John O'Donohue Quotes

There is a kindness in beauty which can inform and bless a lesser force adjacent to it. It has been shown, for instance, that when there are two harps tuned to the same frequency in a room, one a large harp and the other smaller, if a chord is struck in the bigger harp it fills and infuses the little harp with the grandeur and beauty of its resonance and brings it into tuneful harmony. Then, the little harp sounds out its own tune in its own voice. This is one of the unnoticed ways in which a child learns to become herself. Perhaps the most powerful way parents rear children is through the quality of their presence and the atmosphere that pertains in the in-between times of each day. Unconsciously, the child absorbs this and hopefully parents send out enough tuneful spirit for the child to come into harmony with her own voice.

One of the great modern philosophers of beauty, Immanuel Kant, spoke of the joy we take in the Beautiful as 'disinterested delight'. The animation of the Beautiful is so immediate and fulfilling that we simply enjoy it for itself; it never occurs to us to ask what purpose it serves.

It is ironic that so often we continue to live like paupers though our inheritance of spirit is so vast.

We were created to be creators.

All thinking that is imbued with wonder is graceful and gracious thinking.

As we grow old, that twilight Would illuminate treasure In the fields of memory.

Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise. We settle for something that is safe, rather than engaging the danger and the wildness that is in our own hearts. We should never forget that death is waiting for us

I would love to live Like a river flows, Carried by the surprise Of its own unfolding.

Rodin's art 'was not based upon any great idea, but upon the conscientious realisation of something small, upon something capable of achievement, upon a matter of technique. There was no arrogance in him, he devoted himself to this insignificant and difficult aspect of beauty which he could survey, command and judge. The other, the greater beauty must come when all was ready for it as animals come to drink when night holds sway and the forest is free of strangers.

So much depends not on how awkward destiny is, but rather on how openly it is embraced. This is what the “sheltering wall” of blessing can enable.

And here are we, even if we are old, we still have time, and time is always full of possibility. It would really be a great gift that an old person could give to themselves, the gift of recognizing the possibilities that are in that time, and to use their imagination. The imagination is the gateway to a full life, and people who awaken their imagination come in to a force field of possibility and there are doors opening everywhere. I think it is unknown what you can do if you begin to see it.

I feel that fear is negative wonder. It is the point at which wonder begins to consume itself and scrape off the essence of things.

Indeed, a book is a path of words which takes the heart in new directions.

"The commercial edge of so-called "progress" has cut away a huge region of human tissue and webbing that held us in common with one another."

In its real sense, beauty is the illumination of your soul