True spiritual surrender responsibly opens itself to the unknown.
Stephen V. Doughty "Thoughts Toward and from the Second Surrender" by Stephen V. Doughty, Weavings, March/April 1997.
Categories: spirituality mystery

In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves--to that part of us which is conscious of a higher consciousness, by means of which we make final judgements and put everything together. The independence of this consciousness, which has the strength to be immune to the noise of history and the distractions of our immediate surroundings, is what the life struggle is all about. The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.
Saul Bellow The Closing of the American Mind
Categories: soul spirituality

Fun has a sacred dimension.
Adriana Diaz The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: fun joy laughter spirituality

And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age.
William Shakespeare (As You Like It) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: aging comfort spirituality god

The beautiful! It is beauty seen with the eye of the soul.
Joseph Joubert The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: inner beauty spirituality perception

What a man knows only through feeling can be explained only through enthusiasm.
Joseph Joubert The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: soul spirituality mystery

I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out.
2 Esdras 14:25 (Apocrypha) The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: understanding revelation spirituality

Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there, the whole aspect of things changes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: character spirituality morality

We live in a time in which most people believe there is not much inside them, only what teachers, parents, and others have put there.
Michael Cassou and Stewart Cubley The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: self-awareness spirituality emptiness

For whatever reasons, that which might be holy always draws us.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: spirituality soul mystery

The greatest of all visions is to see Christ, indeed, to see God, in the frail and glorious human family of the world.
MacRina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: spirituality christianity god christ

I believe strongly that our personal emotional problems are all spiritual in nature and require a spiritual, not a psychological, response. But the spirituality we seek out for deep and ingrained problems had better be tough and substantial. Otherwise, are spirituality will only increase our problems and give merely the illusion of healing.
Thomas Moore "The Alchemist's Retort" by Thomas Moore, Spirituality and Health , spring 2001
Categories: spirituality emotional problems

Walk in balance with one foot in your spiritual understanding and one foot in your physical world of accomplishment.
Lynn V. Andrews Walk in Balance
Categories: balance spirituality success

Perhaps we have become interested in the soul once again--it has been seriously discussed by theologians, philosophers, and poets for centuries--because we know there is more to life than what the sciences can grasp. We may like the word "soul" precisely because it is beyond definition and keeps the mystery element in life intact.
Thomas Moore The Education of the Heart
Categories: mystery soul spirituality

I believe it would be considerably healthier for us to dare to live without a reason for many things than with reasons that are simplistic.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: reason understanding spirituality mystery

Faith is a function of the heart.
Mahatma Gandhi The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: faith belief religion spirituality

Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
Mahatma Gandhi The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: faith belief religion spirituality

No limits are set to the ascent of man, and to each and everyone the highest stands open. Here it is only your personal choice that decides.
Martin Buber Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: personal growth spirituality character

Good can imagine Evil, but Evil cannot imagine Good.
W.H. Auden The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: spirituality law society community responsibility

...while yearning to overthrow old beliefs, we also thirst for new certainties...
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Finding Flow: The Psychololgy of Engagement With Everyday Life
Categories: faith believe beliefs traditions spirituality

...we can't survive without enchantment...the loss of it is killing us.
Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Categories: wonder awe enchantment soul spirituality mystery

I have freed my soul.
St. Bernard The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: freedom choice soul spirituality

...there is beauty, meaning, truth, love, and mystery in the world at all times and under all circumstances, although these things are sometimes hard to perceive, or even to imagine...Beauty, meaning, truth, love, and mystery do no just add their separate share of goodness to life. The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. Beauty, plus meaning, plus truth, plus love, plus mystery equals something awesom, nameless, and inconceivable.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: perception vision life spirituality

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring it with you.
Joseph Joubert The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: beauty perception spirituality soul

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon;
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty face
Lighting a little Hour or two--is gone.
Omar Khayyam The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Categories: hope treasure priorities spirituality

I think what we are looking for is a way of experiencing the world that will open to us the transcendent that informs it, and at the same time forms ourselves within it. That is what people want. That is what the soul asks for.
Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth
Categories: spirituality religion myths soul

The key to the fire within is our spiritual need to leave a legacy. It transforms other needs into capacities for contributions. Food, money, health, education, and love become resources to reach out and help fill the unmet needs of others.
Stephen R. Covey First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy
Categories: meaning purpose fulfillment spirituality

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: spirituality selflessness god awareness focus

The thirst of the soul is sweeter than the wine of material things, and the fear of the spirit is dearer than the security of the body.
Kahlil Gibran The Broken Wings
Categories: spirituality materialism illness death

This is the reality we live: aspiring to be at our best, longing for and sometimes finding meaning and connection within ourselves and with that which is larger the ourselves, we are undone by messy bathrooms, traffic jams, and burnt toast. I am not interested in a spirituality that cannot encompass my humanness.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer The Invitation
Categories: reality everyday life spirituality

Some Catholics have a concept I very much admire: the Sacrament of the Present Moment. It suggests that every moment of our lives is sacred, and that we should make of each moment a sacrament. Were we to do this we would think of the entire world as diffused with holiness. Wherever we might be would be a holy place for us, and we would see the holy, even sainthood, in everyone we encounter.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: holiness present awareness spirituality

But no one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it. Peace is a margin of power around our daily need. Peace is the consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is an awareness of reserves from beyond ourselves, so that our power is not so much in us as through us.
Harry Emerson Fosdick Light from Many Lamps
Categories: inner peace resources faith spirituality

Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: growth self-improvement spirituality thought

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unloveable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again, that I am a nobody."...[My dark side says,] "I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected and
Henri Nouwen Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
Categories: truth reality spirituality self-hate

Seek not outside yourself, heaven is within.
Mary Lou Cook Simple Abundance
Categories: meditation prayer spirituality attitude

At first people found a few diamonds in the yellow clay, and they were delighted with their good fortune, even while they supposed that this was to be the full extent of their find.
     Then, upon digging deeper, they came upon the blue clay, and, to their amazement, they then found as many precious stones in a day as they had previously found in a year, and what had formerly seemed like wealth faded into insignificance beside the new riches.
     In your exploration of Bible Truth, see to it that you do not rest satisfied in the yellow clay of a few spiritual discoveries, but press on to the rich blue clay underneath.
Emmet Fox, on mining for diamonds in S. Africa The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life
Categories: spirituality truth understanding growth

By confronting us with irreducible mysteries that stretch our daily vision to include infinity, nature opens an inviting and guiding path toward a spiritual life.
Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Categories: nature mystery beauty spirituality

The body must be nourished, physically, emotionally and spiritually. We're spiritually starved in this culture--not underfed but undernourished.
Carol Hornig Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: spirituality emotions exercise health

I am convinced that what has the greatest meaning for
Elizabeth O'Connor Our Many Selves: A Handbook
Categories: meaning fulfillment purpose spirituality

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Emily Dickinson Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: soul spirituality openness open to joy happiness

If our spirituality, no matter how disciplined, lofty and inspiring, is making us less warmly human, more detached, suspicious of our human 'feelings, emotions, and passions,' then something has gone seriously wrong.
Flora Slosson Wuellner 'Reach out your hand, and put it in my side' Flora Slosson Wuellner, Weavings, September/October 1998
Categories: spirituality love agape service emotions

The doctor and the pastor ask about your health, but eternity makes you responsible for your condition.
Soren Kierkegaard Thoughts on Leadership: A Treasury of Quotations
Categories: spirituality growth personal responsibility self-improvement

People need joy quite as much as clothing. Some of them need it far more.
Margaret Collier Graham Simple Abundance
Categories: joy happiness emotions fulfillment meaning spirituality

I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see. I also think they happen every day, from the baby's perfect shoulder in the sonogram, to saints performing wonders.
Peggy Noonan What I saw at the Revolution: A political Life in the Reagan Era
Categories: faith hope gratitude vision spirituality

Faith is something we grow into; doubt is something we grow out of. Gradually. And the movement is not always forward -- out of doubt into faith. It is a line that wavers. As the picture a partially filled cup, we sometimes speculate: is the cup half full, or half empty? If we see faith as the contents of the cup, is it half full of faith, or half full of doubt? And if we look at the cup -- our experience -- and see one-half doubt, is doubt all we see? As God looks at the half-full, half-empty cup, what does He see? The doubt? Or the faith? Or, if faith is nearly a tiny seed -- say, a mustard seed -- can God see it? Is He moved by it? Or is He too busy gazing at the ample doubt that may surround that speck of faith? We know the answer: God sees such faith. And is moved.
James Long "Beyond the shadow of doubt" by James Long, Discipleship Journal, Issue 40.
Categories: faith doubt trust growth spirituality

Experience has taught me that we have to take care of ourselves from the outside in as well as from the inside out. In other words, we need to take care of our internal health as well as our physical appearance, and our mental and spiritual well-being. You may think I'm stating the obvious, but I think the reason so many programs fail is that they focus on one body part at a time instead of treating the whole person.
Julian Whitaker, MD Shed Ten Years in Ten Weeks
Categories: spirituality inner peace self-nurture holistic wellness

Spirituality is the sacred center of which all life comes, including Mondays and Tuesdays and rainy Saturday afternoons in all their mundane and glorious details.
Christina Baldwin Simple Abundance
Categories: spirituality daily routine ordinary mundane

Love is not what we become but who we already are.
Stephen Levine The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love character personality soul spirituality

...discernment is not simply about resisting what is evil, self-absorbed, or destructive. It is about foundational identity. It is about who we know ourselves ultimately to be. It is about paying attention to the ways in which the limited power we wield, the modest respect we command, the taken-for-granted resources we hold provide us with our primary sense of meaning. To what extent do we "know" ourselves first as civic and church leaders, or as respectable citizens or conscientious parents or homeowners or degree holders or job holders and not at all as beloved daughters and sons of God?
We are beloved not because of what we do. We are beloved because we are.
Wendy M. Wright Passing Angels: The Arts of Spiritual Discernment by Wendy M. Wright. Weavings, Nov/Dec 1995.
Categories: identity self-image character personality spirituality

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
William Shakespeare [Troilus and Cressida] Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: depth spirituality character integrity inner life

The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center. So does a person.
Norman Vincent Peale Have a Great Day
Categories: calm serenity self-awareness spirituality meditation

To create is always to learn, to begin over, to begin at zero.
Matthew Fox The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: creation spirituality imagination growth learning

The re-enchantment of our everyday lives then becomes a matter of seriously shifting our priorities, developing a sense of the sacredness in the particulars of ordinary life, and making them part of our personal lives more by imagination than by brute force.
Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Categories: priorities spirituality sacred routine imagination

I make no distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction between the process of achieving spiritual growth and achieving mental growth. They are one and the same.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: spirituality thinking thought growth change

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: spirituality material possessions power thought

To ask the hard question is simple.
W.H. Auden The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: questions philosohpy answers spirituality religion leadership

The spirit is fascinated by the future,
Thomas Moore The Education of the Heart
Categories: soul spirituality routine everyday life self-realization

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: spirituality ideas creativity soul thought vision

...the spiritual life consists only in part in striving for the ideal. The spiritual life is also, and perhaps more profoundly, about wrestling with the real. Perhaps the dance of holiness really occurs on the narrow apron of life's stage where we find ourselves poised between what we want to be and what we are.
Wendy M. Wright "Making Things New: Thoughts on Being Stripped, Naked, and Clothed," Weavings, Jan/Feb 1996
Categories: spirituality balance choices personal growth self-improvement

Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one's need to grow.
M. Scott Peck Categories: spirituality growth self-improvement self-awareness pride vanity

Love is a sacred reserve of energy; it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love energy spirituality growth change self-improvement

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow. Acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separations; birthes, in death. Knowing this, one should from the very first renounce acquisitions and heaping up, and building, and meeting; and...set about realizing Truth.
Milarepa, Tibetan Buddhist monk How to Want What You Have
Categories: materialism greed lusts desires spirituality quest

The soul, for me, is everything in life. It is in all the beauty as well as in all the agony.
Marion Woodman from the essay "Soul Moments" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: soul beauty pain self-awareness self-nurture spirituality

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: spirituality materialism growth community self-awareness selflessness

...our culture wants to turn mysteries into problems to be solved or breakdowns to be fixed, because maintaining the illusion that we can "straighten things out" makes us feel powerful. Yet mysteries never yield to solutions or fixes--and when we pretend that they do, life not only becomes more banal but more hopeless, because the fixes never works.
Parker J. Palmer "All the Way Down" by Parker J. Palmer in the September/October 1998 Weavings: Woven Together in Love
Categories: spirituality mystery acceptance growth learning self-improvement

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.
Mahatma Gandhi The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: prayer belief faith hope desire religion spirituality

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.
Helen Keller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: pessimism optimism attitude discovery vision imagination spirituality

I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.
Helen Keller Light from Many Lamps
Categories: handicaps disability shortcomings overcome self-knowledge spirituality weakness

When we align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with the highest part of ourselves, we are filled with enthusiasm, purpose, and meaning. Life is rich and full. We have no thoughts of bitterness. We have no memory of fear. We are joyously and intimately engaged with our world. This is the experience of authentic power.
Gary Zukav The Seat of the Soul
Categories: spirituality enthusiasm purpose meaning fulfillment joy happiness attitude

If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning...The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living.
Marion Woodman from the essay "Soul Moments" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: soul self-nurturing spirituality life meaning creativity living

Forgiveness is the key to every aspect of spiritual growth.
Charles F. Stanley "The Victorious Pursuit: Winning Over Life's Struggles" by Charles F. Stanley, InTouch, March 1999.
Categories: forgiving forgiveness grief personal growth spirituality maturity

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about.
Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth
Categories: materialism greed busyness spirituality purpose meaning fulfillment

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
Mahatma Gandhi The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: prayer religion belief faith hope spirituality action

One must become as humble as the dust before he can discover truth.
Mahatma Gandhi The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: humility learning growth self-improvement meditation spirituality seeking

...grant that I may become beautiful in my soul within, and that all my external possessions may be in harmony with my inner self. May I consider the wise to be rich, and may I have such riches as only a person of self-restraint can bear or endure.
Plato A Grateful Heart
Categories: soul spirituality inner beauty possessions materialism wealth wisdom

'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves
In the place that's right
'Twill be in the valley
Of love and delight.
19th century Shaker hymn Simple Abundance
Categories: authenticity spirituality self-awareness self-knowledge joy happiness meaning fulfillment

...because the soul has such deep roots in personal and social life and its values run so contrary to modern concerns, caring for the soul may well turn out to be a radical act, a challenge to accepted norms.
Thomas Moore The Education of the Heart
Categories: soul spirituality everyday daily routine self-nurture self-realization

He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.
Kahlil Gibran The Broken Wings by Kahlil Gibran
Categories: beauty danger evil goodness knowledge wisdom spirituality compassion

Skepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul.
Thomas Carlyle The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: skepticism cynicism belief disbelief faith morality spirituality soul

Nothing is more honorable than enlightenment, nothing is more beautiful than virtue.
Mingjiao, Tanquin Annals Zen Lessons
Categories: character integrity honor spirituality virtue honesty wisdom knowledge

God be prais'd, that to believing souls
Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
William Shakespeare Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: faith hope comfort believe belief spirituality religion christianity support

An enchanted life has many moments when the heart is overwhelmed with beauty and the imagination is electrified by some haunting quality in the world or by a spirit or voice speaking from deep within a thing, a place, or a person. Enchantment may be a state of rapture and ecstasy in which the soul comes to the foreground, and the literal concerns of survival and daily preoccupation at least momentarily fade into the background.
Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Categories: enchantment beauty nature meditation creation soul spirituality imagination

Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul is the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: exercise work physical soul nurture spirituality meditation balance

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.

Lao Tse Amen: A Gathering of Forty Prayers and Blessings from Around the World
Categories: peace flow spirituality acceptance character integrity meditation growth

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
Storm Jameson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happy emotions spirituality simplicity thought courage daring bravery love

Year by year the complexities of this spinning world grow more bewildering and so each year we need all the more to seek peace and comfort in the joyful simplicities.
Woman's Home Companion, December 1935 Simple Abundance
Categories: simplicity joy meaning authenticity fulfillment spirituality happiness stress worry anxiety

It seems we may live in a society that has almost forgotten the glory of what it means to be human. We are in need of healing.
M. Scott Peck A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Categories: humanity meaning purpose life spirituality sin society community mistakes failures

An enchanted world is one that speaks to the soul, to the mysterious depths of the heart and imagination where we find value, love, and union with the world around us. As mystics of many religions have taught, that sense of rapturous union can give a sensation of fulfillment that makes life purposeful and vibrant.
Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Categories: nature beauty spirituality soul heart imagination value love fulfillment purpose meaning

All of us are far richer than we imagine. None of us possess a life devoid of magic, barren of grace, divorced from power. Our inner resources, often unmined and even unknown or unacknowledged, are the treasures we carry, what I call our spiritual DNA.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: life spirituality imagination creativity power magic grace resources strength wealth

Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations.
George Santayana Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: aging elderly aged spirituality balance wisdom growth self-improvement perspective vision education

Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline.
W.L. Shirer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy spirituality sadness depression meditation journaling prayer self-control self-discipline quiet time

We don't always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think should. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail...We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self if often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people's expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: happiness happy joy failure gift talent authenticity judgementalism expectations opinions heart emotion spirituality

Life is complex.
Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another...The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled
Categories: life learning spirituality growth self-improvement direction meaning easy answers difficulties problems challenges

...it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually...It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: problems obstacles challenges difficulties pain meaning life wisdom success failure courage growth spirituality

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.
T.S. Eliot The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: meaning purpose joy happy happiness words courage bravery art nature spirituality character integrity honesty truth

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: money materialism possessions necessities soul spirituality priorities happiness joy happy depression poverty rich wealth

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mahatma Gandhi The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life meaning fulfillment purpose spirituality happiness joy relaxation leisure living busyness smell the roses rest

Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence to, not in exemption from, suffering.
Francois de Fenelon The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: peace serenity materialism suffering acceptance inner soul spirituality pain disability illness challenges obstacles depression

We all have days in our lives that are marked by great moments of rejoicing and celebration...But life is not an endless round of cake and champagne. There's a lot of drudgery to most of our days...To keep our daily round from being all drudgery, we've got to savor the art of the small: discovering delights that bring us peace and pleasure.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: routine boredom apathy daily grind happiness emotions meaning fulfillment authenticity joy awareness spirituality focus balance

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy...to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
William Henry Channing Light from Many Lamps
Categories: possessions materialism moderation self-worth character thoughtfulness kindness honesty meditation self-improvement growth patience change maturation mature spirituality

When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery The Little Prince
Categories: mystery salvation christianity hidden mysterious hidden secret spirituality

The journey of spiritual growth is a long one.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life growth change spirituality perfectionism self-improvement patience life-long learning

Knowledge is the food of the soul.
Plato Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: knowledge learning education wisdom soul self-improvement self-nurture growth spirituality growth change

Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy; but, my friend, these I reckon will give you a good life.
Abraham Lincoln The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: worry fear anxiety wellness diet food health prayer meditation spirituality courtesy responsibility pace happiness joy simplicity authenticity character

The authentic self is the soul made visible.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: authenticity truth honesty integrity character personality self-esteem self-awareness self-discovery self-confidence joy happiness gifts talents skills ability soul spirituality love

Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.
King Solomon Proverbs 11:17 (The Living Bible)
Categories: soul spirituality heart spirit growth self-improvement self-destruction cruelty meaness nasty nastiness sarcasm kindness gentleness love agape words speech actions

...the sources of the truest truths are inevitably profoundly personal.
Saul Bellow The Closing of the American Mind
Categories: truth true insight spirituality growth self-knowledge self-awareness honesty transformation change self-improvement life change meditation prayer self-discovery

I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your personal place; that makes you tolerant because you realize your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquility without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself.
Sir Hugh Walpole Light from Many Lamps
Categories: humility humble happiness joy happy attitude spirituality possessions materialism selfishness selflessness ambition competitiveness sense of humor peace calm serenity faith hope community

You are to gather up the joys and sorrows, the struggles, the beauty, love, dreams and hopes of every hour that they may be consecrated at the altar of daily life.
MacRina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: joy sorrow pain suffering love beauty dreams routine living meaning wisdom daily events happiness problems struggles difficulties mistakes sadness goals hopes spirituality

It is amazing that our souls--our eternal essences, with all their hopes and dreams and visions of an eternal world--are contained within these temporal bodies. No wonder suffering is part of the human condition.
Marion Woodman from the essay "Soul Moments" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: souls pain emotions depression hope dream vision suffering spirituality illness physical body mortality cancer terminal illness disability overcoming

The battle to heal human evil always begins at home. And self-purification will always be our greatest weapon.
M. Scott Peck People of the Lie
Categories: evil badness sin depravity change growth spirituality healing insanity badness cruelty madness crime lust greed change self-awareness responsibility

As more people achieve some degree of mental calm, insight, or the ability to transform negative emotions into positive ones, there will be a natural reinforcement of basic human values and consequently a great chance for peace and happiness for all.
The Dalai Lama Living in Balance
Categories: inner peace self-awareness spirituality self-control values happiness calm serenity emotional balance morals ethics relationships joy serenity emotional balance