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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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Anthony de Mello
Age: 55 †
Born: 1931
Born: September 4
Died: 1987
Died: June 2
Philosopher
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
Writer
Bombay
Points
Idiot
Sees
Fingers
Moon
Pointers
Sage
Finger

More quotes by Anthony de Mello

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If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.
Anthony de Mello
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There were rules in the monastery, but the Master always warned against the tyranny of the law. 'Obedience keeps the rules,' he would say. 'Love knows when to break them.'
Anthony de Mello
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Extend your arms in welcome to the future. The best is yet to come!
Anthony de Mello
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What is my identity ? Nothing, said the Master. You mean that I am an emptiness and a void? said the incredulous disciple. Nothing that can be labeled. said the Master.
Anthony de Mello
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The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg the saint in a selfish human being.
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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One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.
Anthony de Mello
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The only way to change is by changing your understanding.
Anthony de Mello
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I'm going to write a book someday and the title will be I'm an Ass, You're an Ass. That's the most liberating, wonderful thing in the world, when you openly admit you're an ass. It's wonderful. When people tell me, You're wrong I say, What can you expect of an ass?
Anthony de Mello
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There's nothing you can do to see — it is a gift.
Anthony de Mello
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What is a loving heart? A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons a loving heart doesn't harden itself to any persons or things.
Anthony de Mello
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A disciple, in his reverence for the Master, looked upon him as God incarnate. Tell me, O Master, he said, why you have come into this world. To teach fools like you to stop wasting their time worshiping Masters.
Anthony de Mello
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The poor think they will be happy when they become rich. The rich think they will be happy when they are rid of their ulcers.
Anthony de Mello
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The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-Tzu's dictum: Those who know, do not say Those who say, do not know. When the master entered, they asked him what the words meant. Said the master, Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose? All of them indicated that they knew. Then he said, Put it into words. All of them were silent
Anthony de Mello
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Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught.
Anthony de Mello
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Another illusion is that external events have the power to hurt you, that other people have the power to hurt you. They don't. It's you who give this power to them.
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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The Rose does not preen herself to catch my eye. She blooms because she blooms. A saint is a saint until he knows he is one.
Anthony de Mello
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the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.
Anthony de Mello
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It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth, in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear!
Anthony de Mello