Quotes by John O'Donohue

“What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and sp...”

“If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no compet...”

“Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is un...”

“Every friendship travels at sometime through the black valley of despair. This tests every aspect of your affection. You lose the attraction and the magic. Your sense of each other darkens and your...”

“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.”

“The earth is our origin and destination. The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from wh...”

“We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.”

“the search for meaning is really the search for the lost chord. When the lost chord is discovered by humankind, the discord in the world will be healed and the symphony of the universe will come in...”

“No one else has access to the world you carry around within yourself; you are its custodian and entrance. No one else can see the world the way you see it. No one else can feel your life the way yo...”

“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.As the wind loves to call things to dance,May your gravity by lightened b...”

“Beannacht / BlessingOn the day whenthe weight deadenson your shouldersand you stumble,may the clay danceto balance you.And when your eyesfreeze behindthe grey windowand the ghost of lossgets in to ...”

“When one flower blooms spring awakens everywhere”

“When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depen...”

“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words ...”

“It could be a meeting on the street, or a party or a lecture, or just a simple, banal introduction, then suddenly there is a flash of recognition and the embers of kinship glow. There is an awakeni...”

“Friendship is a creative and subversive force. It claims that intimacy is the secret law of life and universe.”

“We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home.”

“When you steal a people's language, you leave their soul bewildered.”

“The life and passion of a person leave an imprint on the ether of a place. Love does not remain within the heart, it flows out to build secret tabernacles in a landscape.”

“Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.”