Anthony de Mello

Behold God beholding you...and smiling.

— Anthony de Mello

You do not have to change for God to love you.

— Anthony de Mello

If what you said was true, where was the need to shout?

— Anthony de Mello

Said the master: "Where does your question come from?"

— Anthony de Mello

Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?

— Anthony de Mello

Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught.

— Anthony de Mello

Concepts are always frozen. Reality flows.

— Anthony de Mello

If you never condemned you would never need to forgive.

— Anthony de Mello

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

— Anthony de Mello

A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories.

— Anthony de Mello

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

“The trouble with your ideals is that if you live up to all of them, you become impossible to live with.”

— Anthony de Mello

“And how about you? Do you want to understand and play the game of life or fool around with miracles?”

— Anthony de Mello

When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.

— Anthony de Mello

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

— Anthony de Mello

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

— Anthony de Mello

The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for…

— Anthony de Mello

“There was an exhausted woodcutter who kept wasting time and energy chopping wood with a blunt ax because he did not have…

— Anthony de Mello

“Certainty is the culprit. The spiritual person knows uncertainty—a state of mind unknown to the religious fanatic.”

— Anthony de Mello

A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances…

— Anthony de Mello

“What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head. As…

— Anthony de Mello

If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for…

— Anthony de Mello

“As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it." That's what spirituality is…

— Anthony de Mello

There's only one reason why you're not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it's because you're thinking or focusing on what…

— Anthony de Mello

No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to…

— Anthony de Mello

I was neurotic for years. I was anxious and depressed and selfish. Everyone kept telling me to change. I resented them and…

— Anthony de Mello

Think of a flabby person covered with layers of fat. That is what your mind can become - flabby, covered with layers…

— Anthony de Mello

Understand your darkness and it will vanish; then you will know what light is. Understand your nightmare for what it is and…

— Anthony de Mello

The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if…

— Anthony de Mello

Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I…

— Anthony de Mello

This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not,…

— Anthony de Mello

Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence.…

— Anthony de Mello

A religious belief is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the…

— Anthony de Mello

There is another more subtle way in which the innocence of childhood is lost: when the child is infected with the desire…

— Anthony de Mello

As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond…

— Anthony de Mello

Let’s suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or you? What’s causing the negative feeling? The…

— Anthony de Mello

Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don't believe them. Don't believe them! All they want you…

— Anthony de Mello

A prisoner lived in solitary confinement for years. He saw and spoke to no one and his meals were served through an…

— Anthony de Mello

Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It is irritating to be woken up. That's the…

— Anthony de Mello

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, 'We don't know?' The fact is that you're surrounded -God…

— Anthony de Mello