Stephen Hough Quotes

First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence.

Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open... Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.

I grew with it, and I used to go to see the monks, who had no possessions, even more extreme than my mother.

So, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.

I should have been a Trappist monk.

I'm just a monk, I'm like a recluse.

Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.

I am totally unattached to material items.

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

With renunciation life begins.

And so um, I knew that I really didn't want to be a priest and didn't want to be a celibate, though I could probably manage it. Um, and um, ultimately I left.

I think I would like to be a monk. I really considered Catholicism a few years ago, but there were some things that I just couldn't reconcile.

I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.

I didn't take a vow of poverty.

The voice that called us years ago still calls us today. Every monastic day is a new monastic beginning.

The older I get, the more beauty I see in the word renunciation.

A hermit is one who renounces the world of fragments that he may enjoy the world wholly and without interruption.

Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And this truth is with us!

The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation. They take no pleasure in a fixed abode. Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave one resting place after another.

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.

Everybody who does not live in a prostitute's bed and on a diet of cocaine snow is called an ascetic nowadays.

The practice of leaving settled society to undertake a spiritual journey, or a spiritual life really, is something that is much more common in India. Common especially to a certain phase of life, to the end of life. But not so unusual for younger people as well.

A religious person is a desireless person.

Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.