“To live fully, outwardly and inwardly, not to ignore the external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse, that’s quite a task.”

Suffering has always been with us; does it really matter in what form it comes? All that matters is how we bear it and how we fit it into our lives.

Life is good, after all…and that’s what stays with me, even now, even when I’m about to be packed off to Poland.

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.

Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship, sailing across endless oceans, never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, it will find mooring for a moment.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

And now that I don’t want to own anything any more and am free, now I suddenly own everything, now my inner riches are immeasurable.

How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.

Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.

Sometimes I feel that every word spoken and every gesture made merely serve to exacerbate misunderstandings. Then what I would really like is to escape into a great silence and impose that silence on everyone else.

I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.

One must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.

I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.

Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God.

If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.

At the center of care for the heart is the love of God. This must be the joyful aim of our life.

A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do.

Peace doesn’t come from finding a lake with no storms. It comes from having Jesus in the boat.

One of my great personal triumphs is, because I stay vigilant about my health

If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.

Little men are dissolved in it. If there is any gold, truth makes it shine more brightly. . . .

Take two kids in competition for their parents’ love and attention.

And yet We lost it in this daily jar and fret, And now live idle in a vague regret