Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

John Ruysbroeck

86 quotes

“You are as holy as you wish to be.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in A Mediæval Mystic: A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1910) by Scully, p. 37
“Our work is the love of God. Our satisfaction lies in submission to the Divine Embrace”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912) by Evelyn Underhill, p. 353
“We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912) by Evelyn Underhill, p. 506
“God being a common good, and His boundless love being common to all, He gives His grace...to all men, Pagan and Jew, good or evil...Thus God is a common light and a common splendour, enlightening heaven and earth, and every man, each according to his need and worth.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (1916) by C. A. Wynschenk Dom, p. 6
“All our ways end in superessential Being”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even as God is common to all, the sun shines upon all trees”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (1916) by C. A. Wynschenk Dom, p. 6
“In Eternity all creatures are God in God”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My words are strange, but those who love will understand.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Mirror of Eternal Salvation", as quoted in Ruysbroeck (1915) by Evelyn Underhill, p. 52
“Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going. We come from God, and we are in exile.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Ruysbroeck the Admirable (1925) by Alfred Wautier d'Aygalliers and Fred Rothwell, p. 175
“Unity is this: that a man feel himself to be gathered together with all his powers in the unity of his heart. Unity brings inward peace and restfulness of heart. Unity of heart is a bond which draws together body and soul, heart and senses, and all the outward and inward powers and encloses them in the union of love.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Message of the East, Vol. 15 (1926) by Cohasset Vedanta Centre, p. 212
“God in the depths of us receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in An Anthology of Mysticism and Mystical Philosophy' (1927) by William Kingsland, thumb|God is more interior to us than we are to ourselves. His acting in us is nearer and more inward than our own actions. God w…
“The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. 107 (1950), ed. 26-52, p. 657
“God is more interior to us than we are to ourselves. His acting in us is nearer and more inward than our own actions. God works in us from inside outwards; creatures work on us from the outside.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: John of Ruysbroeck Spiritual Espousals, complete works, Mechelen 1934, vol. 1, p. 148. English version New York 1953.
“God's transcending nature must be understood as oneness and simplicity, unscalable height and unfathomable depth, incomprehensible breadth and infinite length, dark silence and ferocious energy.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When love has carried us above and beyond all things, Into the Divine Dark, We receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, Enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, If it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, And an intuition of Eternity?”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 506
“How great is the difference between The hidden child and the secret friend! For the friend makes only loving, Living but measured ascents toward God. But the child presses on to lose its own life upon the summits, in that simplicity which knoweth not itself.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 433
“And we learn this truth from His sight: That all we taste, in comparison with that which remains out of our reach, Is no more than a single drop of water compared with the whole sea.... We hunger for God’s Infinity, which we cannot devour, And we aspire to His Eternity, which we cannot attain.... In this storm of love, our activity is above reason and is in no wise. Love desires that which is impossible to her; And reason teaches that love is within her rights, but can neither counsel nor persuade her.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The indrawing attraction drags us out of ourselves, And calls us to be melted away and naughted in the Unity. And in this indrawing attraction we feel that God wills that we should be His, And for this we must abnegate ourselves and let our beatitude be accomplished in Him. But when He attracts us by flowing out towards us, He gives us over to ourselves and makes us free, And sets us in Time.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Evelyn Underhill Ruysbroeck (1915), p. 182 & 183
“God contemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor end.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God loves without limit and this puts a loving person most securely at peace.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the deeps of his ground he knows and feels nothing, in soul or body, but a singular radiance with sensible well-being and all pervading savour.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved...And therefrom follows the last point that can be put into words, that is, when the spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God without difference and without distinction.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God is a flowing and ebbing sea which ceaselessly flows out into all his beloved according to their needs and merits and which flows back with all those upon whom he has bestowed his gifts in heaven and on earth, together with all they possess or are capable of.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is that Wayless Being which all fervent interior spirits have chosen above all things, that dark stillness in which all lovers lose their way. If we could prepare ourselves through virtue in the ways I have shown, we would at once strip ourselves of our bodies and flow into the wild waves of the Sea, from which no creature could ever draw us back.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The grace of God is to God himself as sunlight is to the sun — a means and a way leading us to the latter. It therefore shines within us in a simple, one-fold way and makes us deiform, that is, like God. This likeness constantly sinks away, dying in God and becoming and remaining one with him, for charity makes us become one with God and causes us to remain living in union with him.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself and feels himself to be that same Light by which he sees and nothing else. . . . Blessed are the eyes which are thus seeing, for they possess eternal life.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Spiritual inebriation is this: that a man receives more sensible joy and sweetness than his heart can either contain or desire.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To comprehend and to understand God above all similitudes, as He is in Himself, is to be God with God, without intermediary, and without any otherness that can become a hindrance or an intermediary. Whosoever wishes to understand this must have died to himself, and must live in God, and must turn his gaze to the eternal light in the ground of his spirit, where the Hidden Truth reveals Itself without means.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The incomprehensible richness and loftiness of the Divine Nature, its outpouring generosity toward all in common, fills a man with wonder.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Compassion is a wound in the heart whence flows a common love to all mankind and which cannot be healed so long as any suffering lives in man.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The inner lover of God, who possesses God in enjoyable rest, and himself in devoted, working love, and his entire life in virtues with justice, this inner person then comes, by means of these three points and the hidden revelation of God, into a God contemplating life, at least the lover who is pious and just, whom God in His freedom wishes to choose and to elevate to a superessential contemplation in divine light and according to the way of God.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This contemplation establishes us in purity and in limpidity above all our understanding, for it is a special enrichment and a heavenly crown, and in addition, an eternal reward for all virtues and for all lives. And no one can arrive at this by means of science or subtlety, nor by any practice, but only he whom God wishes to unite with His Spirit and to illumine with Himself may contemplate God, and nobody else. The hidden divine nature is eternally active, contemplating and loving with respect to each person, and always enjoying the embrace with each person, in unity of essence.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this embrace, in the essential unity of God, are all inner spirits one with God in loving transport, and they are the selfsame one that the essence itself is in itself. And in this sublime unity of the divine nature, the heavenly Father is the origin and the beginning of every work that is done in heaven and on earth”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, if the spirit is to contemplate God with God, without intermediary, in this divine light, three things are necessary for a person.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first is that he must be well-ordered from without in all virtues and unhindered within, just as empty of all outward works as though he were not working. For if he is busy within by any work of virtue, then he is assailed by images. As long as that is going on in him, he cannot contemplate.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Secondly, he must cleave to God within by devoted intention and love, just like a kindled, blazing fire that can no longer be extinguished. During the time that he feels himself to be in this state, he can contemplate.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thirdly, he must have lost himself in a waylessness and in a darkness in which all contemplatives wander around in enjoyment and can no longer find themselves in a creaturely way. In the abyss of this darkness in which the loving spirit has died to itself, there begin the revelation of God and eternal life. For in this darkness there shines and is born an incomprehensible light which is the Son of God, in whom one contemplates eternal life. And in this light one becomes seeing.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And this divine light is granted in the simple being of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness –which is God Himself- above all gifts and above all creaturely activity, in the empty void of the spirit in which it has lost itself through enjoyable love and receives the brightness of God without intermediary. And without cease, it becomes the very brightness which it receives.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“See, this hidden brightness in which one contemplates everything that one desires according to the way of emptiness of spirit, this brightness is so great that the loving contemplative neither sees nor feels anything in his ground in which he rests except an incomprehensible light. And according to the simple bareness which encompasses all things, he finds and feels himself to be that very light by which he sees, and nothing else.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we have thus become seeing, then we can contemplate, in joy, the eternal coming of our Bridegroom, which is the second point about which we are going to speak. Now, what is the coming of our Bridegroom which is eternal ? It is a new birth an a new enlightenment without cease. For the ground out of which the brightness shines, and which is the brightness itself, is living and fruitful. And therefore, the revelation of the eternal light is renewed without cease in the hiddenness of the spirit.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this return in love in the divine ground every divine way and activity and all the attributes of the persons are swallowed up in the rich compass of the essential unity. All the divine means and all conditions, and all living images which are reflected in the mirror of truth, lapse in the onefold and ineffable waylessness beyond reason. Here there is nothing but eternal rest in the fruitive embrace of outpouring love.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the divine Persons embrace mutually in eternal complacency With an infinite and active love in unity. This activity is constantly renewed in the living life of the Trinity. There is continuous new birth-giving in new knowledge, new complacency and new breathing forth of the Spirit in a new embrace with a new torrent of eternal love. All the elect, angels and men from the last to the first are embraced in this complacency. It is in this complacency that heaven and earth are suspended, existence, life activity and maintenance of all creatures.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And this is without time, that is to say, without before or after in an eternal present, for in the embrace in unity all things have been consummated. And in the out-flowing of love all things are being achieved. And in the living fruitful nature all things have the potentiality to occur, for in the living fruitful nature the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, and the Holy Spirit in them both. For it is a living and fruitful unity which is the source And the fount of all life.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And for this reason all creatures are there without themselves as in their eternal origin, one essence and one life with God. But in the bursting-out of the Persons with distinction, so the Son is from the Father and the Holy Spirit from them both. There God has created and ordered all creatures in their own essence.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And though the union is without intermediary, The manifold works that God does In heaven and earth are, however, Hidden from the spirit. For though God gives Himself as He is with a clear distinction, He gives Himself in the soul’s essence, Where the soul’s powers are unified Above reason And undergo God’s transformation In simplicity. In this place all is full And overflowing, for the spirit feels itself As one truth and one richness And one unity with God.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“See, here the beatitude is so simple And so without mode that therein all essential gazing, Inclination and distinction of creatures Pass away. For all spirits thus raised up melt away and are annihilated by reason of enjoyment in God’s essence which is the superessence of all essence. There they fall away from themselves and are lost in a bottomless unknowing. There all clarity is turned back to darkness, there where the three Persons give way to the essential unity and without distinction enjoy essential beatitude.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Christ’s prayer is fulfilled in those united to God in this threefold manner. With God they will ebb and flow, and will always be in repose, Iin possessing and enjoying (Him). They will go out and in and find nourishment both within and without. They are drunk with love And have passed away into God in a dark luminosity.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a distinction and differentiation, According to our reason, Between God and the Godhead, Between action and rest. The fruitful nature of the Persons (Trinity) Ever worketh in a living differentiation. But the simple Being of God, According to the nature thereof, Is an eternal Rest of God And of all created things”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the Light floweth forth in similitude, And indraweth Itself in unity; Which we perceive, beyond the reason, In that high point of our understanding Which is bare and turned within.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even though the eagle, King of birds, Can with his powerful sight Gaze steadfastly upon The brightness of the sun; Yet do the weaker eyes of the bat Fail and falter in the same.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source