Top 250 Anthony de Mello Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “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

53. “What is love?“; “The total absence of fear,” said the Master; “What is it we fear?“; “Love,” said the Master.”

— Anthony de Mello

54. “You have within yourself the answer to every question you propose – if you only knew how to look for it. In the Land of the spirit, you cannot walk by the light of someone else’s lamp. You want to borrow mine. I’d rather teach you how to make your own.”

— Anthony de Mello

55. “When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing. When the mind is unobstructed the result is truth. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is joy and love.”

— Anthony de Mello

56. “All suffering comes from a person’s inability to sit still and be alone.”

— Anthony de Mello

57. “A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.”

— Anthony de Mello

58. “Take the leap! You cannot cross a chasm in little jumps.”

— Anthony de Mello

59. “The only way to change is by changing your understanding.”

— Anthony de Mello

60. “Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.”

— Anthony de Mello

61. “Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die.”

— Anthony de Mello

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

— Anthony de Mello

63. “These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness, and worship without awareness.”

— Anthony de Mello

64. “When you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live.”

— Anthony de Mello

65. “Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything.”

— Anthony de Mello

66. “The important thing is not to know who “I” is or what “I” is. You’ll never succeed. There are no words for it. The important thing is to drop the labels.”

— Anthony de Mello

67. “You are only a disciple because your eyes are closed. The day you open them you will see there is nothing you can learn from me or anyone.”

— Anthony de Mello

68. “Said the master: “Where does your question come from?””

— Anthony de Mello

69. “As the Japanese Zen masters say, “Don’t seek the truth; just drop your opinions”. Drop your theories; don’t seek the truth.”

— Anthony de Mello

70. “You’re not living until it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn to you whether you live or die. At that point you live. When you’re ready to lose your life, you live it.”

— Anthony de Mello

71. “What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. You are always a slave to what you’re not aware of. When you’re aware of it, you’re free from it. It’s there, but you’re not affected by it. You’re not controlled by it; you’re not enslaved by it. That’s the difference.”

— Anthony de Mello

72. “Obedience keeps the rules. Love knows when to break them.”

— Anthony de Mello

73. “Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.”

— Anthony de Mello

74. “You sanctify whatever you are grateful for.”

— Anthony de Mello

75. “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

76. “When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.”

— Anthony de Mello

77. “Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.”

— Anthony de Mello

78. “The seeker says, “I do not know.” That takes honesty. The master says, “I do not know.” That takes a mystic’s mind that knows things through non-knowing. The disciple says, “I know.” That takes ignorance, in the form of borrowed knowledge.”

— Anthony de Mello

79. “The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you’re ready to listen and if you’re ready to be challenged, there’s one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It’s called self-observation.”

— Anthony de Mello

80. “The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom.”

— Anthony de Mello

81. “Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and go.”

— Anthony de Mello

82. “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

83. “Doesn’t everyone see Reality as it is?”

— Anthony de Mello

84. “My commitment is not to consistency but to the Truth .”

— Anthony de Mello

85. “When you fight something, you’re tied to it forever. As long as you’re fighting it, you’re giving it power.”

— Anthony de Mello

86. “People kill for money or for power. But the most ruthless murderers are those who kill for their ideas.”

— Anthony de Mello

87. “All I did was sit on the riverbank handing out river water. After I’m gone, I trust you will notice the river.”

— Anthony de Mello

88. “The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song – not one. Not two.”

— Anthony de Mello

89. “When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.”

— Anthony de Mello

90. “You keep insisting, I feel good because the world is right! Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That’s what all the mystics are saying.”

— Anthony de Mello

91. “Said the monk: “All these mountains and rivers and the earth and stars – where do they come from?” Said the master: “Where does your question come from?””

— Anthony de Mello

92. “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

93. “If you make me your authority, you harm yourself because you will not see things for yourself, and you harm me too because you refuse to see me as I am.”

— Anthony de Mello

94. “People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.”

— Anthony de Mello

95. “If I haven’t received any grace today, then I was not at home. This is because God is sending deliveries constantly.”

— Anthony de Mello

96. “When someone offends you, you can raise your spirits to heights where offenses cannot reach.”

— Anthony de Mello

97. “When God means you to be a healer he sends you patients; when he makes you a teacher he sends you pupils; when he destines you to be a Master he sends you stories .”

— Anthony de Mello

98. “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

99. “My experience is that it’s precisely the ones who don’t know what to do with this life who are all hot and bothered about what they are going to do with another life.”

— Anthony de Mello

100. “Rare indeed, is the relationship in which the other is not cultivated for what one can get for oneself.”

— Anthony de Mello