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

Anthony de Mello

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Anthony de Mello
Age: 55 †
Born: 1931
Born: September 4
Died: 1987
Died: June 2
Philosopher
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
Writer
Bombay
Shortest
Distance
Story
Understand
Stories
Truth
Human
Humans

More quotes by Anthony de Mello

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A thought is a screen, not a mirror that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.
Anthony de Mello
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We live in a flash of light evening comes and it is night forever. It's only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns, our burdens.
Anthony de Mello
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If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future.
Anthony de Mello
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When the sage points at the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.
Anthony de Mello
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Live your life as you see fit. That's not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit.
Anthony de Mello
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The law is an expression of God 's holy will and as such must be honored and loved, said the preacher piously. Rubbish, said the Master. The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant .
Anthony de Mello
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Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.
Anthony de Mello
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The present moment is never intolerable. What's intolerable is what's going to happen in the next four hours. To have your body here at 8 pm and your mind at 10:30 pm, that's what causes us suffering.
Anthony de Mello
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A Jesuit once wrote a note to Father Arrupe, his superior general, asking him about the relative value of communism, socialism and capitalism. Father Arrupe gave him a lovely reply. He said, A system is about as good or as bad as the people who use it. People with golden hearts would make capitalism or communism or socialism work beautifully.
Anthony de Mello
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One day, a philosopher asked, What is the purpose of creation? Lovemaking, said the Master. Later, to his disciples, he said, Before creation, love was. After creation, love was made. When love is consummated, creation will cease to be, and love will be forever.
Anthony de Mello
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Rare indeed, is the relationship in which the other is not cultivated for what one can get for oneself.
Anthony de Mello
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Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.
Anthony de Mello
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A disciple asked, Who is a Master? The Master replied, Anyone to whom it is given to let go of the ego. Such a person's life is then a masterpiece.
Anthony de Mello
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The words of the scholar are to be understood. The words of the master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.
Anthony de Mello
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Take the leap! You cannot cross a chasm in little jumps.
Anthony de Mello
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Problems only exist in the human mind.
Anthony de Mello
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The world is right because I feel good. p. 83, Awareness, copyright 1990
Anthony de Mello
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My former master taught me to accept birth and death. Then what have you come to me for? asked the master. To learn to accept what lies in between.
Anthony de Mello
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Most people don't live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts - generally somebody else's - mechanical emotions, mechanical actions, mechanical reactions.
Anthony de Mello
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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.
Anthony de Mello