Who has not sat before his own heart’s curtain? It lifts, and the scenery is falling apart.
Some days, I feel like if there is a God, he’s a lot like Woody Allen.
Life is pain. Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something.
All religions begin with the cry “Help.”
The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.
Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
The spiritual life does not remove us from the world, but leads us deeper into it.
I don’t consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.
Why is life speeded up so? Why are things so terribly, unbearably precious that you can’t enjoy them, but can only wait breathless in dread of their going?
We must travel in the direction of our fear.
I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death.
There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.
Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.
Do not run toward pain, but do not run from it, either. Pain is your guide. Pain is what guides a person in every serious undertaking. Unless an aching longing and passion arises in someone to get or achieve something, he will never get or achieve it.
We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.
God has . . . ordered things that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for there is no man without his faults, none without his burden. None is sufficient unto himself; none is wise in himself; therefore, we must support one another, comfort, help, teach, and advise one another.
People should worry about each other. Because worry is just love in its worst form. But it’s still love.
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
I know what the great cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
Say yes when nobody asked.
