“Unless you find paradise at your own center,
there is not the smallest chance
That you may enter”

The Cherubinic Wanderer

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Do you have more details about the quote "Unless you find paradise at your own center, there is not the smallest chance That you may enter" by Angelus Silesius?

Angelus Silesius54

German writer 1624–1677

Jessamyn West (1902–1984) American author

To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)

“O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”

Rabia Basri Muslim saint and Sufi mystic

as quoted in Khushwant Singh, The Freethinker's Prayer Book (2013), p. 35

“But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Don't Waste Your Life

“Unless the humblest creatures on the earth
Are bettered by thy loving sympathy
Think not to find a Paradise beyond.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

The Way (1913).
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)
Context: Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven
Is Love's location. No dogmatic creed,
No austere faith based on ignoble fear
Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace.
Unless the humblest creatures on the earth
Are bettered by thy loving sympathy
Think not to find a Paradise beyond.

“Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, "I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do." There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, "There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue." There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul, "I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do." So somehow the "isness" of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.

“It turns out your conscious mind — the part you think of as you — is really the smallest part of what’s happening in your brain, and usually the last one in line to find out any information.”

David Eagleman (1971) neuroscientist and author

As quoted in "Stray Questions for: David Eagleman" by Blake Wilson in The New York Times (10 July 2009)