Evelyn Underhill Mysticism Quotes & Sayings

A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me. — Anne Lamott

We must learn to be honest with ourselves, and know our shortcomings. We will acquire cohesion but we will pay dearly for being a slow pupil. — Zora Neale Hurston

Mysticism is the passionate longing of the soul for God ... — Evelyn Underhill

Your Pursuit Is What You Get — Sunday Adelaja

You grow up in America and you're told from day one, 'This is the land of opportunity.' That everybody has an equal chance to make it in this country. And then you look at places like Harlem, and you say, 'That is absolutely a lie.' — Geoffrey Canada

The business and method of mysticism is love. — Evelyn Underhill

Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. — Evelyn Underhill

Be prudent, and if you hear, * * * some insult or some threat, * * * have the appearance of not hearing it. — George Sand

It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but actually to be one. Yes, if I prove to be one, then I can have the name. — Ignatius Of Antioch

Because interrogations are intended to coerce confessions, interrogators feel themselves justified in using their coercive means. Consistency regarding the technique is not important; inducing anxiety and fear is the point. — Aldrich Ames

Mysticism, according to its historical and psychological definitions, is the direct intuition or experience of God; and a mystic is a person who has, to a greater or less degree, such a direct experience
one whose religion and life are centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which the person regards as first hand personal knowledge. — Evelyn Underhill

Now there's a girl I don't want to mess with' - or at least, that's what I would think if I had a chronic fear of freakishly nice people. — Nenia Campbell

In mysticism that love of truth which we saw as the beginning of all philosophy leaves the merely intellectual sphere, and takes on the assured aspect of a personal passion. Where the philosopher guesses and argues, the mystic lives and looks; and speaks, consequently, the disconcerting language of first-hand experience, not the neat dialectic of the schools. Hence whilst the Absolute of the metaphysicians remains a diagram - impersonal and unattainable - the Absolute of the mystics is lovable, attainable, alive. — Evelyn Underhill

Idealism, though just in its premises, and often daring and honest in their application, is stultified by the exclusive intellectualism of its own methods: by its fatal trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart. It interests man, but does not involve him in its processes: does not catch him up to the new and more real life which it describes. Hence the thing that matters, the living thing, has somehow escaped it; and its observations bear the same relation to reality as the art of the anatomist does to the mystery of birth. — Evelyn Underhill

If I don't think about anything, and start with a clean slate, in terms of what I have to do, a lot of different ideas come up, and I can think about things more openly. — Namie Amuro

The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide to contemplative prayer. "Be willing to be blind, and give up all longing to know the why and how, for knowing will be more of a hindrance than a help." This 1912 edition was edited by Evelyn Underhill, and contains her introduction. — Geerhardus Vos

As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone - though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men - so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of their desire. — Evelyn Underhill

It's not because I've -what is the phrase? -'swept you off your feet' by my -er- ardor? — Margaret Mitchell

Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception - this "ordinary contemplation," as the specialists call it - is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician. — Evelyn Underhill

True contemplation can only thrive when defended from two opposite exaggerations: quietism on the one hand, and spiritual fuss upon the other. Neither from passivity nor from anxiety has it anything to gain. — Evelyn Underhill

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us. — Wilma Rudolph