Quotes About Self

The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient.

While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life.

The love of Christ embraces all without exception. Fire of love, crazy over what You have made. Oh, divine Madman. (Prayer of Catherine Siena) Simply do the next thing in love. I have no sense of myself apart from you. Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem. (In loving me, you made me lovable.)

Be who you is, 'cause if you ain't who you is, you is who you ain't.

Shame--what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down.

The tendency in legalistic religion is to mistrust God, to mistrust others, and consequently, to mistrust ourselves.

Preoccupation with our past sins, present weaknesses, and character defects gets our emotions churning in self-destructive ways, closes us within the mighty citadel of self, and preempts the presence of a compassionate God.

To the extent that we allow the relentless tenderness of Jesus to invade the citadel of self, we are freed from dyspepsia toward ourselves.

Quem sou?", perguntou Merton, e respondeu: "Sou aquele que é amado por Cristo".

Preoccupation with self is always a major component of unhealthy guilt and recrimination.

Yet the spiritual life begins with the acceptance of our wounded self.

Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.

Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.

In the beginning, you will likely experience meditation as a struggle. It is a very odd struggle, since it is a struggle with yourself, a struggle between different parts of yourself, between the part of you that wants to meditate and the part of you that does not.

We all know, in fact, that the insane ... derive a great deal of comfort and consolation from their imagination, that they enjoy their madness sufficiently to endure the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves.

Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard.

No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.

There are two kinds of dangerous situations. One is the kind you get yourself into. The other just sucks you in.

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

Pour un être conscient, exister consiste à changer, changer à se mûrir, se mûrir à se créer indéfiniment soi-même.

The farther I run away from the place where God dwells, the less I am able to hear the voice that calls me the Beloved, and the less I hear that voice, the more entangled I become in the manipulations and power games of the world.

The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.

We are not what we do, we are not what we have, we are not what others think of us. Coming home is claiming the truth. I am the beloved child of a loving creator.

Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper.