David Steindl-Rast Quotes

Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefullness, and gratefullness is a measure of our aliveness.

The term “peak experience” is a well-chosen term suggesting, for one thing, that it is somewhat elevated above your normal experience. It is a moment in which you are somehow high, or at any rate higher than at other moments. It is a moment, although it may last quite some time; even then that long time, say an hour or so, appears as a moment. It is always experienced as a point in time, just as the peak of a mountain is always a point. Now this may be a high peak or a low peak; the decisive thing is that it comes to a peak. So you look over your day or over your life or over any period of time, you see these peaks sticking out, and they are points of an elevated experience, points of an experience of vision, of insight if you want.

The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

The typical circumstance of a child when seen in public these days is one of being dragged along by a long arm, while whoever is dragging the child is saying, “Come on, let’s go! We don’t have any time. We have to get home (or somewhere else). Don’t just stand there. Do something.” That’s the gist of it. But other cultures — many Native American tribes, for example — had an entirely different ideal for education: “A well-educated child ought to be able to sit and look when there is nothing to be seen,” and “A well-educated child ought to be able to sit and listen when there is nothing to be heard.” Now that’s very different from our attitude, but it is very congenial to children.

After all, how could I be a person if Ultimate Reality were impersonal?

People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.

Volite cijelim srcem,
Budite iznenađeni,
Zahvaljujte se i hvalite -
Tad ćete otkriti
Ispunjenost svog života.

We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.

A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it — that alone can be like waking up from a dream.

In the continuous flow of blessing our heart finds meaning and rest.

There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware how important this is and how this can change our world. It can change our world in immensely important ways, because if you're grateful, you're not fearful, and if you're not fearful, you're not violent. If you're grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live.

Is the relationship between God and Jesus Christ not unique? Of course it is. But so is yours. The relationship between God and every human being is unique and irreplaceable — in ever-new variations of the Christ theme.

It is not happiness that makes us grateful It is gratefulness that makes us happy. Every moment is a gift. … Whatever life gives to you, you can respond with joy. Joy is the happiness that does not depend on what happens. It is the grateful response to the opportunity that life offers you at this moment.

True gratefulness is courage to give thanks for a gift before unwrapping it.

Monastic contemplatives have staked out a clearly limited area to be transformed by contemplation: the monastery. Lay contemplatives face the challenge of transforming the whole world.