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"We are not free to love God insofar as we are enslaved to creatures. And we all are. We are addicted to whatever we cannot part with that is less than God, our true good. And that includes ourselves-especially ourselves and our own will. So we must renounce this too, this especially. God's world is not the problem; our attitude is. God does not want us to renounce the unspeakably beautiful world he gave us as creation, as gift, as it really is. He wants us to renounce it as creator, as our god, as it really is not. This wonderful world is our God-given house to live in and to live the love of God in. But God's bride must learn not to love her house as if it were her husband."
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"We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble."
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Personal Development
"The life of the cenobite is a human problem. When we speak of convents, those seats of error but innocence, of mistaken views but good intentions, of ignorance but devotion, of torment but martyrdom, we must nearly always say yes or no...The monastery is a renunciation. Self-sacrifice, even when misdirected, is still self-sacrifice. To assume as duty a strict error has its peculiar grandeur."
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Personal Development
"A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter."
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Personal Development
"Life is a gracious sacred-breathe."
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Personal Development
"We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
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Personal Development
"Of course, I quiet agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable discomfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is one thing you cannot get looking for it. If you look for the truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth-only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and the in the end, despair."
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Personal Development
"It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words."
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Personal Development
"Here's a simple test to check and see if you have surrendered or if you are still struggling with control. When you are miserable, stressed, doubtful, and fearful, you are in control. When you are happy, peaceful, confident, and faithful, God is in control."
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Personal Development
"Who art thou then, O my soul!" (and here [Zarathustra] became frightened, for a sunbeam shot down from heaven upon his face.""O heaven above me," said he sighing, and sat upright, "thou gazest at me? Thou hearkenest unto my strange soul?When wilt thou drink this drop of dew that fell down upon all earthly things-when wilt thou drink this strange soul--When, thou well of eternity! thou joyous, awful, noontide abyss! when wilt thou drink my soul back into thee?"
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Personal Development
"With self-assured spirit, the soul is indomitable."
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Personal Development
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"Prayer is easier than we think. we want to think it is too hard or too high and holy for us, because that gives us an excuse for not doing it. This is false humility. We can all do it, even the most sinful, shallow, silly, and stupid of us."
Prayer
"Honesty is a moral virtue, a matter of the will. Honesty means willing the truth with the whole of your heart. This demands sacrifice. We have little hope of attaining honesty unless we realize how demanding it is. It demands sacrifice of self-will, self-image, the desire to win, and the comfort of being right.The 'honesty often praised today is usually only emotional honesty with others, not intellectual honesty with one's self; only 'letting it all hang out, not asking what is the real truth. Sometimes 'honesty is only a code word for shamelessness. Rarely does it mean the absolute, fanatical, selfless love of truth."
Ethics
"We can't believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can't love what we believe to be unreal."
Truth
"The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures."
Faith
"One moment of prayer, of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world."
Faith
"I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying, I wish I had watched more TV instead."
Prayer
"It is reasonable to love the Absolute absolutely for the same reason it is reasonable to love the relative relatively."
Love
"The heart is like a woman, and the head is like a man, and although man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man, and she turns man's head because she turns his heart."
Balance
"Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto."
Reason
"You do not have to wait until you become a saint. [Prayer] is the way to become a saint."
Prayer
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