Quote

You can will an act of service but you cannot will love.

Anthony de Mello

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anthony de Mello
Age: 55 †
Born: 1931
Born: September 4
Died: 1987
Died: June 2
Philosopher
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
Writer
Bombay
Service
Cannot
Love

More quotes by Anthony de Mello

Image
Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth.
Anthony de Mello
Image
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
Image
I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking.
Anthony de Mello
Image
People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change.
Anthony de Mello
Image
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
Image
You sanctify whatever you are grateful for.
Anthony de Mello
Image
Said the master: Where does your question come from?
Anthony de Mello
Image
We're crazy, We're living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything.
Anthony de Mello
Image
When the sage points at the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.
Anthony de Mello
Image
The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song — not one. Not two.
Anthony de Mello
Image
Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?
Anthony de Mello
Image
What is the work of a Master? said a solemn-faced visitor. To teach people to laugh , said the Master gravely.
Anthony de Mello
Image
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
Image
Extend your arms in welcome to the future. The best is yet to come!
Anthony de Mello
Image
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
Image
Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all - they are attempting nothing new.
Anthony de Mello
Image
If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.
Anthony de Mello
Image
A newly married couple said, What shall we do to make our love endure? Said the Master, Love other things together.
Anthony de Mello
Image
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
Image
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