Anthony de Mello

True tolerance only arises from a keen awareness of the abysmal ignorance of everyone as far as truth is concerned.

How does one cope with evil? Not by fighting it but by understanding it. In understanding, it disappears. How does one cope with darkness? Not with one's fist. You don't chase darkness out of the room with a broom, you turn on a light. The more you fight darkness, the more real it becomes to you, and the more you exhaust yourself. But when you turn on the light of awareness, it melts.

When you renounce something, you’re tied to it. The only way to get out of this is to see through it. Don’t renounce it, see through it. Understand its true value and you won’t
need to renounce it; it will just drop from your hands. But of course, if you don’t see that, if you’re hypnotized into thinking that you won’t be happy without this, that, or the other thing, you’re stuck. What we need to do for you is not what so-called spirituality attempts to do — namely, to get you to make sacrifices, to renounce things. That’s useless. You’re still asleep. What we need to do is to help you understand, understand, understand. If you understood, you’d simply drop the desire for it. This is another way of saying: If you woke up, you’d simply drop the desire for it.

It isn't falling in that causes you to drown, it's staying in.

Certainty is the culprit. The spiritual person knows uncertainty — a state of mind unknown to the religious fanatic.

Neurotičar je osoba koja brine zbog nečega što se nije dogodilo u prošlosti. On nije kao mi, normalni ljudi, koji brinemo zbog nečega što se neće dogoditi u budućnosti.

What’s the earthly use of putting a man on the moon when we cannot live on the earth?

Let the story do its work in you, and when it is done then you won’t need the story anymore.

Don't ask the world to change....you change first.

People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.

This truth I firmly hold, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding;
my life has been a gift, a blessing to the world.

God went mad out of love for us. Then we must be very lovely. What we have stressed in the past is how lovely God must be that he can love us like this. But nobody has yet said how lovely we must be, that God could fall for us like this. Both are true.

To know reality you have to know beyond knowing.

The important religious distinction is not between those who worship and those who do not worship but between those who love and those who don’t.

Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.