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John O'Donohue Quotes

John O'Donohue was an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher. He was a native Irish speaker, and as an author is best known for popularising Celtic spirituality. Wikipedia  

✵ 1. January 1956 – 3. January 2008
John O'Donohue: 44 quotes17 likes

Famous John O'Donohue Quotes

“Beauty is the illumination of your soul.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“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.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“The Celtic mind was not burdened by dualism. It did not separate what belongs together”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

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

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“If you try to view yourself through the lenses that others offer you, all you will see are distortions; your own light and beauty will become blurred, awkward, and ugly. Your sense of inner beauty has to remain a very private thing.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

John O'Donohue Quotes about the soul

“All through your life your soul takes care of you… your soul is alive and awakened, gathering, sheltering and guiding your ways and days in the world. In effect, your soul is your secret shelter.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“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.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light on the world of the soul.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

John O'Donohue Quotes about the world

“Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

“Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see this day?”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“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 into complete harmony with itself.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

John O'Donohue Quotes

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

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“TO COME HOME TO YOURSELF May all that is unforgiven in you Be released. May your fears yield Their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you Blossom into a future Graced with love.”

John O'Donohue

Source: To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Invocations and Blessings

“There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Your noble friend will not accept pretension but will gently and very firmly confront you with your own blindness. Such friendship is creative and critical; it is willing to negotiate awkward and uneven territories of contradiction and woundedness.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“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 awakening between you, a sense of ancient knowing.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Inspiration is always a surprising visitor.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“It is lovely to meet an old person whose face is deeply lined, a face that has been deeply inhabited, to look in the eyes and find light there.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“You are as young as you feel. If you begin to feel the warmth of your soul, there will be a youthfulness in you that no one will be able to take away from you.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.”

John O'Donohue

Source: To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

“When one flower blooms spring awakens everywhere”

John O'Donohue

“When time is reduced to linear progress, it is emptied of presence.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Nature is the direct expression of the divine imagination.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Your soul is the priestess of memory, selecting, sifting, and ultimately gathering your vanishing days toward presence.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“… to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“The duty of priviledge is absolute intregity”

John O'Donohue

“The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Consumerism is the worship of the god of quantity; advertising is its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false longing.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

“Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness; the perennial infusion of springtime into the winter of bleakness.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

“We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program for our lives.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“… the only difference between a young person at the height of their exuberance and a very old person who is frail and physically wasted is time.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“… we are custodians of deep and ancient thresholds. In the human face you see that potential and the miracle of undying possibility.”

John O'Donohue

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Take time to see the quiet miracles that
seek no attention”

John O'Donohue

“The wounds of the spirit heal and leave no scars.”

John O'Donohue

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