Johannes Tauler Quotes

How well I walk my talk, and not talk my talk, determines the quality of my engagement, of all my experience with what is quite personally my God. I'm my greatest teacher, and within me, I have the power to push myself deeper and higher.

Instead of looking outside of ourselves and counting potential enemies, fasting summons us to turn our glance inward, and to take the measure of our greatest challenge: the self, the ego, in our own eyes and as others see us.

Part of the faith walk is to understand your weaknesses and is to constantly try to embetter yourself and get closer to the Lord.

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself.

People just overshoot trying to find God. They're going outside and trying everything. They don't realize that it's right inside themselves.

The final goal of all human endeavor is the development of the human soul.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

My greatest strength is to have a great capacity to confront myself no matter how unpleasant. My greatest weakness is that I don't. I know that's enigmatic, but that's sort of a general formula for anyone, actually.

A lot of so-called Christian souls are not fine. People need to look inside themselves and look at the lives they're leading and fix themselves before they try to fix other people.

We do not look at our own faults; the eyes do not see themselves, they see the eyes of everybody else. We human beings are very slow to recognise our own weakness, our own faults, so long as we can lay the blame upon somebody else.

In my own pursuit of God, I often became preoccupied with ME! It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weakness was humility. It’s not! If I’m the main subject, talking incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride.

You will never be an inwardly religious and devout man unless you pass over in silence the shortcomings of your fellow men, and diligently examine your own weaknesses.

The only thing you're taking out of here is your spirit and your soul, so we need to be conscious to try and develop that part of ourselves, because we're all spiritual creatures.

I feel like we're attracted to paths in life that force us to look at our weaknesses or deficiencies as human beings. Not to get all deep on you, but that's how I feel.

I'm not an evangelist Christian at all. I can't try to convert anybody. It's not in me to do that. But my faith has given me such an appreciation of people and meaningful relationships, and a world view which I didn't have before. And although I will fail every day, it gives me something to aspire to.

Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

Devotion begins at home, inside your own awareness.

I believe there is a spirit within us, which we nurture based upon our efforts and what we bring to the world. But it doesn't come from the outside; it comes from the inside.

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.

I'm a highly flawed individual, as we all are, and because I was raised by Jesuits, I'm constantly, 'What is it about me and what I can do to be better?'

Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.

What's in your soul is in your soul.

It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.

I began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world.