David Steindl-Rast

The root of joy is gratefulness.

— David Steindl-Rast

...Grateful living makes life meaningful and full of joy.

— David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness has the courage to trust and so overcomes fear.

— David Steindl-Rast

Love is saying yes to belonging.

— David Steindl-Rast

Blessing is the lifeblood throbbing through the universe.

— David Steindl-Rast

Beauty seen makes the one who sees it more beautiful.

— David Steindl-Rast

What is necessary when we want to face reality? Stillness.

— David Steindl-Rast

In moments of surprise we catch at least a glimpse of the joy to which gratefulness opens the door.

— David Steindl-Rast

When you focus so much on the word, you tend to neglect the realm of silence.

— David Steindl-Rast

The universe is gratis. It cannot be earned, nor need it be earned.

— David Steindl-Rast

Any place is sacred ground, for it can become a place of encounter with the divine Presence.

— David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is the gallantry of a heart ready to rise to the opportunity a given moment offers.

— David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is the inner gesture of giving meaning to our life by receiving life as gift.

— David Steindl-Rast

“True gratefulness is courage to give thanks for a gift before unwrapping it.”

— David Steindl-Rast

Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise then you will discover the fullness of your life.

— David Steindl-Rast

Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to…

— David Steindl-Rast

Solitude without togetherness deteriorates into loneliness. One needs strong roots in togetherness to be solitary rather than lonely when one is alone.

— David Steindl-Rast

Impatience makes us get ahead of ourselves, reaching out for something in the future and not really being content with where we…

— David Steindl-Rast

There is no one harder to live with than an artist. Therefore an artist is a real gift because he or she…

— David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness makes us aware of the gift and makes us happy. As long as we take things for granted they don't make…

— David Steindl-Rast

“Monastic contemplatives have staked out a clearly limited area to be transformed by contemplation: the monastery. Lay contemplatives face the challenge of…

— David Steindl-Rast

Each string of a wind harp responds with a different note to the same breeze. What activity makes you personally resonate most…

— David Steindl-Rast

If you're really mind-full, and if you underline that aspect of fullness, wholeness, or wholeheartedness, it reveals the gift character of everything.

— David Steindl-Rast

If there is anything the artist or a true work of art teaches us, it is that variety and complexity really increase…

— David Steindl-Rast

As we learn to give thanks for all of life and death, for all of this given world of ours, we find…

— David Steindl-Rast

...One can learn to focus on 'opportunity' as the gift within every given moment. This attitude towards life always improves the situation.…

— David Steindl-Rast

Gratitude is here presented as more than a feeling, a virtue, or an experience; gratitude emerges as an attitude we can freely…

— David Steindl-Rast

People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its…

— David Steindl-Rast

Day and night gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go…

— David Steindl-Rast

There is no closer bond than the one that gratefulness celebrates, the bond between giver and thanksgiver. Everything is a gift. Grateful…

— David Steindl-Rast

“Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it…

— David Steindl-Rast

Among the many things that profoundly impress me about the Dalai Lama, quite high up on the list is his ability to…

— David Steindl-Rast

“There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware how important this is and how this can change our world.…

— David Steindl-Rast

Only gratefulness, in the form of limitless openness for surprise, lays hold of the fullness of life in hope.

— David Steindl-Rast

Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning.

— David Steindl-Rast

From experience we know that whenever we are truly awake and alive, we are also truly grateful.

— David Steindl-Rast

One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve the ties of our alienation.

— David Steindl-Rast

The goal is partly the enjoyment; it doesn't come later, but within the very process of the struggle.

— David Steindl-Rast

There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is.

— David Steindl-Rast

The artist ought to know that a thousand painful deaths always lead into greater life.

— David Steindl-Rast