Quotes from Thomas Dubay

The main problem in developing a deep prayer life is by far the failure to live the radicality of the Gospel, hour by hour and day by day.

It is the saints who know what being in love is all about. Earthly love pales by comparison.

The acute experience of great beauty readily evokes a nameless yearning for something more than earth can offer. Elegant splendor reawakens our spirit's aching need for the infinite, a hunger for more than matter can provide.

Wonder at reality demands the humility to sit at the foot of a dandelion. The proud are so full of themselves that there is little room to marvel at anything else.

Mediocre people often have a tinge of religion about them, but it is only a tinge. They take their religion as it comes. They may pray and worship more or less regularly, and they usually stay clear of publicly disgraceful crimes, but they are lukewarm, colorless. Seldom or never do they read a serious book about prayer or study to learn more about God and His plans, to discover how to be humble and chaste and patient. They are always too busy for the one thing necessary.

Though Jesus was in torture on the cross, He thought of praying for His persecutors, of caring for His mother, of securing the good thief's salvation.

Beauty is necessarily shrouded in mystery--which is part of its splendour.

in everything we do in this life we are making ourselves the kind of persons we shall be for all eternity: loving or hateful, egocentric or outgoing, fulfilled or frustrated, beautiful or ugly, ecstatically delighted or utterly miserable.

If a person wishes to gain freedom of spirit and not be always troubled, let him begin by not being frightened by the cross, and he will see how the Lord also helps him carry it and he will gain satisfaction and profit from everything.36

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity." —Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics

The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer—and don't forget this, because it is very important—should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will.

The worldling will not face his colossal inner blah.

Being in love with God is never boring.15

If we are to love someone completely, there can be no room for a competing love.

Living things grow gradually, and communion with God, being the supreme of all living realities, likewise matures imperceptibly,

I say that had you asked about meditation I could have spoken about it and counseled all to practice it. . . . But contemplation is something else. . . . This King doesn't give Himself but to those who give themselves entirely to Him."4

Liberty is a gift and power that extends even to the determination of our eternal and self-chosen destiny. This is one reason a single person is of greater worth than the whole of the subhuman cosmos.

The one who knows much about anything knows far better than the uneducated how much he does not know about it.

Diffident people often do not find it difficult to acquiesce to another's decisions either because they are reluctant to assume responsibility for important decisions or because they fear failure and criticism.

Depth of communion with the indwelling Trinity occurs only in a person intent on living the Gospel totally, one who is humble and patient, temperate and obedient, pure and kind, free of selfish clingings.

Contemplation and self-indulgence do not mix.

People still complain, however, as did St. Teresa of Avila four centuries ago, of the lack of knowledgeable spiritual guides. What should one do if he cannot find a competent director? It is my opinion that in the area of advancing prayer, as also in this matter of alleged communications, no direction is preferable to probably incompetent direction

Having wealth is damaging to the pursuit of the kingdom because the very having does something to one's inner life, one's very ability to love God for his own goodness and others in and for him.

One who seeks what he does not need is devoid of the pure delight God reserves for those who seek him undividedly...The pursuer of superfluity quite completely lacks the fulfilling joy and the rest that Jesus promises to the burdened who come to him.