Frithjof Schuon: Quotes about God

“The beauty of the sacred is a symbol or a foretaste of, and sometimes a means for, the joy that God alone procures.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 38, 978-1-93659700-0]
God, Beauty

God , Beauty , Joy

“To fear God is first of all to see, on the level of action, consequences in causes, sanction in sin, suffering in error; to love God is first to choose God, that is to say, to prefer what brings one nearer Him over what estranges from Him.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2005, Stations of Wisdom, World Wisdom, 102, 978-0-94153218-1]
God, Reverential fear and love

God , Suffering , Love , Fear

“Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.”

Frithjof Schuon

Source: Spiritual Perspectives And Human Facts

God , Nature , Thinking , Forgetting

“Virtue is the conformity of the soul to the divine Model and to the spiritual work; conformity or participation. The essence of the virtues is emptiness before God, which permits the divine Qualities to enter the heart and radiate in the soul. Virtue is the exteriorization of the pure heart.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 17, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Virtue

Soul , God , Heart

“The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute, and consequently in the integrality and depth of this consciousness; having lost sight of it by plunging himself into the world of phenomena viewed as such, man needs to be reminded of it by the celestial Message. This Message comes finally from "himself", not of course from his empirical "I" but from his immanent Selfhood, which is that of God and without which there would be no "I", whether human, angelic or other; the credibility of the Message results from the fact that it is what we are, both within ourselves and beyond ourselves. In the depths of transcendence is immanence, and in the depths of immanence, transcendence.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 127-128, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Miscellaneous, Revelation

God , World , Angels

“The desire to vanquish faults because it is "I" who have them is ineffectual, since it falls within the same category as the faults themselves. Indeed, every fault is a form of egoism or even pride. We must tend towards Perfection because we understand it and therefore love it, and not because we desire that our ego should be perfect. In other terms, we must love and realize a virtue because it is true and beautiful, and not because it would become us if we possessed it; and we must hate and fight against a fault because it is false and ugly, and not because it is ours and because it disfigures us. To possess a virtue is first and foremost to be without the fault which is contrary to it, for God created us virtuous. He created us in His image; faults are superimposed. Moreover it is not we who possess virtue, it is virtue which possesses us.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 65, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Virtue

God , Hate , Perfection , Falseness

“Virtue is a ray of the divine Beauty, in which we participate through our nature or through our will, with ease or with difficulty, but always by the grace of God.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 16, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Virtue

God , Beauty , Nature

“Virtue consists in allowing free passage, in the soul, to the Beauty of God.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2019, Esoterism as Principle and as Way, World Wisdom, 87, 978-1-93659765-9]
Spiritual path, Virtue

Soul , God , Beauty

“The gift of oneself to God is always the gift of oneself to all; to give oneself to God − though it were hidden from all − is to give oneself to man, for this gift of self has a sacrificial value of an incalculable radiance.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2006, Light on the Ancient Worlds, World Wisdom, 102, 978-0-941532-72-3]
Spiritual path, Prayer

God

“There is no theophany that is not prefigured in the very constitution of the human being, made as it is "in the image of God"; and esoterism aims at actualizing what is divine in this mirror of God that is man.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2003, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, World Wisdom, 117, 978-0-94153227-3]
Spiritual path, Esoterism

God

“Esoteric truth is a two-edged sword: there are men who lose God because they are ignorant of this truth, which alone would save them, and there are others who think they understand it and forge for themselves an illusory and arrogant faith, which they put practically in place of God.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2007, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, World Wisdom, 80, 978-1-933316-42-0]
Spiritual path, Esoterism

God , Truth , Faith , Understanding

“Sacred art helps man find his own center, that kernel whose nature is to love God.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2007, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, World Wisdom, 28, 978-1-933316-42-0]
Spiritual life, Sacred art

God , Help , Art , Nature

“To accept a trial is to thank God for it, with the understanding that it permits us a victory, a detachment with regard to the world and with regard to the ego.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 44, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual life, Trials

God , Understanding , Victory , World

“Every injustice that we suffer at the hands of men is at the same time a trial that comes to us from God.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2019, Esoterism as Principle and as Way, World Wisdom, 139, 978-1-93659765-9]
Spiritual life, Trials

God , Time , Suffering , Men

“Love of the sacred implies love of God, and inversely, the sacred is the perfume of Heaven.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2016, La conscience de l’Absolu, Hozhoni, 60, 978-2-37241-020-5]
Spiritual life, Sense of the sacred

God , Love

“The worldly or imperfect man journeys through life as if on a long road; if he is a believer, he sees God above him in the far distance, and also at the end of this road. However the spiritual man stands in God, and life passes before him like a stream.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2013, Vers l’Essentiel : lettres d’un maître spirituel, Les Sept Flèches, 94, 978-2-97003-258-8]
Spiritual life, Outline

God , Life

“Beauty is a reflection of divine beatitude; and since God is Truth, the reflection of His beatitude will be that blend of happiness and truth found in all beauty.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2007, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, World Wisdom, 24, 978-1-933316-42-0]
God, Beauty

God , Beauty , Happiness , Truth

“Without fear of God as a basis, nothing is possible spiritually, for the absence of fear is a lack of self-knowledge.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 30, 978-1-93659700-0]
God, Reverential fear and love

God , Knowledge , Fear

“One cannot love God without fearing him, any more than one can love one's neighbor without respecting him; not to fear God is to prevent Him showing mercy.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2005, Stations of Wisdom, World Wisdom, 102, 978-0-94153218-1]
God, Reverential fear and love

God , Love , Fear

“Love of God is firstly the attachment of the intelligence to the Truth, then the attachment of the will to the Good, and finally the attachment of the soul to the Peace that is given by the Truth and the Good.”

Frithjof Schuon

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 9, 978-1-93659700-0]
God, Reverential fear and love

Soul , God , Peace , Intelligence