Anthony de Mello Quotes

Of what use is it to be tolerant of others if you are convinced that you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong? That isn’t tolerance but condescension.

"The Master made it his task to destroy systematically every
doctrine, every belief, every concept of the divine, for these
things, which were originally intended as pointers, were now
being taken as descriptions.

He loved to quote the Eastern saying "When the sage points
to the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.

Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because 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. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!

Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you.

All I did was sit on the riverbank handing out river water. After I'm gone, I trust you will notice the river.

The master never let a statement about God go unchallenged. All God statements were poetic or symbolic expressions of the Unknowable; people, however, foolishly took them as literal descriptions of the divine.

To know reality you have to know beyond knowing.

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

I feel good because the world is right." Wrong! The world is right because I feel good.

Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed: after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed." But there's a difference: I don't identify with it anymore.

If you ever allow yourself to see it will be the death of you. And that is why love is so terrifying, for to love is to see and to see is to die. But it is the most delightful exhilarating experience in the whole world. For in the death of the ego is freedom, peace, serenity, joy.

Said a disciple, 'I don't trade my love for money.'

Said the Master, 'isn't it as bad - or worse - that you trade it for love?

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.

When you go out to the world because of the love that someone else has for you, you are all aglow not with your perception of reality but with the love that you have received from someone else; someone else controls the switch and when it is switched off the glow fades away.

That’s why you’ll never catch me saluting a flag. I abhor all national flags because they are idols. What are we saluting? I salute humanity, not a flag with an army around it.