Top 250 Anthony de Mello Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “But to depend on another psychologically – to depend on another emotionally – what does that imply? It means to depend on another human being for my happiness. Think about that. Because if you do, the next thing you will be doing, whether you’re aware of it or not, is demanding that other people contribute to your happiness.”

— Anthony de Mello

202. “When your illusions clash with reality, when your falsehoods clash with truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering.”

— Anthony de Mello

203. “Is it possible for the rose to say, “I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? Or is it possible for the lamp to say, “I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people”? Or can a tree say, “I’ll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? These are images of what love is about.”

— Anthony de Mello

204. “It is something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn’t stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I’m alone, it continues to play. There’s a great repertoire, and it never ceases to play. That’s what awakening is all about.”

— Anthony de Mello

205. “An attachment is not a fact. It is a belief, a fantasy, in your head, acquired through programming. If that fantasy did not exist inside your head, you would not be attached. You would love things and people, and you would enjoy them thoroughly, but on a nonattachment basis. As a matter of fact, is there any other way to really enjoy something?”

— Anthony de Mello

206. “When you’re living for nothing, you’ve got all your skills, you’ve got all your energy, you’re relaxed, and you don’t care. It doesn’t matter to you whether you win or lose. Now there’s human living for you. That’s what life is all about.”

— Anthony de Mello

207. “Do you want to be happy? Uninterrupted happiness is uncaused. True happiness is uncaused. You cannot make me happy. You are not my happiness. You say to the awakened person, “Why are you happy?” and the awakened person replies, “Why not?” Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture.”

— Anthony de Mello

208. “Has it ever struck you that you have been programmed by society to be unhappy, and so, no matter what you do to become happy, you are bound to fail? Most people are so brainwashed that they do not even realize how unhappy they are. It’s only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they have been.”

— Anthony de Mello

209. “Most people don’t live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts – generally somebody else’s – mechanical emotions, mechanical actions, mechanical reactions. As you begin to understand this, you stop making demands on yourself, you stop having expectations of yourself, you stop pushing yourself, and you begin to understand yourself.”

— Anthony de Mello

210. “When you see this you will understand how people attempt to gain the world and, in the process, lose their soul.”

— Anthony de Mello

211. “An attachment, by its very nature, makes you vulnerable to emotional turmoil and is always threatening to shatter your peace.”

— Anthony de Mello

212. “Your attitude should be: “I want to be aware, I want to be in touch with whatever is and let whatever happens happen; if I’m awake, fine, and if I’m asleep, fine.”

— Anthony de Mello

213. “Who decides what will finally make its way to your conscious mind from all the material that is pouring in from the world? Three decisive filters: first your attachments, second your beliefs and third your fears.”

— Anthony de Mello

214. “How can you love someone whom you do not even see?”

— Anthony de Mello

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

— Anthony de Mello

216. “To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already.”

— Anthony de Mello

217. “The moment you say so-and-so is wise or is cruel or defensive or loving or whatever, you have hardened your perception and become prejudiced and ceased to perceive this person moment by moment, somewhat like a pilot who operates today with last week’s weather report.”

— Anthony de Mello

218. “So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other.”

— Anthony de Mello

219. “Your life as it is now: nightmare. Every single thing you cling to and have convinced yourself you cannot be happy without: nightmare.”

— Anthony de Mello

220. “If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I’m going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment, because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.”

— Anthony de Mello

221. “That is how you bring about change in yourself. Not by condemnation, not by calling yourself names, but by understanding what’s going on. Not by calling yourself a dirty old sinner.”

— Anthony de Mello

222. “You falsely think that your fears protect you, your beliefs have made you what you are and your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that they are actually a screen between you and life’s symphony.”

— Anthony de Mello

223. “Religion is the finger pointing to God. People are too busy licking the finger to notice where it’s pointing.”

— Anthony de Mello

224. “The Japanese have a nice way of putting it: “The day you cease to travel, you will have arrived.”

— Anthony de Mello

225. “Recall those lovely words of Buddha when he said, “Monks and scholars must not accept my words out of respect, but must analyze them the way a goldsmith analyzes gold – by cutting, scraping, rubbing, melting.”

— Anthony de Mello

226. “Do you know one sign that you’ve woken up? It’s when you are asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or are all of them crazy?”

— Anthony de Mello

227. “One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.”

— Anthony de Mello

228. “Take a look at the society we live in. It is rotten to the core, infected with attachments. What is an attachment? An attachment is an emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.”

— Anthony de Mello

229. “The biggest enemy of love is attachments. Desire, in the sense of attachment. You know why? Because if I desire you, I want to possess you. I can’t leave you free. I’ve got to get you. I’ve got to manipulate you so that I can get you, if I desire you in this way. I’m going to manipulate myself, so that I can hoodwink you into allowing me to get you. Are you following what I’m saying? Clear enough? There’s no fear in perfect love. You know why? Because there’s no desire.”

— Anthony de Mello

230. “The orchestra is within you and you carry it with you wherever you go. The things and people outside you merely determine what particular melody the orchestra will play. And when there is no one or nothing that has your attention the orchestra will play a music of its own; it needs no outside stimulation. You now carry in your heart a happiness that nothing outside of you can put there, and nothing can take away.”

— Anthony de Mello

231. “No theory adequately covers reality.”

— Anthony de Mello

232. “You want the little things that society has falsely taught you are essential for happiness. You want that.”

— Anthony de Mello

233. “That’s why you’ll never catch me saluting a flag. I abhor all national flags because they are idols. What are we saluting? I salute humanity, not a flag with an army around it.”

— Anthony de Mello

234. “Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.”

— Anthony de Mello

235. “To come to the land of love, you must pass through the pains of death, for to love persons means to die to the need for persons and to be utterly alone.”

— Anthony de Mello

236. “You will never live until you stop clinging to life. Let go. When you cling, happiness dies. If your happiness depends on anyone or anything, that’s not happiness.”

— Anthony de Mello

237. “Suppose somebody showed us a way whereby we would truly love one another, and be at peace, be at love. Can you think of anything more practical than that? But, instead, you have people thinking that big business is more practical, that politics is more practical, that science is more practical. What’s the earthly use of putting a man on the moon when we cannot live on the earth?”

— Anthony de Mello

238. “Let the story do its work in you, and when it is done then you won’t need the story anymore.”

— Anthony de Mello

239. “It is enough for you to be watchful and awake. For in this state your eyes will see the Savior.”

— Anthony de Mello

240. “You’re never so ready to forget yourself as when you are happy.”

— Anthony de Mello

241. “The highest knowledge of God is to know God as unknowable. There is far too much God talk; the world is sick of it. There is too little awareness, too little love, too little happiness, but let’s not use those words either. There’s too little dropping of illusions, dropping of errors, dropping of attachments and cruelty, too little awareness. That’s what the world is suffering from, not from a lack of religion.”

— Anthony de Mello

242. “Because agreement and disagreement have to do with words and concepts and theories. They don’t have anything to do with truth. Truth is never expressed in words. Truth is sighted suddenly, as a result of a certain attitude.”

— Anthony de Mello

243. “Think of yourself in a concert hall listening to the strains of the sweetest music when you suddenly remember that you forgot to lock your car. You are anxious about the car, you cannot walk out of the hall and you cannot enjoy the music. There you have a perfect image of life as it is lived by most human beings.”

— Anthony de Mello

244. “The fact is that you’re surrounded by God and you don’t see God, because you “know” about God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept.”

— Anthony de Mello

245. “It is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing.”

— Anthony de Mello

246. “The more occupied we are in the things of God, the more likely we priests are to forget what God is all about – and the more complacent we’re likely to become. That’s the story of Jesus. Who do you think got rid of Jesus? The priests – who else? The religious people. That’s the terror of the Gospel, see?”

— Anthony de Mello

247. “George Bernard Shaw. He was at one of those awful cocktail parties, where nothing gets said. Someone asked him if he was enjoying himself. He answered, “It’s the only thing I am enjoying here.”

— Anthony de Mello

248. “But are you listening for what will confirm what you already think? Or are you listening in order to discover something new?”

— Anthony de Mello

249. “As one man said, “I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it.”

— Anthony de Mello

250. “All revelations, however divine, are never any more than a finger pointing to the moon. As we say in the East, “When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger.”

— Anthony de Mello