David Steindl-Rast Quotes & Sayings

Gratitude is here presented as more than a feeling, a virtue, or an experience; gratitude emerges as an attitude we can freely choose in order to create a better life for ourselves and for others. The Nigerian Hausa put it this way: Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot. — David Steindl-Rast

There is no closer bond than the one that gratefulness celebrates, the bond between giver and thanksgiver. Everything is a gift. Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging. Can our world survive without gratefulness? Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: to say an unconditional yes to the mutual belonging of all beings will make this a more joyful world. This is the reason why Yes is my favorite synonym for God. — David Steindl-Rast

Faith is the courageous confidence that trusts in the Source of all gifts. — David Steindl-Rast

From experience we know that whenever we are truly awake and alive, we are also truly grateful. — David Steindl-Rast

Any place is sacred ground, for it can become a place of encounter with the divine Presence. — David Steindl-Rast

"The Holy Spirit ... wants to flow through us and realize all these wonderful possibilities in the world - if we only open ourselves and allow it to happen." — David Steindl-Rast

Love is saying yes to belonging. — David Steindl-Rast

At any moment the fully present mind can shatter time and burst into Now. — David Steindl-Rast

In moments of surprise we catch at least a glimpse of the joy to which gratefulness opens the door. — David Steindl-Rast

The challenge is to learn to respond immediately to whatever it is time for. Not to wonder whether you have time for it or whether you like it, but simply to respond when it is time. — David Steindl-Rast

Truth is something we discover by carrying it out. It is not a list of statements, but a direction of life. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy
because we will always want to have something else or something more. — David Steindl-Rast

Impatience makes us get ahead of ourselves, reaching out for something in the future and not really being content with where we are, here and now. — David Steindl-Rast

People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure. — David Steindl-Rast

The root of joy is gratefulness ... It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. — David Steindl-Rast

Only gratefulness, in the form of limitless openness for surprise, lays hold of the fullness of life in hope. — David Steindl-Rast

Solitude without togetherness deteriorates into loneliness. One needs strong roots in togetherness to be solitary rather than lonely when one is alone. — David Steindl-Rast

What is necessary when we want to face reality? Stillness. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is the gallantry of a heart ready to rise to the opportunity a given moment offers. — David Steindl-Rast

Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door. Such pauses take a brief moment, yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you. — David Steindl-Rast

Home and journey together constitute the creative polarity of the heart, the two dimensions we must cultivate if we want to 'develop the heart. — David Steindl-Rast

Any change in attitude changes the way one sees the world, and this in turn changes the way one acts. — David Steindl-Rast

Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise then you will discover the fullness of your life. — David Steindl-Rast

As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center. — David Steindl-Rast

We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful: for having good weather, to have slept well last night, to be able to get up, to be healthy, to have enough to eat ... There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is. — David Steindl-Rast

The goal is partly the enjoyment; it doesn't come later, but within the very process of the struggle. — David Steindl-Rast

Through people that I did know or through things that I did touch, I am connected with everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. Everything hangs together with everything. — David Steindl-Rast

A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it
that alone can be like waking up from a dream. — David Steindl-Rast

There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware how important this is and how this can change our world. It can change our world in immensely important ways, because if you're grateful, you're not fearful, and if you're not fearful, you're not violent. If you're grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live. — David Steindl-Rast

" ... Grateful living makes life meaningful and full of joy." — David Steindl-Rast

Can you be grateful for everything? No. But in every moment. — David Steindl-Rast

The artist ought to know that a thousand painful deaths always lead into greater life. — David Steindl-Rast

A single crocus blossom ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratuitous, gratis, a grace. — David Steindl-Rast

Monastic contemplatives have staked out a clearly limited area to be transformed by contemplation: the monastery. Lay contemplatives face the challenge of transforming the whole world. — David Steindl-Rast

Blessing is the lifeblood throbbing through the universe. — David Steindl-Rast

Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being ... Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual. — David Steindl-Rast

We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart. — David Steindl-Rast

Order is the disposition of things in which each gives to the other its room, its own proper place. That's the external aspect. The other is that order that springs from love: there's no other way of establishing order except through love. — David Steindl-Rast

If you're really mind-full, and if you underline that aspect of fullness, wholeness, or wholeheartedness, it reveals the gift character of everything. — David Steindl-Rast

We can't really waste our time; we have to see that we are all in the same boat and that different religious traditions point in the same direction, and now let's get moving together, doing something for peace. — David Steindl-Rast

If there is anything the artist or a true work of art teaches us, it is that variety and complexity really increase the unity, and that to achieve unity within a great variety of complexity is a greater achievement and more satisfying piece of art than to achieve unity with just a few elements, which is relatively easily achieved. — David Steindl-Rast

Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens. — David Steindl-Rast

"The root of joy is gratefulness." — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is the inner gesture of giving meaning to our life by receiving life as gift. — David Steindl-Rast

The universe is gratis. It cannot be earned, nor need it be earned. — David Steindl-Rast

" ... One can learn to focus on 'opportunity' as the gift within every given moment. This attitude towards life always improves the situation. Even in times of sickness, someone who habitually practices grateful living will look for the opportunity that a given moment offers and use it creatively." — David Steindl-Rast

Our happiness hinges not on good luck; it hinges on peace of heart. — David Steindl-Rast

The experience of love and the experience of death destroy the illusion of our self-sufficiency. The two are closely connected, and to become fully human we must experience both of them. — David Steindl-Rast

There is no one harder to live with than an artist. Therefore an artist is a real gift because he or she raises the sanctity of everyone else in the community. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is not just saying "thank you." It's acting. It is being yourself. A mother is grateful, shows gratefulness by mothering, a scientist by doing science. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness has the courage to trust and so overcomes fear. — David Steindl-Rast

Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning. — David Steindl-Rast

Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted. — David Steindl-Rast

One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve the ties of our alienation. — David Steindl-Rast

By looking up, by raising our eyes above our limited horizon, we are more likely to perceive the blessings hidden in affliction. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness makes us aware of the gift and makes us happy. As long
as we take things for granted they don't make us happy. Gratefulness is
the key to happiness. Practicing gratitude is so central to my spirituality. — David Steindl-Rast

Day and night gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze. A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them. — David Steindl-Rast

In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. — David Steindl-Rast

Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefullness, and gratefullness is a measure of our aliveness. — David Steindl-Rast

As we learn to give thanks for all of life and death, for all of this given world of ours, we find a deep joy. It is the joy of trust, the joy of faith in the faithfulness at the heart of all things. It is the joy of gratefulness in touch with the fullness of life. — David Steindl-Rast

What brings fulfillment is gratefulness, the simple response of our heart to this life in all its fullness. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is that fullness of life for which we are all thirsting. — David Steindl-Rast

Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song. — David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness is the great task, the how of our spiritual work, because, rightly understood, it re-roots us. — David Steindl-Rast

If you learn to respond as if it's the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well. — David Steindl-Rast

Among the many things that profoundly impress me about the Dalai Lama, quite high up on the list is his ability to say "I don't know". I've often wished that other people in prominent positions wouldn't feel the compulsion to have an answer for everything and would feel equally free to say "I don't know." It's a sign of wisdom to know that you don't know and a sign of stupidity to think that you know everything. I admire it enormously in him, and wonder why so few people in leading positions reach that stage. — David Steindl-Rast

Each string of a wind harp responds with a different note to the same breeze. What activity makes you personally resonate most strongly, most deeply? — David Steindl-Rast

The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves. — David Steindl-Rast

The hope that is left after all your hopes are gone - that is pure hope, rooted in the heart. — David Steindl-Rast

Beauty seen makes the one who sees it more beautiful. — David Steindl-Rast