1. “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
2. “there’s not a single evil in the world that you cannot trace to fear. Not one.” – Anthony de Mello
3. “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
4. “Not even the greatest guru in the world can take a single step for you … It is you who have to digest your food, it is you who have to understand … It is you who have to seek … And if what you seek is truth, then you must do this.” – Anthony de Mello
5. “A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within.” – Anthony de Mello
6. “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
7. “Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.” – Anthony de Mello
8. “When nothing can hurt you—no event, no person, no thing—you’re happy. What do you do to be happy? Nothing. You don’t do anything, you drop something—you drop an illusion, you drop a wrong idea. How do you drop it? By seeing that it is wrong.” – Anthony de Mello
9. “When someone offends you, you can raise your spirits to heights where offenses cannot reach.” – Anthony de Mello
10. “Problems only exist in the human mind.” – Anthony de Mello
11. “There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” – Anthony de Mello
12. “Live your life as you see fit. That’s not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit.” – Anthony de Mello
13. “Spirituality practiced in the state of activity is incomparably superior to that practiced in a state of withdrawel.” – Anthony de Mello
14. “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
15. “Is there life before death? – that is the question!” – Anthony de Mello
16. “Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” – Anthony de Mello
17. “Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.” – Anthony de Mello
18. “You cannot do anything to get love. If you would understand your desires, attachments, attractions, obsessions, addictions, and they would drop, love would emerge. When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.” – Anthony de Mello
19. “Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.” – Anthony de Mello
20. “If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.” – Anthony de Mello
21. “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…That’s the difference.” – Anthony de Mello
22. “You are never in love with anyone. You’re only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person.” – Anthony de Mello
23. “Think of something that till now you would have said has upset you. Understand that it wasn’t that thing or that person that upset you, it was your programming.” – Anthony de Mello
24. “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
25. “If you find me charming, it means that right now you’re in a good mood, nothing more.” – Anthony de Mello
26. “It isn’t life that is hard on you; it is you who take it hard.” – Anthony de Mello
27. “When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.” – Anthony de Mello
28. “There comes a point in your life when you become stark raving insane, commit suicide or become a mystic.” – Anthony de Mello
29. “Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.” – Anthony de Mello
30. “Nothing has changed but my attitude, therefore, everything has changed.” – Anthony de Mello
31. “True happiness is caused by nothing. True happiness is uncaused. If you ask the mystic why he or she is happy, the answer will be, ‘Why not?’ No block, no obstruction.” – Anthony de Mello
32. “The unaware life is not worth living.” – Anthony de Mello
33. “When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.” – Anthony de Mello
34. “The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being.” – Anthony de Mello
35. “Like the little girl who says to a little boy, “Are you a Presbyterian?” And he says, “No, we belong to another abomination!” – Anthony de Mello
36. “A newly married couple said, “What shall we do to make our love endure?” Said the Master, “Love other things together”…” – Anthony de Mello
37. “Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. So stop trying to change reality. That’s crazy! Stop trying to change the other person.” – Anthony de Mello
38. “You know, a good is never so good as when you have no awareness that you’re doing good. You are never so good as when you have no consciousness that you’re good.” – Anthony de Mello
39. “Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.” – Anthony de Mello
40. “The greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.” – Anthony de Mello
41. “Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth.” – Anthony de Mello
42. “One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego.” – Anthony de Mello
43. “You do not have to change for God to love you.” – Anthony de Mello
44. “Say goodbye to golden yesterdays: or your heart will never learn to love the present.” – Anthony de Mello
45. “What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head. As well” – Anthony de Mello
46. “It is impossible to be grateful and unhappy.” – Anthony de Mello
47. “Look at it this way: You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. If you wish to see them as they are you must attend to your attachments and the fears that your attachments generate.” – Anthony de Mello
48. “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
49. “That’s what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you.” – Anthony de Mello
50. “Get on with self-observation, self-awareness, self-understanding, self-liberation—then you will understand better.” – Anthony de Mello
51. “Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.” – Anthony de Mello
52. “Doesn’t everyone see Reality as it is?” – Anthony de Mello
53. “People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg.” – Anthony de Mello
54. “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
55. “My commitment is not to consistency but to the Truth .” – Anthony de Mello
56. “”I have no fear of losing u, for you aren’t an object of my property, or anyone else’s. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine.” – Anthony de Mello
57. “You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.” – Anthony de Mello
58. “What we need is not just action that will bring about change but sight that will bring about love.” – Anthony de Mello
59. “You’re not fighting it, you’re not upset about it, you’re not irritated about it. You’re serene. That’s the difference.” – Anthony de Mello
60. “Are you upset and disturbed? Do you have problems? Are you not enjoying life? Never doubt it, you’re fast asleep!” – Anthony de Mello
61. “You can will an act of service but you cannot will love.” – Anthony de Mello
62. “What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.” – Anthony de Mello
63. “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
64. “When you’re on the verge of going insane, raving mad, you’re about to become either a psychotic or a mystic.” – Anthony de Mello
65. “When the sage points at the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.” – Anthony de Mello
66. “The content of your awareness is less important than the quality of the awareness” – Anthony de Mello
67. “Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.” – Anthony de Mello
68. “When you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live.” – Anthony de Mello
69. “Life is a banquet, but most people are starving.” – Anthony de Mello
70. “You’re so ashamed of your past; drop it! You’re so proud of your past; drop it!” – Anthony de Mello
71. “The present moment is never intolerable.” – Anthony de Mello
72. “The rediscovery of life: you will never live till you stop clinging to life. Let go. When you cling, happiness dies.” – Anthony de Mello
73. “Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there’s falsehood somewhere, just as physical pain is given to you so you will understand that there is disease or illness somewhere.” – Anthony de Mello
74. “Nothing in all of this world has the power to upset you. Nothing.” – Anthony de Mello
75. “You’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.” – Anthony de Mello
76. “If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.” – Anthony de Mello
77. “Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die.” – Anthony de Mello
78. “You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something.” – Anthony de Mello
79. “The enemies to freedom are not outside of us.” – Anthony de Mello
80. “The only way to change is by changing your understanding.” – Anthony de Mello
81. “For to love persons is to have died to the need for persons and to be utterly alone.” – Anthony de Mello
82. “Life is something that happens to us while we’re busy at something else. We’re busy trying to impress everyone, we’re busy trying to look good, we’re busy trying to win the Olympics, we’re busy trying to succeed—and life passes us by.” – Anthony de Mello
83. “You sanctify whatever you are grateful for.” – Anthony de Mello
84. “May the peace of God disturb you always.” – Anthony de Mello
85. “Look for competence not claims.” – Anthony de Mello
86. “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
87. “To know reality you have to know beyond knowing.” – Anthony de Mello
88. “As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead.” – Anthony de Mello
89. “Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.” – Anthony de Mello
90. “You see persons and things not as they are but as you are.” – Anthony de Mello
91. “Said the master: “Where does your question come from?”” – Anthony de Mello
92. “We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.” – Anthony de Mello
93. “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
94. “Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don’t believe them. Don’t believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. “Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success.” This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That’s all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful.” – Anthony de Mello
95. “if you just suppress your desire, and you attempt to renounce the object of your desire, you are likely to be tied to it.” – Anthony de Mello
96. “Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything.” – Anthony de Mello
97. “Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth.” – Anthony de Mello
98. “Both what you’re running away from and what you’re searching for is inside of you. It’s all there. If you would face what’s going on inside of you, what you’re running away from would disappear, and what you’re searching for would emerge.” – Anthony de Mello
99. “To lose the self is to suddenly realize that you are something other than what you thought you were … You thought you were the dancer; you now experience yourself as the dance.” – Anthony de Mello
100. “So love the thought of death, love it.” – Anthony de Mello
101. “The moment you pick up an attachment, your heart is thrown out of kilter and your ability to lead a joyful carefree serene life is destroyed.” – Anthony de Mello
102. “The best things in life cannot be willed into being.” – Anthony de Mello
103. “Let the story do its work in you, and when it is done then you won’t need the story anymore.” – Anthony de Mello
104. “Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem. You created the problem. You are the problem. You identified with “me” and that is the problem. The feeling is in you, not in reality.” – Anthony de Mello
105. “Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?” – Anthony de Mello
106. “The first reaction is one of fear. It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something that you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the known. That’s what you fear.” – Anthony de Mello
107. “As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” – Anthony de Mello
108. “We live in a flash of light; evening comes and it is night forever. It’s only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns, our burdens.” – Anthony de Mello
109. “If you never condemned you would never need to forgive.” – Anthony de Mello
110. “All is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well.” – Anthony de Mello
111. “One day, a philosopher asked, “What is the purpose of creation?” “Lovemaking,” said the Master. Later, to his disciples, he said, “Before creation, love was. After creation, love was made. When love is consummated, creation will cease to be, and love will be forever.”” – Anthony de Mello
112. “Love springs from awareness.” – Anthony de Mello
113. “We’re crazy, We’re living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything.” – Anthony de Mello
114. “If people are bugging or upsetting you, this is a glorious opportunity to understand yourself, to understand your programming—to realize that the upset is coming not from them, but from your programming.” – Anthony de Mello
115. “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
116. “Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught .” – Anthony de Mello
117. “We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.” – Anthony de Mello