60 famous quotes by Anthony de Mello

We review the thought of this lecturer and author through his famous quotes.

Anthony de Mello (1931 - 1987) was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist known internationally for his books and lectures.

In his lectures he used theological elements from other religions in addition to the well-known Judeo-Christian tradition. After a review of his texts, his ideas were considered unorthodox for the doctrine of faith.

Anthony de Mello's best phrases and thoughts.

Many of the ideas of this thinker can help us in many aspects of life and his ideas can serve as great inspiration on countless occasions.

Perhaps some of you do not know this great thinker and for that very reason. we have decided to bring you a selection of 60 of Anthony de Mello's most spiritually helpful quotes. that can help you spiritually.

1. Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to the awareness of one's own ignorance.

To recognize our own ignorance is the first step towards wisdom.

2. To live freely, being master of oneself, is not to let oneself be carried away by any person or situation.

We must be consistent with our own thoughts and we must not let ourselves be carried away by anyone or anything.

3. The great tragedy of life is not in how much we suffer, but in how much we lose. Human beings are born sleeping, live sleeping and die sleeping.

We lose a lot of time sleeping but it is something we cannot stop doing because it is essential for our organism, so we must make the most of the hours we spend awake.

4. Perfect love is molded out of fear. Where there is love, there are no demands, no expectations, no dependence. I do not demand that you make me happy; my unhappiness does not reside in you. If you were to leave me, I would not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling to it.

This way of thinking about love is widely shared today by a large part of society.

5. He who wants to be constant in happiness must change frequently.

To evolve spiritually, that is the path we must follow to reach our own happiness.

6. Thought is a screen, not a mirror: that is why you live in an envelope of thought, apart from reality.

Thinking is a wonderful thing, but we should not live absorbed in our thoughts.

7. I am not afraid of losing you, because you are not an object of my property or someone else's. I love you as you are; without attachment. I love you as you are; without attachment, without fear, without conditions, without selfishness, without trying to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as my own.

This is the right way about how we should all love someone, our loved one is no property.

8. Don't ask the world to change, change yourself first.

In order to change the world we must change ourselves first, when the beings that inhabit a society evolve, society evolves with them.

9. If what you were saying was true, where was the need to shout?

Raising your voice does not make you right, the truth is defended with good arguments.

10. People wrongly assume that their thoughts are created by their heads; in fact they are formed by their hearts, which first dictate the conclusion, then the head provides the reasoning that will defend it.

Emotions are largely responsible for creating our opinion, once we create an opinion we look for arguments to defend it.

11. The greatest learning from age lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.

Knowing how to be content with what we have is something that many of us learn as the years go by.

12. Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.

Thoughts can create our ideal world, but to make it a reality we must act.

13. Don't speak until you can improve silence.

A great quote that encourages us to think before we speak, something we should all do and that many people do not do.

14. I wish I could become a master of truth.

In this quote Anthony de Mello talks about his interest in actively practicing teaching.

15. Any time you are with someone or thinking about someone, you should say to yourself: I am dying and this person is also dying, trying to experience the truth of the words you say. If everyone agrees to practice this, bitterness will be extinguished, harmony will emerge.

We should be more empathetic with those around us and our loved ones.

16. If you have problems, you are asleep. Life is not problematic. It is the self (the human mind) that creates the problems.

Many times we ourselves are the ones who worry about issues that really should not worry us.

17. There is not a single moment in your life when you do not have all you need to be happy. The reason you are unhappy is because you keep thinking about what you don't have, instead of thinking about what you do have right now.

We should look for our happiness in the smallest things in life, the little pleasures.

18. If you observe how you are made and how you function, you will discover that there is a program in your mind, a whole set of assumptions about how the world should be, how you should be yourself and what you should want.

Spiritual growth can break down our socio-cultural barriers and let us see that life can be very different.

19. The one responsible for your anger is you, for even though the other has provoked the conflict, it is the attachment and not the conflict that makes you suffer.

We should not get angry for things that do not have a solution, and if they do, why get angry?

20. When you are too far away from nature, your spirit dries up and dies, because it has been violently separated from its roots.

Nature can help us to clarify our ideas and allow us to think in a more relaxed way.

21. You must discover what it is that you do, not because of the utility it brings you, but because you want to do it.

We should dedicate our lives to the work that gives us the most emotional support.

22. The approval, the success, the praise, the valuation, are the drugs with which society has made us drug addicts, and not always having them, the suffering is terrible.

Many of us are truly addicted to the approval of others; our personal happiness does not depend on them.

23. If your prayer remains for too long in your head and does not pass to your heart, it will become dry and tedious and discouraging.

In order to pray correctly we must pray from the depths of our heart.

24. There is only one need: that need is to love. When someone discovers that, he is transformed.

Love can turn our life into something wonderful, let it enter our life.

25. All the brilliance of the sunrise seen from the mountain, is enclosed in such a monotonous exercise as it is to keep in mind for hours and days without end the sensations of your body.

To know our body is something fundamental for its complete use, we must be in contact with it.

26. Only in freedom do we love. When you love life, reality, with all your strength, you love people much more freely.

If you really love a person we must understand that this person needs his space and personal freedom.

27. It is fear that makes us want to grab happiness with our hands, and she does not let herself be grabbed. She is. We only discover this by observing, wide awake, seeing when our fears move us and when our motivations are real. If we cling to desires, it is a sign of attachment.

Fears and worries can keep happiness away from us, we must learn to live without fears.

28. Fear of the future or hope in the future is the same, they are projections of the past. Without projection there is no future, because what does not exist in reality does not exist.

Our future will be as we project it, our past decisions will lead us to it.

Look within yourself, understand that there is a generous realm of self-sufficient happiness. You have not found it within you before, because your attention was turned to the things you believe in, or to your illusions about the world.

We can create our own happiness, it does not reside in another person or in something material, we must create it ourselves.

30. Experience reality, go to your senses. That will bring you into the now. That will bring you to experience. It is in the now that God is found.

We must live in the moment and make the most of it, then we will live much more fully.

31. Selfishness is demanding that the other does what you want. Letting each one do what he/she wants is love. In love there can be no demands or blackmail.

Our loved ones must decide whether they want to be by our side or not; we should not try to impose our own desires on them.

32. The bad thing is that most people equate happiness with getting the object of their attachment, and do not want to know that happiness is precisely in the absence of attachments, and in not being subjected to the power of any person or thing.

A great quote that we should all know, happiness resides in ourselves.

33. You must learn to leave the field of thought and speech and migrate to the realms of feelings, sensations, love and intuition.

Putting us in direct contact with our emotions and feelings can reveal many things about ourselves.

34. To receive the revelation of scripture you must approach it; to grasp the revelation of silence, you must first attain silence.

Objectives are achieved by striving for them; if we do not strive to achieve them, we will never have what is necessary to attain them.

35. The most important question in the world, the basis of every mature act, is: Who am I? Because, without knowing yourself, you cannot know even God. To know yourself is fundamental.

To know ourselves is fundamental, who we are and what we want to achieve in life.

36. The establishment of relationships is only possible between conscious people. Unconscious people cannot share love.

In order to share our love, we must first understand what love is.

37. Fear can only be removed by searching for the source of fear. He who behaves well based on fear has tamed it, but he has not changed the origin of his problems: he is asleep.

To live a life without fear we need to have some basic notions about society and its principles.

38. All you have to do is to open your eyes and see that, in fact, you do not need at all that to which you are so attached.

We should not be attached to anything or anyone; we are totally self-sufficient.

39. You are happy here and now; but you do not know it, because your false beliefs and your distorted way of perceiving things have filled you with fears, worries, attachments, conflicts, guilt and a series of games that you have been programming.

We could be happy at this precise moment, but we ourselves are self-boycotting.

40. Most people have been so brainwashed that they do not even realize how unhappy they are: like the man who dreams and has no idea what he is dreaming about.

We can have all the riches in the world and be surrounded by friends, but still remain deeply unhappy.

41. Sinners often speak the truth. And saints have led people astray. Examine what is said, not the one who says it.

He who has nothing to hide will always tell us the truth.

42. When you free yourself from your fear of failure, from your tensions to succeed, you can be yourself.

Fear blocks us and does not allow us to move forward in life.

43. To be awake is to accept everything, not as a law, not as a sacrifice, not as an effort, but for enlightenment.

We must be fully aware of the moment in which we find ourselves and how we must act.

44. It is not falling that makes you sink, it is staying there.

Perseverance is the greatest effort we as people can make.

45. The day you change, all people will change for you, and your present will change. Then you will live in a world of love.

To change our environment we must first change ourselves.

46. When you are guilty, you hate not your sins, but yourself.

Guilt is an evil that only concerns us when we inflict it on ourselves.

47. You must understand that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.

History allows us to see what a human being is like and how he has acted in the various situations in which he has found himself.

48. If you find me charming, it means that you are in a good mood just now, nothing more.

Our present mood reveals to us the world seen from that precise prism, if we are in a bad mood the world will look much blacker.

49. There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread that you do not think of questioning them.

Society tells us how we must live life in order to be happy but that is only a deception, we will be happy when we allow ourselves to be happy.

50. These things will destroy the human race: politics without principles, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without recklessness, and worship without conscience.

Many evils beset mankind from many different sides, the truly important thing is to remain true to ourselves.

51. Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.

Whatever has to happen will happen; living in fear only deprives us of our happiness.

52. When you see that you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.

Accepting our ignorance is a fundamental step in order to attain wisdom.

53. People who want a cure, as long as it is without pain, are like those who are in favor of progress, as long as it is without change.

Sometimes the most positive things involve a certain Pain in their own application, like alcohol which disinfects but also stings.

54. There are two ways of washing dishes: one is to wash them to clean them, the other is to wash them to wash them.

We should do things when it is necessary, or on the contrary that which is not necessary we should not waste time doing it.

55. Happiness cannot depend on events. It is your reaction to events that makes you suffer.

To be happy or not depends on us, on whether or not we want to be happy at that moment.

56. You see people and things not as they are, but as you are.

We tend to think that people are as we think they are, not as they really are.

57. Do not put your happiness on me because I may die or disappoint you.

As this quote says very well, we should not put our happiness in a third party, our happiness depends only on ourselves.

58. Put your happiness in life and you will realize that it is when you are free that you are able to love.

To be able to love completely, we must first be completely happy.

59. To love people you must abandon the need for them and their approval. Your acceptance is enough for you.

To accept that person as he is, that is the first step towards being able to love him in an honest way.

60. Society and your culture have overlaid the mind with such layers, the experts: political, cultural and religious leaders think for you.

We must abandon ideas that they have tried to impose on us, we must think for ourselves: what we want, what we desire and what we want to achieve in life.