“Childhood is not a state which only applies to the first phase of our lives in the biological sense. Rather it is a basic condition which is always appropriate to a life that is lived aright.”

Knowing God is more important than knowing about God.

The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.

How often I have found that we grow to maturity not by doing what we like, but by doing what we should. How true it is that not every ‘should’ is a compulsion, and not every ‘like’ is a high morality and true freedom.

What Christ gives us is quite explicit if his own words are interpreted according to their Aramaic meaning. The expression ‘This is my Body’ means this is myself.

Learning always involves self-transcendence. Learning calls forth what is in us, helping us to move toward authenticity and wholeness.

Every year we celebrate the holy season of Advent, O God. Every year we pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting, and sing those lovely songs of hope and promise.

When man is with God in awe and love, then he is praying.

In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all.

Love alone allows man to forget himself… it alone can still redeem even the darkest hours of the past since it alone finds the courage to believe in the mercy of the holy God.

The dead are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me.

In the post-Christian world, all Christians will be mystics.

But there is yet another form of this hidden heresy, and, paradoxically, it can affect those who are proudest of their long-standing and unimpeachable orthodoxy; heresy in the form of indifference.

The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.

Meditating on the nature and dignity of prayer can cause saying at least one thing to God: Lord, teach us to pray!

Grace is everywhere as an active orientation of all created reality toward God.

Emptiness is only a disguise for an intimacy of God’s, that God’s silence, the eerie stillness, is filled by the Word without words, by Him who is above all names, by Him who is all in all. And his silence is telling us that He is here.

Move only when you have an advantage. It’s very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor.

Gifts are meant to be wrapped. Honestly, it’s basic etiquette.

I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong…I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

If you’re worried about putting food on the table or putting a roof over your head, that stress is definitely will contribute to unhappiness, but once you have your basic needs met then incremental money.

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn’t just skills like computer technology. It’s the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.

In a basic way, acceptance is seeing clearly what’s happening and holding it with kindness. This is a radical antidote to the suffering of judging mind.

One of the basic laws of human existence is: find yourself, know yourself, be yourself.