Philip Yancey Quotes

The sage desires no desire, does not value rare treasures, learns without learning, recovers what people have left behind.

The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody.

I am someone without an ego.

If you think you are big, you will become small. If you are willing to become an absolute nothing, you will become larger than creation and Creator.

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.

Those who of old were good practicers of Tao did not use it to make people bright, but rather used it to make them simple.

Honesty,sincer ity,simplicity, humility, pure generosity,abse nce of vanity,readines s to serve others -qualities which are within easy reach of every soul -are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

The one thing which you have to abandon unconditionally is your self.

In the spiritual life the easiest way to conquer ego is to offer gratitude to God for five minutes daily. If you cannot offer gratitude for five minutes, then utter it for one minute. Offer your gratitude to God. Then you will feel that inside you a sweet, fragrant and beautiful flower is growing. That is the flower of humility.

Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know. Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where there is no path. Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all.

Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

Monks are not expected to speak about themselves; the message is important, not the person.

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

I don't want to surpass anyone. I don't want to be better than anyone else.

I'll never forget a Podcast I did with Dr Joseph Mercola when my bestseller, 'The Plant Paradox' had just come out. He was wild about the book, and apoligized that he had never heard of me before the book. He asked what I had been doing for so many years. I replied that I was merely following the Buddha's advice to 'chop wood and carry water.'

Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will.

I sometimes think that the very essence of the whole Christian position and the secret of a successful spiritual life is just to realize two things... I must have complete, absolute confidence in God and no confidence in myself."

Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as if creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.

Take someone who doesn't keep score, who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he's free.

This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Real. We must go to the Real. Renunciation will take us to It. Renunciation is the very basis of our true life; every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.

In spirituality, when we say growth, we are talking about becoming smaller; not just smaller - non-existent.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.

Be grateful as your deeds become less and less associated with your name, as your feet ever more lightly tread the earth.