When you want something with all your heart, that's when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It's always a positive force.

You can't want to be happy, because that's too easy and too boring.

The more God asks us to participate in His mysteries, the more disoriented we become, because He asks us constantly to follow our dreams and our hearts. And that's difficult to do when we're used to living in a different way. Finally we discover, to our surprise, that God wants us to be happy, because He is the Father.

My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

One must learn that which is necessary, and not simply what one wants.

Narrow all your interests until the attitude of mind and heart and body is concentration on Jesus Christ.

If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.

If [we] have no chosen the kingdom of God [first], it will make in the end no difference what [we] have chosen instead.

We can make a strong unconditional commitment to ourselves to take care of our deepest needs, no matter what other people do or don't do.

Effective negotiation requires a persistent focus on what is most important.

The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine, who said that the heart of man was created for God and that it cannot find rest until it rests in his Father's heart. Hence all men are really seeking after God, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place.

The truth and value of Christianity do not depend on the fruits which it has borne for civilization and culture: it has its own independent value; it is the realization of the kingdom of God on earth;