Anthony De Mello

Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don't believe them. Don't believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. "Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success." This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That's all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don't really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful.

"Why is everyone here so happy except me?" "Because they have learned to see goodness and beauty everywhere," said the Master. "Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?" "Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside."

"What is the secret of your serenity?" Said the master: "Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable."

"My former master taught me to accept birth and death." "Then what have you come to me for?" asked the master. "To learn to accept what lies in between."

A man who took great pride in his lawn found himself with a large crop of dandelions. He tried every method he knew to get rid of them. Still they plagued him. Finally he wrote the department of agriculture. He enumerated all the things he had tried and closed his letter with the question: "What shall I do now?" In due course the reply came: "We suggest you learn to love them."

All conflict comes from attachment.

As the Arabs say, "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.

The Rose does not preen herself to catch my eye. She blooms because she blooms. A saint is a saint until he knows he is one.

Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.

Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.

Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.

People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change.

the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.

When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding... you can be yourself. Relaxed. You'll no longer be driving with your brakes on.