Quotes by Mystics

Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.
Georges Gurdjieff
Soften my hard self-opinionatedness which time has hardened so exceedingly!
Gertrude the Great
A hero is a man who does what he can.
Romain Rolland
Man's security comes from within himself.
Manly Hall
The only prayer which a well-meaning man can pray is O ye gods give me whatever is fitting unto me!
Appollonius of Tyana
A hero is a man who does what he can.
Romain Rolland
The only prayer which a well-meaning man can pray is O ye gods give me whatever is fitting unto me!
Appollonius of Tyana
All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
Julian of Norwich
Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it you're still going to be taken along.
Bernadette Roberts
It is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
Evelyn Underhill
If I saw the gates of hell open and I stood on the brink of the abyss I would not despair I would not lose hope of mercy because I would trust in You my God.
Gemma Galgani
Oh if everyone knew how beautiful Jesus is how amiable He is! Fhey would all die from love.
Gemma Galgani
A comprehended God is no God at all.
Gerhard Tersteegen
Delicate humor is the crowning virtue of the saints.
Evelyn Underhill
Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.
Georges Gurdjieff
Let each look to himself and see what God wants of him and attend to this leaving all else alone.
Henry Suso
A hero is a man who does what he can.
Romain Rolland
O how gently and how lovingly dost thou lie awake in the depth and centre of my soul, where thou in secret and in silence alone, as its sole Lord, abidest, not only as in Thine own house or in Thine own chamber, but also as within my own bosom, in close and intimate union.
San Juan de la Cruz
As long as a man has, he must give. And when he has nothing more, he is free. This freedom is far nobler than the former giving, for he no longer gives in accident but in essence, and he no longer gives one gift, but all gifts, and he no longer gives to just one man, but to all men.
John Tauler
The business and method of mysticism is love.
Evelyn Underhill
Mysticism is the art of union with Reality.
Evelyn Underhill
As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone—though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men—so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of their desire.
Evelyn Underhill
Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception—this “ordinary contemplation,” as the specialists call it—is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician.
Evelyn Underhill
Make haste to Love.
Hadewijch
Trust God that you are where you are meant to be.
St. Teresa Of Avila
In mysticism that love of truth which we saw as the beginning of all philosophy leaves the merely intellectual sphere, and takes on the assured aspect of a personal passion. Where the philosopher guesses and argues, the mystic lives and looks; and speaks, consequently, the disconcerting language of first-hand experience, not the neat dialectic of the schools. Hence whilst the Absolute of the metaphysicians remains a diagram —impersonal and unattainable—the Absolute of the mystics is lovable, attainable, alive.
Evelyn Underhill
Idealism, though just in its premises, and often daring and honest in their application, is stultified by the exclusive intellectualism of its own methods: by its fatal trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart. It interests man, but does not involve him in its processes: does not catch him up to the new and more real life which it describes. Hence the thing that matters, the living thing, has somehow escaped it; and its observations bear the same relation to reality as the art of the anatomist does to the mystery of birth.
Evelyn Underhill
Dare to believe in the reality of your assumptionand watch the world play its partrelative to to its fulfillment.
Neville Goddard
In your occupations, try to possess your soul in peace. It is not a good plan to be in haste to perform any action that it may be the sooner over. On the contrary, you should accustom yourself to do whatever you have to do with tranquillity, in order that you may retain the possession of yourself and of settled peace.
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
We never know how strongly we cling to objects until they are taken away, and he who thinks htat he is attached to nothing, is frequently grandly mistaken, being bound to a thousand things, unknown to himself.
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Truth is one, unique, single; it isindivisibly One.And its Oneness, and the knowledge ofthat oneness belongs to him; isplaced in him.Impossible, impossible; it is aloofness,estrangement, separation; he is known onlyby them.Knowledge of One is abstract; single,indivisible.To say one, and to say single is to reachthe attribute; but he, who is one, is beyondattribute.If I say "I," he sends back "I," in answerto my "I". So, "he" is for you and not forme.And if I say Unity is Oneness for hisloneliness, for his being alone, then Iplaced him increation; among things created.And if I say single One, as number one; howcan he comewithinnumber?And if I say, he is One for as theresult of being considered one, being provedOne–then Iplaced limit on him; delimitedhim.
Mansur al-Hallaj
Although hundreds of friends Have become my foes, The friendship of One Has given security to my soul. Rejecting many I have embraced the One-At last I am He and He is me.
Sarmad Shaheed
I am the king of kingsO Sheikh! Not naked like you, I love madness, dynamism, but I am not distraughtAn infidel, an idolator, I am not one of the pious. I am going towards the mosqueBut I am not a Muslim.
Sarmad Shaheed
A man whose eyes love opens risks his soul -His dancing breaks beyond the mind's control.
Farid ud-Din Attar
The whole universe is sum up in the Human Being. Devil is not a monster waiting to trap us, He is a voice inside. Look for Your Devil in Yourself, not in the Others. Don’t forgeT that the one who knows his Devil, knows his God.
Shams Tabrizi
And fear nothing, dear soul, whoever you are; the greater the sinner, the greater his right to Your mercy, O Lord.
Maria Faustina Kowalska
Naught is there mightier than God;Yet hath He not the might to turnMy Will from willing what it will,My yearning as it needs must yearn?
Angelus Silesius
There is a cosmic law which says that every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.
G.I. Gurdjieff
Live a life of friction. Let yourself be disturbed as much as possible, but observe.
G.I. Gurdjieff
As long as our ideas are the same, we will never be apart.
G.I. Gurdjieff
Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
St John of the Cross
Somewhere within this realm of imagination there is a mood, a feeling of the wish fulfilled which, if appropriated, means success to you.
Neville Goddard
No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself.
Romain Rolland
By the will art thou lost, by the will art thou found, by the will art thou free, captive, and bound.
Angelus Silesius
Could one that's damned stand in high Heaven, even thereHe'd feel within himself all Hell and Hell's despair.
Angelus Silesius
...the clearer the light is, the more it blinds and darkens the pupil of the owl; and the more we look at the sun, the greater is the darkness it causes in our vision ... in the same way, when the divine light of contemplation assails the soul that is not wholly enlightened, it causes spiritual darkness within it.
San Juan de la Cruz
Talk to Me. For Me there is no sweeter prayer.
Gabrielle Bossis
And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.
Julian of Norwich
God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness because if we fully knew what was happening, and what Mystery, transformation, God and Grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process.
San Juan de la Cruz
I was wedded to all the stars of the sky.There was not a single star left, and I married every one of them with great spiritual pleasure. Then I married the moon.
Ibn Arabi
At that time I also had, for a short while, the strength to bear it. But all too soon I lost external sight of the shape of that beautiful man, and I saw him disappear to nothing, so quickly melting away and fusing together that I could not see or observe him outside of me, nor discern him within me. It was to me at that moment as if we were one without distinction.
Hadewijch
When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;if I sit in my own place of patience,what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me,is looking for me and attracting me.There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.
Shams-i Tabrizi
You are already that which you want to be, and your refusal to believe it is the only reason you do not see it.
Neville Goddard
Be fervent in God, and let nothing grieve you, whatever you encounter.
Hadewijch
From my insufficiency to my perfection, and from my deviation to my equilibriumFrom my sublimity to my beauty, and from my splendor to my majestyFrom my scattering to my gathering, and from my rejection to my communionFrom my baseness to my preciousness, and from my stones to my pearlsFrom my rising to my setting, and from my days to my nightsFrom my luminosity to my darkness, and from my guidance to my strayingFrom my perigee to my apogee, and from the base of my lance to its tipFrom my waxing to my waning, and from the void of my moon to its crescentFrom my pursuit to my flight, and from my steed to my gazelleFrom my breeze to my boughs, and from my boughs to my shadeFrom my shade to my delight, and from my delight to my tormentFrom my torment to my likeness, and from my likeness to my impossibilityFrom my impossibility to my validity, and from my validity to my deficiency.I am no one in existence but myself,
Ibn Arabi
The true saint goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment.
Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir
Many beginners also at times possess great spiritual avarice. They hardly ever seem content with the spirit God gives them. They become unhappy and peevish because they don't find the consolation they want in spiritual things. Many never have enough of hearing counsels, or learning spiritual maxims, or keeping them and reading books about them. They spend more time in these than in striving after mortification and the perfection of the interior poverty to which they are obliged.
San Juan de la Cruz
God said to him [Eblis], 'You have become proud.' He replied, 'If I had been with you but a moment my pride would have been justified; I have been with you for centuries.
Mansur al-Hallaj
Man's status in the natural world is determined, therefore, by the quality of his thinking.
Manly P. Hall
Dispassion doesn't mean to no longer feel the passions, but to no longer accept them.
Isaac of Nineveh