Stephen Mitchell Quotes

• What we are tempted to call a disaster is sometimes the first, painful stage of a blessing.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Blessing, Firsts, Sometimes

  Stephen Mitchell (1999). “The Frog Prince: A Fairy Tale for Consenting Adults”, Harmony

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• True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Inspirational, Mastery, Going With The Flow

  Byron Katie, Stephen Mitchell (2008). “A Thousand Names For Joy: How To Live In Harmony With The Way Things Are”, p.141, Random House

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• The physical body is acknowledged as dust, the personal drama as delusion. It is as if the world we perceive through our senses, the whole gorgeous and terrible pageant, were the breath-thin surface of a bubble, and everything else, inside and outside, is pure radiance. Both suffering and joy come then like a brief reflection, and death like a pin.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Drama, Reflection, Dust

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• When speech comes from a quiet heart, it has the strength of the orchid, and the fragrance of rock.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Heart, Rocks, Orchids

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• Education is no longer thought of as a preparation for adult life, but as a continuing process of growth and development from birth until death.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Inspirational, Education, Preparation

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• [Jesus] teaches that just as the sun gives light to both wicked and good, and the rain brings nourishment to righteous and unrighteous, God's compassion embraces all people. There are no pre-conditions for it, nothing we need to do first, nothing we have to believe. When we are ready to receive it, it is already there. And the more we live in its presence, the more effortlessly if flows through us, until we find that we no longer need external rules or Bibles or Messiahs.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Jesus, Rain, Believe

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• What is the gospel according to Jesus? Simply this: that the love we all long for in our innermost heart is already present, beyond longing.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Jesus, Heart, Long

  Stephen Mitchell (2009). “The Gospel According to Jesus: New Translation and Guide to His Essenti”, p.10, Harper Collins

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• When there's no way out, you just follow the way in front of you.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Way, Fronts

  Stephen Mitchell (2014). “Gilgamesh”, p.43, Profile Books

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• Happily ever after doesn't begin with Once upon a time: it begins with Now.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Once Upon A Time, Ever After, Happily Ever After

  Stephen Mitchell (1999). “The Frog Prince: A Fairy Tale for Consenting Adults”, Harmony

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• If you listen to the traffic with a clear mind, without any concepts, it is not noisy, it is only what it is.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Mind, Traffic, Clear

  Stephen Mitchell (1994). “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn”, p.34, Grove Press

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• So actions themselves are not good and not bad; only the intention is important.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Important, Action, Intention

  Stephen Mitchell (1994). “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn”, p.65, Grove Press

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• Creativity, not normality, has become the paradigm of mental health.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Creativity, Mental Health, Paradigm

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• What people love about life is its miraculous beauty; what they hate about death is the loss and decay around it. Yet losing is not losing, and decay turns into beauty, as beauty turns back into decay. We are breathed in, breathed out. Therefore all you need is to understand the one breath that makes up the world.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Hate, Loss, People

  Stephen Mitchell (2009). “The Second Book of the Tao”, p.55, Penguin

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• Even the purest of teachers will face bitter criticism from those who feel threatened by him.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Teacher, Criticism, Faces

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• Whatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Simple, Thinking, Mind

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• What may appear to be proud ungrateful and headstrong fron the outside may from the inside express an unshakable integrity of character. Pride, if it doesn't step over the line into arrogance, is simply an unprejudiced self-esteem. Ingratitude is the appropriate response to a kindness that has hooks on it. Headstrong is another word for trusting your own heart.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Kindness, Integrity, Self Esteem

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• Children understand that 'once upon a time' refers not only--not even primarily--to the past, but to the impalpable regions of the present, the deeper places inside us where princes and dragons, wizards and talking birds, impassable roads, impossible tasks, and happy endings have always existed, alive and bursting with psychic power.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Children, Past, Dragons

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• But self-abasement is just inverted egoism. Anyone who acts with genuine humility will be as far from humiliation as from arrogance.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Humility, Self, Arrogance

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• In a cookie factory, different cookies are baked in the shape of animals, cars, people, and airplanes. They all have different names and forms, but they are all made from the same dough, and they all taste the same.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Airplane, Animal, Names

  Stephen Mitchell (2007). “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn”, p.15, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• There are two kinds of women: those who marry princes and those who marry frogs. The frogs never become princes, but it is an acknowledged fact that a prince may very well, in the course of an ordinary marrige, gradually, at first almost imperceptibly, turn into a frog. Happy the woman who after twenty-five years still wakes up beside the prince she fell in love with.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Years, Two, Twenties

  Stephen Mitchell (1999). “The Frog Prince: A Fairy Tale for Consenting Adults”, Harmony

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• Love softens everything except our sense of integrity.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Integrity

  Stephen Mitchell (1999). “The Frog Prince: A Fairy Tale for Consenting Adults”, Harmony

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• It is better to do your own duty badly than to perfectly do an others; when you do your duty, you are naturally free from sin.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Sin, Duty

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