring spiritual death.”

“I do not need to see myself, I merely need to be myself. I must think and act like a living being, but I must not plunge my whole self into what I think and do, or seek always to find myself in the work I have done.” 118

“We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul, which is the principle of all our acts.”

“My soul can also reflect itself in the mirror of its own activity. But what is seen in the mirror is only the reflection of who I am, not my true being. The mirror of words and actions only partly manifests my being.” 117

“If we have God dwelling within us, making our souls his paradise, then the world around us can also become for us what it was meant to be for Adam – his paradise. But if we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts.” 115

“When he is selfish, they serve his selfishness. When he is pure, they speak to him of God.” 116

“Asceticism is utterly useless if it turns us into freaks. The cornerstone of all asceticism is humility, and Christian humility is first of all a matter of supernatural common sense.”

“Pride makes us artificial, and humility makes us real.” 113

“Pride always belongs to be unusual. Humility not so.” 114

“Every threat to our security turns our work into agitation.”

“Discipline is not effective unless it is systematic, for the lack of system usually betrays a lack of purpose.” 111

“To desire a school for life is, thus, to desire discipline. Otherwise our desire is an illusion.”

“Spiritual direction will protect us, in some measure, against our own instability.” 113