Anthony De Mello Quotes

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.

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

If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.

Extend your arms in welcome to the future. The best is yet to come!

Another illusion is that external events have the power to hurt you, that other people have the power to hurt you. They don't. It's you who give this power to them.

When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power.

You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something.

One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.

"What is love?"; "The total absence of fear," said the Master; "What is it we fear?"; "Love," said the Master.

Because everyone is the same distance from the sun. Does it really lessen the distance if you live on top of a skyscraper?

A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within.

The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being.

Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.

When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.

What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.

If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.

If what you said was true, where was the need to shout?

You see persons and things not as they are but as you are.

Both what you run from- and what you yearn for - are within you.

We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.

Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you.

You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person.

Step by step, let whatever happens happen. Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality. Awareness releases reality to change you.

It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth, in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear!

You only change what you understand. What you do not understand and are not aware of, you repress. You dont change. But when you understand it, it changes.

Live your life as you see fit. That's not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit.

You can never be free as long as you have an ego to defend.

When God means you to be a healer he sends you patients; when he makes you a teacher he sends you pupils; when he destines you to be a Master he sends you stories.

You're so ashamed of your past; drop it! You're so proud of your past; drop it!

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.

Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.

All conflict comes from attachment.

Say goodbye to golden yesterdays: or your heart will never learn to love the present.

Behold God beholding you...and smiling.

What is my identity ?" "Nothing," said the Master. "You mean that I am an emptiness and a void?" said the incredulous disciple. "Nothing that can be labeled." said the Master.

You do not have to change for God to love you.

May the peace of God disturb you always.

All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone.

A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories.

Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth.

Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.

Religion is the finger pointing to God. People are too busy licking the finger to notice where it's pointing.

Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.

Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die.

When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding... you can be yourself. Relaxed. You'll no longer be driving with your brakes on.

What is a loving heart? A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons; a loving heart doesn't harden itself to any persons or things.

Concepts are always frozen. Reality flows.

The Master would insist that the final barrier to our attaining God was the word and concept God.

You are only a disciple because your eyes are closed. The day you open them you will see there is nothing you can learn from me or anyone.

Problems only exist in the human mind.