Quotes about Existence

For the contemplative there is no cogito ("I think") and no ergo ("therefore") but only SUM, I AM. Not in the sense of a futile assertion of our individuality as ultimately real, but in the humble realization of our mysterious being as persons in whom God dwells, with infinite sweetness and inalienable power.

God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But

We do not know we are full of paradise because we are so full of our own noise that we cannot hear God singing us and all things into being.

It is here, in this poverty, that man regains the eternal being that once he was, now is and evermore shall be.

Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence.

God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself.

EVERY one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy.

First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find out the meaning of life, no doubt. But in the last analysis the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting this responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.

TO say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or

There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us. (p. 1)

There is only now.

All theology is a kind of birthday Each one who is born Comes into the world as a question For which old answers Are not sufficient…