Dante Alighieri
Midway upon the journey of our life,I found myself within a forest dark,For the straight foreward pathway had been lost. — Dante Alighieri, Inferno, the Divine Comedy (1320)
Category: Religion
N.D. Wilson
Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake. ― N.D. Wilson, Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent (Thomas Nelson, August 6, 2013)
Frederick Buechner
It was the upward-reaching and fathomlessly hungering, heart-breaking love for the beauty of the world at its most beautiful, and, beyond that, for that beauty east of the sun and west of the moon which is past the reach of all but our most desperate desiring and is finally the beauty of Beauty itself, of… Continue reading Frederick Buechner
Rumi
Let yourself be silently drawnby the stronger pull of what you really love. —Rumi, The Essential Rumi. Trans. Coleman Barks. HarperSanFrancisco (1994).
Vincent van Gogh
I have… a terrible need… shall I say the word?… of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars. —Vincent van Gogh
Søren Kierkegaard
The more consciousness the more intense the despair. — Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death. (Princeton University Press November 1, 1983) Originally published 1849.
Aldous Huxley
The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the… Continue reading Aldous Huxley
Nikos Kazantzakis
I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me. — Nikos Kazantzakis, from “The Preparation : Second Duty,” The Saviors of God. (Simon & Schuster March 15, 1960) Originally published January 1st 1901.
Sogyal Rinpoche
When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. — Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book… Continue reading Sogyal Rinpoche
Leonard Cohen
When I have not rage or sorrow, and you depart from me, then I am most afraid. When the belly is full, and the mind has its sayings, then I fear for my soul; I rush to you as a child at night breaks into its parents’ room. Do not forget me in my satisfaction.… Continue reading Leonard Cohen
The Vale of Soul-Making 