These black times go as they come and we do not know how they come or why they go. But we know that God controls them, as he controls the whole vast cobweb of the mystery of things.
What is the scent of water?””Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew.
The very old and the very young have something in common that makes it right that they should be left alone together. Dawn and sunset see stars shining in a blue sky; but morning and midday and afternoon do not, poor things.
The sun is still there… even if clouds drift over it. Once you have experienced the reality of sunshine you may weep, but you will never feel ice about your heart again.
The years stretched before her, a long and dusty way, yet if she could walk humbly along it she might find that life, unfolding slowly, keeps its best secrets till the end.
One is seldom unchanged by the death of those one loves. It gives me a deeper knowledge of them, and so of oneself in regard to them.
…those who break the law should be loved more and not less for their sin, for if we do not forgive then is sin added to sin and the end is death.
Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life…
Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own,” said Mary. “I think it’s fear. We don’t want to come too near in case we’re sucked in and have to share it.
She realized with deep respect that this woman had always done what she had to do and faced what she had to face. If many of her fears and burdens would have seemed unreal to another woman, there was nothing unreal about her courage.
Be at peace now and let the tide carry you into calm water. That is all you have to do for the moment. God bless you.
In what he suffered, as in all true suffering and in true joy, there was the quality of eternity. He could not believe it would ever end.
…whatever happens I’ll not be afraid again; for, when you’ve once pushed through the place of torment to the peace beyond, you know that you can do it again. You know there’s a strength somewhere that you can call upon. You’ve confidence.
It was not the size of things that mattered but their perfection, it was not what one had that was important, but what one made.
Genius creates from the heart and when the artifact is broken so is the heart.
Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see.
Lovely phrases had lit candles in her mind, one after the other, till she felt intoxicated with the brightness.
He sat for a long time and thought to himself that he wished he knew how to pray, yet he knew, untaught, how by abandonment of himself to let the quietness take hold of him.
We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear,” he said. “Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.
…accustomed like the white blackbird to the loneliness of eccentricity yet never quite reconciled to it, they found in each other’s oddness a most comforting compatibility.
He had discovered that the choice between self-love or love of something other than self offers no escape from suffering either way, it is merely a choice between two woundings, of the pride or of the heart.
Nothing mitigated failure except the knowledge that it did not matter.
In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.
In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins.
Are you quite sure that you want to hear it?” he asked. “Sometimes, Maria, a story that one hears starts one off doing things that one would not have had to do if one had not heard it.
The function of the educator is to discover in each individual child the gifts implanted in her by Almighty God and to develop and dedicate them to His service.
All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart.
She knew that pleasure, to be pleasure, must come to an end.
A well-trained dog is like religion, it sets the deserving at their ease and is a terror to evildoers.
… ‘Many waters cannot quench love’ was said of divine, not human, love, which the Dean knew was not always tough enough to survive the indifference of misery. That was one of the chief reasons why he struggled to do away with misery.
In the old days he had clutched life with such violence that the juice of it ran out between his fingers and was lost, but now he would touch it delicately, thankful for the good and accepting the ills with patience.
All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law as of all benign laws is fear.
Peace … was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law as of all benign laws is fear.