John Ruysbroeck Quote

How great is the difference between The hidden child and the secret friend! For the friend makes only loving, Living but measured ascents toward God. But the child presses on to lose its own life upon the summits, in that simplicity which knoweth not itself.

Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 433 - The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)