John O'Donohue Quotes

“Your soul is the priestess of memory, selecting, sifting, and ultimately gathering your vanishing days toward presence.”

“Nature is the direct expression of the divine imagination.”

“The heart of the matter: You should never belong fully to something that is outside yourself. It is very important to find a balance in your belonging.”

“Love opens the door of ancient recognition. You enter. You come home to each other at last. As Euripides said, ‘Two friends, one soul.‘”

“All through your life your soul takes care of you...your soul is alive and awakened, gathering, sheltering and guiding your ways and days in the world. In effect, your soul is your secret shelter.”

“We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program for our lives.”

“May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul. May you realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe. May you have respect for your own individuality and difference. ”

“The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light on the world of the soul.”

“The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life.”

“A person should always offer a prayer of graciousness for the love that has awakened in them. When you feel love for your beloved and the beloved’s love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved.”

“When you send that love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer.”

“Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see this day?”

“May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny here, that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening. May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride, and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.”

“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny.”

“May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.”

“...to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”

“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.”

“A friend is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within you.”

“Keep something beautiful in your heart to survive difficult times and enjoy good times.”

“...the only difference between a young person at the height of their exuberance and a very old person who is frail and physically wasted is time.”

“Perhaps this is also true of places. When you are in a certain place, great love or kindness happens; it imprints itself on the ether of the place. When we pass there, hungry and needy in spirit, that loving imprint shines on us like an icon.”

“[...] do not damage yourselves By attending only at the hungry altar Of regret and anger and guilt.”

“Maybe this is one of the secrets of death: that you die only when your invisible, unchosen lives have also fulfilled themselves, so that you bring into the eternal world not only your one known life but also the unknown, unchosen lives as well.”

“A morning when you become a pure vessel For what wants to ascend from silence,”

“We also notice, at the other end, how the shadows of old age are lit more and more from the invisible world.”

“Our grounding in the soul means that regardless of how badly we think of ourselves, there is a wholesomeness in us that no one has ever been able to damage.”

“It was Kierkegaard who said that life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.”

“The more we recognize our found blessings, the more they increase around us.”

“The spirituality of the rural mind does not see time as routine or treadmill; time is a far more precious space where crevices open into the infinite, and where the rhythm of the eternal is felt to preside.”

“The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness;”