Spiritual Elevation Quotes

To love what is below the human is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Divine is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity.

At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.

Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably.

Which of the two powers, Love or Music, can elevate man to the sublimest heights? ... It is a problem, and yet it seems to me that this is the answer: 'Love can give no idea of music; music can give an idea of love.' ... Why separate them? They are two wings of the soul.

It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thinner until there is none at all. …We are not the less to aim at the summits though the multitude does not ascend them.

Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.

God can change the lowest to the highest, abase the proud, and raise the humble.

Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.

We are even higher than the heavens, we are greater than angels; Why should we not transcend both? Our lodging-place is Majesty.

Art is the method of levitation, in order to separate one's self from enslavement by the earth.

But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

Beauty satisfies the senses completely and at the same time uplifts the soul. That which gratifies the senses is pleasant, and that which uplifts the soul without being sensual in the least is good, true, right, anything you like, but not beautiful.

Pure womanhood plus priesthood means exaltation. But womanhood without priesthood, or priesthood without pure womanhood doesn't spell exaltation.

There is no loftier mission than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals, and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race.

The mind is never right but when it is at peace within itself; the soul is in heaven even while it is in the flesh, if it be purged of its natural corruptions, and taken up with divine thoughts, and contemplations.

I hope the Great Heavenly Father, who will look down upon us, will give all the tribes his blessing, that we may go forth in peace, and live in peace all our days, and that He will look down upon our children and finally lift us far above this earth.

Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.

Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor even eagle flew- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high, untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

In striving for the best, in losing onself in others, one is lifted above the common material furniture of life, above the gaudy trappings and encumbering paraphenalia... into the realm of peace which passeth understanding.

We launch our souls from the cannons of art and discipline, and on any one night, hovering over the chimney tops of Europe, halfway to the stars, there are armies of brightly spinning spirits that have risen like fireworks, tethered to the souls of those men and women who, by reflection, mortification, and devotion, effortlessly outdazzle kings.

There is more of power to sanctify, elevate, strengthen, and cheer in the word Jesus (Jehovah-Saviour) than in all the utterances of man since the world began.

The natural movement of one's soul is upwards. But just as any object is dragged down when a heavy weight is tied to it, the burden of the body drags down the soul.