The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.
—M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American Psychiatrist, Author
He who doesn’t have the spirit of his time, has all its misery.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
Let the spirit of adventure set the tone.
—Unknown
The adept may reach one of those rare moments that spell illumination—aware of the light of the consciousness that illumines our consciousness as the sun dawns on the sleeping earth and bathes it in effulgence.
—Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (1916–2004) British Sufi Mystic, Religious Leader, Psychologist
The spiritual force transcends all.—I feel this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) American Martial Artist, Actor, Philosopher
To win true peace, a man needs to feel himself directed, pardoned, and sustained by a supreme power, to feel himself in the right road, at the point where God would have him be – in order with God and the universe. This faith gives strength and calm.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
What I am trying to do is to unmuddle the metaphysical.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
O Krishna, the stillness of divine union which you describe is beyond my comprehension. How can the mind, which is so restless, attain lasting peace? Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, powerful, violent; trying to control it is like trying to tame the wind.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves. How should the mind that can contemplate God relate to our fellow beings, the other life-forms of the world? What is our human responsibility? And what, ultimately, is our human destiny?
—Jane Goodall (b.1934) British Primatologist, Conservationist
Be free all worthy spirits, and stretch yourselves, for greatness and for height.
—George Chapman (c.1560–1634) English Poet, Playwright
Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom.
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941) French Philosopher, Evolutionist
But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.
—James Thurber
You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.
—Demosthenes (384–322 BCE) Greek Statesman, Orator
Spiritual power begins by directing animal power to other than egoistic ends.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The mind that does not understand is the Buddha. There is no other.
—Buddhist Teaching
He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.
—John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish Roman Catholic Mystic
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.
—Kalu Rinpoche (1905–89) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Scholar, Teacher
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
I’m aware that people I have loved and have died and are in the spirit world look after me.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–97) English Royal, Humanitarian, Peace Activist
The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world—to the profound longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity for the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as from the same source arise the most senseless enthusiasms.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) German Philosopher, Linguist, Statesman
Transformation literally means going beyond your form.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) French Jesuit Philosopher, Paleontologist
All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than expectation.
—Owen Feltham (1602–1668) English Essayist
Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear.
—Unknown
I firmly believe that all human beings have access to extraordinary energies and powers. Judging from accounts of mystical experience, heightened creativity, or exceptional performance by athletes and artists, we harbor a greater life than we know. There we go beyond those limited and limiting patterns of body, emotions, volition, and understanding that have been keeping us in dry-dock. Instead we become available to our capacity for a larger life in body, mind, and spirit. In this state we know great torrents of delight.
—Jean Houston (b.1937) American New Thought Author, Speaker
I would describe my spirituality as exactly the opposite of having a religious affiliation.
—Bill Maher (b.1956) American Comedian, TV Personality, Social Critic, Author, Actor
In order to experience everyday spirituality, we need to remember that we are spiritual beings spending some time in a human body.
—Barbara De Angelis (b.1951) American Self-Help Author
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
No ghost was every seen by two pair of eyes.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.
—Margaret Fuller (1810–50) American Feminist, Writer, Revolutionary
The spiritual is the parent of the practical.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God’s name. And I leave them where they are, for I know that wherever I go, others will punctually come for ever and ever.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
There are no mundane things outside of Buddhism, and there is no Buddhism outside of mundane things.
—Buddhist Teaching
Amazing moments—when you seem to know something beyond what you know and to understand things you don’t understand—can’t be understood in this life.
—Jane Goodall (b.1934) British Primatologist, Conservationist
The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies: but it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
He that loseth wealth, loseth much; he that loseth friends, loseth more; but he that loseth his spirit loseth all.
—Spanish Proverb
Our lives as we lead them as passed on to others, whether in physical or mental forms, tingeing all future lives together. This should be enough for one who lives for truth and service to his fellow passengers on the way.
—Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American Botanist, Scientist
Pure Spirit, one hundred degrees proof—that’s a drink that only the most hardened contemplation-guzzlers indulge in. Bodhisattvas dilute their Nirvana with equal parts of love and work.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
The ultimate Path is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing.
—Jianzhi Sengcan (d.606 CE) Chinese-Buddhist Monk
The man is free to rule his world, not his world rule him.
—Indian Proverb
If that vital spark that we find in a grain of wheat can pass unchanged through countless deaths and resurrections, will the spirit of man be unable to pass from this body to another?
—William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) American Political leader, Diplomat, Politician
Every spirit makes its house, but as afterwards the house confines the spirit, you had better build well.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Walking uplifts the spirit. Breathe out the poisons of tension, stress, and worry; breathe in the power of God. Send forth little silent prayers of goodwill toward those you meet. Walk with a sense of being a part of a vast universe. Consider the thousands of miles of earth beneath your feet; think of the limitless expanse of space above your head. Walk in awe, wonder, and humility. Walk at all times of day. In the early morning when the world is just waking up. Late at night under the stars. Along a busy city street at noontime.
—Wilferd Arlan Peterson (1900–95) American Author
But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful that the garment with which it is clothed?
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer