Anthony de Mello Quotes

[In Providence, RI] I heard some of the magistrates say among themselves that if they had money enough, they would hire me to be their minister. This was where they did not well understand us, and our principles; but when I heard of it, I said, "It is time for me to be gone; for if their eye were so much on me, or on any of us, they would not come to their own Teacher." For this thing (hiring ministers) had spoiled many, by hindering them from improving their own talents; whereas our labour is to bring every one to his own Teacher in himself.

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages

If you cannot find the truth within yourself, where else do you expect to find it?

I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.

I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth.

Know thyself, for through thyself only thou canst know God.

You have no need to travel anywhere - journey within yourself. Enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendor of your own light.

What's the message in Metallica? There is no message, but if there was a message, it really should be look within yourself, don't listen to me, don't listen to James, don't listen to anybody, look within yourself for the answers.

I can't point to a single person or incident that changed my life, but the recognition that there is a certain world order, has been consequential. It has empowered me to do things my way. I found an inner truth by which I abide.

Begin within. If it shows up in your life, it's coming to tell you something about you that you're acting like you don't know. Something about yourself, or your relationship with God.

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.

I have not had time to reflect on my own truths in many years.

We can't give the truth to someone as an object, we can only point to it, inviting inspection. It is in that spirit that we can hear or read a teaching and then look at our own lives, at our own experiences to see whether anything might have been revealed about them.

It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.

You take your problems to a god, but what you really need is for the god to take you to the inside of you.

There is no teacher, living or past, who can give us the actual understanding of Truth. A teacher can only put our feet upon the path and point the way. That is all. It is wholly dependent on the individual to make his way to Truth.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

I think a spiritual journey is not so much a journey of discovery. It's a journey of recovery. It's a journey of uncovering your own inner nature. It's already there.

Whatever you perceive, you always make a story with yourself as the main character, and that dictates your life. Then when you read 'The Four Agreements', you hear another voice beneath the story, the voice that comes from your integrity, your spirit.

Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others, reaches us so deep as that which we find in ourselves.

I must find a truth that is true for me.

We can find Nature outside us only if we have first learned to know her within us. What is akin to her within us must be our guide. This marks out our path of enquiry.

If I can learn how to rely on my own strength, I can see the answers to my problems usually lie right there, within the problem itself.

It is necessary that one be a light to oneself in a world that is becoming utterly dark.

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.