THE CHOICE IS ALWAYS OURS
Dorothy B. Phillips, Chief Editor
An anthology about the spiritual Way, chosen from psychological, religious, philosophical, poetical and biographical sources
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"There is nothing real where the One Sole Good is not." Francois Fenelon (1651-1715), French Archbishop of Cambray, 'Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Fenelon'
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"Prayer is a pure act of the will, seeking an integral understanding of and union with the Whole, the One." Gerald Heard (1889-197), English author and philosopher, 'A Preface to Prayer'
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"Now I find hidden, somewhere away in my nature, something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all." Oscar Wilde (1856-1900), English author, 'De Profundis'
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"The ability and willingness to enter into experience, honestly appraising it, finding its value in outer life and courageously exploring its inner meaning to us, is the attitude that sets free creative energy and makes life move within us." Frances G. Wickes (1875-1970), American psychotherapist, 'The Creative Process'
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"That we must give if we are to receive is not a rule, as is so oftern supposed, in defiance of Nature. Rather all the processes of Nature reflect its unconscious action. Life could sustain its being in no other way." Hugh l'Anson Fausset (1895-1965), English critic, poet, 'Proving of Psyche'
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"I realize that in 'my' chemistry I am akin to earth and water; I recognize my kinship with flowers and grass and trees, with brooks and lakes and rivers, and I feel their rhythms flow through me with peace and power, as I yield my sense of them-in-separateness to the Unity which is their underlying reality." Ruth Raymond (1878-1969), American art educator, written for this anthology
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"There exists an ultimate Reality that is by nature both transcendent and immanent. The immanent aspect, this something of God in man, traces its ancestry to early Hindu sources, thence to the Socratic movement in philosophy, and on to the teaching of Jesus. Since then it has been variously expressed as: 'the deep center', 'the ground of the soul', 'the inward Voice', the Real Self', 'the inner Vocation', 'that something which binds us to the deeper processes of consciousness', 'that potentiality of an extension of consciousness', et cetera."
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"Prayer is not the pleading to be saved suffering; it is the pleading that one will be spared no suffering which is necessary to achieve the end one desires: unity with God and co-consciousness with all people." Rose Terlin, American editor and writer, 'Prayer and Christian Living'
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"Prayer is the act by which man opens himself to the total values for wholeness that exist in each situational moment of his life." Elizabeth B. Howes and Sheila Moon, 'Man the Choicemaker'
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"God is. That is so real, that to talk of His love, or of serving Him is saying less, not more. He is, and He is with us." Alfred Romer, (b. 1907), American professor of physics
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"The Kingdom of God is not imminent but immanent; it is not 'among you', about suddenly to break like a thunderstorm, but 'within you', ready to be expressed the moment you understand your latent, common nature and how you must and can transcend your individuality, your egotism, which makes the world the obstacle it proves today to be to you." Gerald Heard (1889-1971), English author and philosopher, 'The Third Morality'
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"In the depths of the human multitude there slumbers an immense spiritual power which will manifest itself only when we have learned how to break through the dividing walls of our egoism and raise ourselves up to an entirely new perspective, so that habitually and in a practical fashion we fix our gaze on the universal realities." Pierre Teilhard deChardin (1881-1955), priest and paleontologist, 'Hymn of the Universe'
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"If history reveals anything it is that dissolution and growth have been aspects of the same phenomenon. Growth has not occurred anywhere without involving dissolution. Every major cultural change throughout history has involved this two-fold process of death and emergence." Bernard Eugene Meland (b. 1899), American philosopher and professor of religion, from an article in 'The Personalist'
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"Deep in the psychic structure of every individual there is an urge for the kind of fulfillment which will yield meaning, joy and creativity. Men and women, consciously or unconsciously, desire to obtain the insight whereby they can resolve their own pesonal turbulences, achieve an organic interdependence with other human beings and gain a sense of the end for which they were created."
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"God can show Himself as He really is only to real people. And that means not simply to people who are individually good, but to people who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body." C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), English professor, author, 'Beyond Personality'
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"God is the one systematic, complete fact, which is the antecedent ground conditioning every creative act." Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), English mathematician and philosopher, 'Religion in the Making'
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"He who would in his own person test the fact of God's presence can do so by a living faith. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to Truth and Love." Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1848), Hindu statesman and mystic, 'Gandhi's Ideas'
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"Freedom comes through complete acceptance of reality." Alan W. Watts (1915-1973), American philosopher and author, 'The Spirit of Zen'
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"Fortunately, we have proof that the spirit always renews its strength in the fact that the essential teaching of the initiations is handed on from generation to generation. Ever and again there are human beings who understand what it means that God is their father. The equal balance of the flesh and the spirit is not lost to the world." Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), 'Freud and Psychoanalysis'
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"True self-revelation has always as its counterpart a growth in knowledge of God. For it is only in the light of God that we see ourselves for what we are." Edward Leen (1885-1944), Irish Catholic cleric and educator, 'Progress Through Mental Prayer'
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"I feel myself part of eternity, part of the Being which was eons of years before I was born, and will be eons of years after I die. This is an expression, it seems to me, of 'The peace of God which passes understanding.'" Rollo May (b. 1909), American psychoanalyst, 'Paulus'
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"If he does not know what is good, a man cannot be true to himself….He who learns to be his true self is one who finds out what is good and holds fast to it." Tsesze, Chinese philosopher, grandson of Confucius, 'The Golden Mean of Tsesze'
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"Do whatever stirs the chords of genuine We-feeling. Seek to set them vibrating more and more until they become the dominating or sole satisfactions in your experience." Fritz Kunkel (1889-1956), American psychiatrist, 'How Character Develops'
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"The deepest and most profound and most hidden of all human desires: The desire to love and to give oneself in love and to be part of the living stream we call brotherhood." Fritz Kunkel, M.D. (1889-1956), American psychiatrist, 'In Search of Maturity', quoted in 'The Choice Is Always Ours', edited by Dorothy B. Phillips, Pillar Books 1975, p. 105
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"Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction. Real existence, real knowledge, and real love are eternally connected with one another, the three in one: where one of them is, the others also must be; they are the three aspects of the One without a second – the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss." Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Hindu mystic, 'Karma-Yoga'
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We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
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