Great Throughts Treasury

"We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light."

"Love, which, in concert with Abstinence, established Faith, and which, along with Patience, builds up Chastity, is like the columns that sustain the four corners of a house. For it was that same Love which planted a glorious garden redolent with precious herbs and noble flowers--roses and lilies--which breathed forth a wondrous fragrance, that garden on which the true Solomon was accustomed to feast his eyes."

"A human being is a vessel that God has built for himself and filled with his inspiration so that his works are perfected in it."

"Just as a mirror, which reflects all things, is set in its own container, so too the rational soul is placed in the fragile container of the body. In this way, the body is governed in its earthly life by the soul, and the soul contemplates heavenly things through faith."

"The marvels of God are not brought forth from one's self. Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played. The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather,through the touch of the Musician. I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God's kindness."

"Love abounds in all things, excels from the depths to beyond the stars, is lovingly disposed to all things."

"Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers."

"With nature's help, humankind can set into creation all that is necessary and life sustaining."

"Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God. "