Elif Safak Quotes

We ask ourselves and each of us may wonder: Does the Lord feel truly at home in my life? Do we allow him to do a 'cleansing' in our hearts and to drive out the idols, those attitudes of greed, jealousy, worldliness, envy and hatred, that habit of gossiping and tearing down others?

Let water wash our bodies clean, and love wash our souls.

All these disciplines are for the purification of the heart. And as soon as it is pure, all truths flash upon it in a minute; all truth in the universe will manifest in your heart, if you are sufficiently pure.

Devils can be driven out of the heart by the touch of a hand on a hand, or a mouth on a mouth.

Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn’t unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn’t want to.

I know now that when the loving, honest moment comes it should be seized, and spoken, because it may never come again. And unvoiced, unmoving, unlived in the things we declare form heart to heart, those true and real feelings wither and crumble in the remembering hand that tries too late to reach for them.

We are all, by nature, clearly oriented toward the basic human values of love and compassion. We all prefer the love of others to their hatred. We all prefer others’ generosity to meanness. And who is there among us who does not prefer tolerance, respect and forgiveness of our failings to bigotry, disrespect, and resentment?

The human heart is a strange vessel. Love and hatred can exist side by side.

In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.

Unless the vessel be pure, everything which is poured into it will turn sour.

To purify the heart is the one and only purpose that God has created this human life.

The only real blind person at Christmas time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.

If he had to bring all the bitterness and hatred of the world into his heart, he was not going to be in love with her again.

It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away the veil of civilization that comes between us as much as it makes life possible. A poor substitute for the sort of passion we like to extol perhaps, but real love shares more in common with hatred and rage than it does with geniality or politeness.

I feel the problems I have are meant to purify me.

When a man makes utensils out of a metal which has been thoroughly cleansed of dross, the utensils will be excellent. You monks, who wish to follow the Way, make your own hearts clean from the dirt of evil passion, and your conduct will be unimpeachable.

If racism is not the whole of the Tea Party, it is in its heart, along with blind hatred, a total disinterest in the welfare of others, and a full-flowered self-rationalizing refusal to accept the outcomes of elections, or the reality of democracy, or the narrowness of their minds and the equal narrowness of their public support.

I don't seem to have any real strategy or pattern when it comes to love... At times I've been really guarded and careful and afraid to trust someone. But other times, you want to jump in headfirst. I've had moments of thinking, this is who I love and I don't care what anyone says. Those moments are beautiful and wild and exciting, but I've learned that those moments can end up hurting you in the end. I've been careful in love. I've been careless in love. And I've had adventures I wouldn't trade for anything.

The antidote to hatred in the heart, the source of violence, is tolerance.

If you are bathed In God's Forgiveness-Light, Then no dust of earth Will be able to cling to you.

Ultimate Reality is not clearly and immediately apprehended except by those who have made themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit.

As the sun's rays will irradiate even the murky pool, and make its stagnant waters to shine like silver, so doth God's goodness and tender mercy, towards the greatest sinner, and the blackest heart, make his own image visible there!