Anthony de Mello Quotes

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time.

What ye have been ye still shall be, When we are dust the dust among, O yellow flowers!

I used to think I could save tap. But tap was here way before I was, and it's going to be here after I'm gone.

A termination of one's life is necessary in the scheme of things to provide a logical reason for unselfishness. . . . The fact that there is an end to one's life compels one to take an interest in things that will continue to live after one is dead.

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

The individual man is transitory, but the pulse of life and of growth goes on after he is gone, buried under a wreath of magnolia leaves.

We don't take anything when we pass away, and we need to do with the sense of responsibility.

Tomorrow exists even though I may not exist in it.

The game was here long before I was, and will be here long after I'm gone.

If we make anything that lasts, it outlives us.

Unless we connect directly with the earth, we will not have the faintest clue why we should save it…. Only if we understand the beauty of nature will we love it, and only if we become alerted to learn about the planet's disease processes can we decide to live our lives with a proper sense of ecological responsibility.

Lies here food for the worms yet the work shall not be lost.

If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.

I'm going to die one day. I know it's coming for me, too. I'll be a mountain, I'll be a stone on the beach. I'll be nourishment.

The preciousness of life and the changes of weather and the beauty of seasons - all those things have always sort of dazzled me.

It's all very brilliant to build bridges and buildings, but long after we're gone, it will be the natural things in this world which will still be here.

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

As I age in the world it will rise and spread, and be for this place horizon and orison, the voice of its winds. I have made myself a dream to dream of its rising, that has gentled my nights. Let me desire and wish well the life these trees may live when I no longer rise in the mornings to be pleased with the green of them shining, and their shadows on the ground, and the sound of the wind in them.

The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.

Individuals may wear for a time the glory of our institutions, but they carry it not to the grave with them. Like raindrops from heaven, they may pass through the circle of the shining bow and add to its luster; but when they have sunk in the earth again, the proud arch still spans the sky and shines gloriously on.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

Song in the Manner of Housman" O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera.... London is a woeful place, Shropshire is much pleasanter. Then let us smile a little space Upon fond nature's morbid grace. Oh, Woe, woe, woe, etcetera.

The river flowed from century to century, and human affairs play themselves out on its banks. Play themselves out to be forgotten the next day, while the river flows on.

Commitment means losing yourself to gain something temporary. Nothing lasts. Not looks. Not love.