Anthony de Mello quotes

What is love? The absence of fear, said the master. What is it we fear?, Love.
- Anthony de Mello

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

You see persons and things not as they are but as you are.
- Anthony de Mello

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

When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.
- Anthony de Mello

Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.
- 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 it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.
- Anthony de Mello

When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding... you can be yourself. Relaxed. You'll no longer be driving with your brakes on.
- 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

Don't ask the world to change you change first.
- Anthony de Mello

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

Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.
- Anthony de Mello

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

Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.
- Anthony de Mello

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.
- Anthony de Mello

Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.
- Anthony de Mello

The greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.
- Anthony de Mello

The world is right because I feel good. p. 83, Awareness, copyright 1990.
- Anthony de Mello

As the Arabs say, "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.
- Anthony de Mello

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

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
- 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

Repentance brings an intense desire for God, deep gratitude, and a growth in self-awareness that increases our freedom to love.
- Anthony de Mello

What we need is not just action that will bring about change but sight that will bring about love.
- Anthony de Mello

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