The real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?
As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields and the oceans as properties which we can manipulate according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque, and does not reveal to us its true being.
The real enemies of our life are the ‘oughts’ and the ‘ifs.’ They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and now.
Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability.
Real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility.
The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.
The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death.
The real ‘work’ of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.
I’ve had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I’d rather not talk about it, because it’s over. But depression is real.
Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.
When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.
If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler.
I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.
How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins.
What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody.
Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.
Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.
The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business of life, – chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.