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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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Anthony de Mello
Age: 55 †
Born: 1931
Born: September 4
Died: 1987
Died: June 2
Philosopher
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
Writer
Bombay
Book
Titles
Writing
Someday
Thing
Admit
Going
Expect
World
Wonderful
Openly
Wrong
Liberating
People
Write
Title
Tell
Ass

More quotes by Anthony de Mello

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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.
Anthony de Mello
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I seek the meaning of existence, said the stranger. You are of course assuming, said the Master, that existence has a meaning. Doesn't it? When you experience existence as it is - not as you think it is you will discover that your question has no meaning, said the Master.
Anthony de Mello
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The Master made it his task to destroy systematically every doctrine, every belief, every concept of the divine, for these things, which were originally intended as pointers, were now being taken as descriptions. He loved to quote the Eastern saying When the sage points to the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.
Anthony de Mello
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If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.
Anthony de Mello
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Nothing has changed but my attitude, therefore, everything has changed.
Anthony de Mello
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You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person.
Anthony de Mello
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You will seek for God in vain till you understand that God can't be seen as a thing he needs a special way of looking - similar to that of little children whose sight is undistorted by prefabricated doctrines and beliefs.
Anthony de Mello
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As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits ideology.
Anthony de Mello
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There's only one reason why you're not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it's because you're thinking or focusing on what you don't have....But, right now you have everything you need to be in bliss.
Anthony de Mello
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Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all - they are attempting nothing new.
Anthony de Mello
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Think of a flabby person covered with layers of fat. That is what your mind can become - flabby, covered with layers of fat till it becomes too dull and lazy to think, to observe, to explore, to discover ... not wanting to be disturbed or questioned into wakefulness.
Anthony de Mello
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A disciple was one day recalling how Buddha , Jesus , Mohammed were branded as rebels and heretics by their contemporaries. Said the Master, Nobody can be said to have attained the pinnacle of Truth until a thousand sincere people have denounced him for blasphemy .
Anthony de Mello
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You are so proud of your intelligence, said the master. You are like a like a condemned man, proud of the vastness of his prison cell.
Anthony de Mello
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People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg
Anthony de Mello
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What is love? The total absence of fear, said the Master What is it we fear? Love, said the Master.
Anthony de Mello
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You can never be free as long as you have an ego to defend.
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 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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Isn't there such a thing as social liberation? Of course there is, said the Master. How would you describe it? Liberation from the need to belong to the herd.
Anthony de Mello
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Step by step, let whatever happens happen. Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality. Awareness releases reality to change you.
Anthony de Mello