Great Throughts Treasury

"We all know what character is, not because we can define it exactly, but because we know when we have seen it. We know when we have exercised character; at those times we feel clean."

"Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us."

"The meaning of life is that we love one another. The purpose of our lives, it seems to me, is to learn how to do that, so we can create a world where everyone’s in love with everyone all the time. That would be Heaven on earth."

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

"It takes courage...to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives."

"Children are happy because they don't have a file in their minds called "All the Things That Could Go Wrong.""

"And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves."

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are."

"We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present."

"The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world."

"You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think."

"We can always choose to perceive things differently. We can focus on what's wrong in our life, or we can focus on what's right."

"In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don't want."

"A tulip doesn't strive to impress anyone. It doesn't struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn't have to. It is different. And there's room in the garden for every flower. You didn't have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else's on earth. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way. Look at little children in kindergarten. They're all different without trying to be. As long as they're unselfconsciously being themselves, they can't help but shine. It's only later, when children are taught to compete, to strive to be better than others, that their natural light becomes distorted."

"The only thing missing in any situation is that in which you are not giving."

"In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it."

"Thought is cause, experience is effect. If you don't like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking."

"Whatever we focus on is bound to expand. Where we see the negative, we call forth more negative. And where we see the positive, we call forth more positive. Having loved and lost, I now love more passionately. Having won and lost, I now win more soberly. Having tasted the bitter, I now savor the sweet."

"Whether we love, or close our hearts to love, is a mental choice we make, every moment of every day."

"Everything we do is either an act of love or a cry for help."

"There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children."

"In our natural state, we are glorious beings. In the world of illusion, we are lost and imprisoned, slaves to our appetites and our will to false power."

"Accepting people as they are has the miraculous effect of helping them improve. Acceptance doesn't prohibit growth; rather, it fosters it."

"When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself."

"What's difficult in life is to stay centered when somebody does or says something that tempts us to close our hearts because their heart was closed. That is hard. But that is also how we grow. We go through those circumstances in order to evolve into people who can hold to our loving center no matter what the world throws us."

"A queen is wise. She has earned her serenity, not having had it bestowed on her but having passer her tests. She has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it. She has proved she can hold her kingdom together. She has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power."

"A person acting from a motivation of contribution and service rises to such a level of moral authority, that worldly success is a natural result."

"Angels are thoughts of God--to pray to an angel is to look to a level of pure thinking, divine thinking, and to ask that it replace our thoughts of fear."

"And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

"Always seek less turbulent skies. Hurt. Fly above it. Betrayal. Fly above it. Anger. Fly above it. You are the one who is flying the plane."

"And now we're coming to understand, I think, spiritually in this nation that there is as much power in the soul as there is in group force. There is as much power in listening and understanding and humility as there is, for instance, in military action."

"As children, we were taught to be 'good' boys and girls, which of course implies we were not that already. We were taught we're good if we clean up our room, or we're good if we make good grades. Very few of us were taught that we're essentially good. Very few of us were given a sense of unconditional approval, a feeling that we're precious because of what we are, not what we do."

"As long as there are ways we can serve, then we have a job to do."

"As long as we remain vigilant at building our internal abundance?an abundance of integrity, an abundance of forgiveness, an abundance of service, an abundance of love?then external lack is bound to be temporary."

"As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

"As we become purer channels for God's light, we develop an appetite for the sweetness that is possible in this world. A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be."

"As we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others."

"But beauty itself is not given to us by anyone; it is a power we have within us from the gate, a radiance inside us."

"Available people are the ones who are dangerous, because they confront us with the possibility of real intimacy."

"Birth is violent, whether it be the birth of a child or the birth of an idea."

"Attack thoughts towards others are attack thoughts towards ourselves."

"Change is in the air, as old patterns fall away and new energies are emerging. Consciously release what needs to be released, and welcome with a full embrace the newness you've prayed for and so richly deserve."

"Children are happy because they don't have all the facts yet."

"Dear God, I give this time of quiet to You. Please dissolve my thoughts of stress and fear and deliver me to the inner place where all is peace and love. Amen."

"Can the purpose of a relationship be to trigger our wounds? In a way, yes, because that is how healing happens; darkness must be exposed before it can be transformed. The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts."

"Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing. And NEVER do it for the money. Go to work to spread joy."

"Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity."

"Emotional bondage as long as we feel we have to make a choice between being heard and being loved."

"Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world."

"Every ending is a new beginning. Through the grace of God, we can always start again."