Anthony de Mello Quotes

160 Sourced Quotes

A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master.
"People say you are a genius. Are you?" he asked.
"You might say so." said the Master, none too modestly.
"And what makes one a genius?" "The ability to recognize." "Recognize what?"
"The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being."

Anthony de Mello
Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?" Or is it possible for the lamp to say, "I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people"? Or can a tree say, "I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad"? These are images of what love is about.

Anthony de Mello
You can will an act of service but you cannot will love.

Anthony de Mello
To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance.

Anthony de Mello
The Master never ceased to attack the notions about God that people entertain.

Anthony de Mello
One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.

Anthony de Mello
We're crazy, We're living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything.

Anthony de Mello
To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment.

Anthony de Mello
The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong.

Anthony de Mello
Sin is a refusal to grow, a refusal to love, a refusal to get committed, to be concerned, and to take risks.

Anthony de Mello
All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone.

Anthony de Mello
The words of the scholar are to be understood. The words of the master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.

Anthony de Mello
You have within yourself the answer to every question you propose - if you only knew how to look for it. In the Land of the spirit, you cannot walk by the light of someone else's lamp. You want to borrow mine. I'd rather teach you how to make your own.

Anthony de Mello
The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation.

Anthony de Mello
Extend
your arms
in welcome
to the future.
The best
is yet to come!

Anthony de Mello
Say goodbye to golden yesterdays: or your heart will never learn to love the present.

Anthony de Mello
God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again. Making a knot, bringing you a little closer to Him. Again and again your sins cut the string and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer.

Anthony de Mello
Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and
culture.

Anthony de Mello
This is what is ultimate in our human knowledge of God, to know that we do not know.

Anthony de Mello
No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident.

Anthony de Mello
You only change what you understand. What you do not understand and are not aware of, you repress. You don't change. But when you understand it, it changes.

Anthony de Mello
Has it ever occurred to you that you can only love when
you are alone?

Anthony de Mello
You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person.

Anthony de Mello
You can read books without ever stepping into a library; and practice spirituality without ever going to a temple.

Anthony de Mello
Anytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you're living in an illusion. There's something seriously wrong with you. You're not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change. But what do we generally do when we have a negative feeling? "He is to blame, she is to blame. She's got to change." No! The world's all right. The one who has to change is you.

Anthony de Mello
Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything.

Anthony de Mello
Understand your darkness and it will vanish; then you will know what light is. Understand your nightmare for what it is and it will stop; then you will wake up to reality. Understand your false beliefs and they will drop; then you will know the taste of happiness.

Anthony de Mello
I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking.

Anthony de Mello
To a woman who complained about her destiny the Master said, "It is you who make your destiny." "But surely I am not responsible for being born a woman?" "Being born a woman isn't destiny. That is fate. Destiny is how you accept your womanhood and what you make of it."

Anthony de Mello
Nobody is afraid of the unknown, what you really fear is the loss of the known.

Anthony de Mello