John O'Donohue Quotes
The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness.
I think the divine is like a huge smile that breaks somewhere in the sea within you, and gradually comes up again.
If you have a trust in and an expectation of your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you.
We need great prophetic leaders in religion and in spirituality... what we are getting is lacking in vision... not able to engage with the diversity of the culture.
Most people are enduring a marginalized isolation. One of the great obstacles to modern friendships is the 'religion of rush.' People are rushing all the time through time. Friendship takes time.
A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen.
The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused.
It is lovely to meet an old person whose face is deeply lined, a face that has been deeply inhabited, to look in the eyes and find light there.
It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you.
We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program for our lives.
You are as young as you feel. If you begin to feel the warmth of your soul, there will be a youthfulness in you that no one will be able to take away from you.
Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.
Your soul is the priestess of memory, selecting, sifting, and ultimately gathering your vanishing days toward presence.
The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light on the world of the soul.
All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.
Friendship is a creative and subversive force. It claims that intimacy is the secret law of life and universe.
...the only difference between a young person at the height of their exuberance and a very old person who is frail and physically wasted is time.
When time is reduced to linear progress, it is emptied of presence.
We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home.
Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.
The life and passion of a person leave an imprint on the ether of a place. Love does not remain within the heart, it flows out to build secret tabernacles in a landscape.
