Quotes about Longing

She had passed by. He felt as if he were walking again in a far world, not Cossethay, a far world, the fragile reality. He went on, quiet, suspended, rarefied. He could not bear to think or to speak, nor make any sound or sign, nor change his fixed motion. He could scarcely bear to think of her face. He moved within the knowledge of her, in the world that was beyond reality.

O You Whom I Often and Silently Come O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you, As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you, Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.

The modern mind longs for the future as the medieval mind longed for Heaven. The great aim of modern life has been to improve the future—or even just to reach the future, assuming that the future will inevitably be "better.

Augustine said it best: You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

Saint Augustine said it best: You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

There, on that bank, soaked in that water, basking in that sun-shine, lying on that man's chest, I hoped for the first time that my real dad would never show up and take me home.

You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

Our willingness to wait reveals the value we place on the object we're waiting for.

The awful glimpse down into the abyss of an existence without him had so staggered and appalled her heart that she felt she could never be quite the same again. However, it had opened her eyes to the fact that right down in the depths of her own heart she really had but one passionate desire, not for the things which the Shepherd had promised, but for himself. All she wanted was to be allowed to follow him forever.

In Mary this petition has been granted: she is, as it were, the open vessel of longing, in which life becomes prayer and prayer becomes life. Saint John wonderfully conveys this process by never mentioning Mary's name in his Gospel. She no longer has any name except "the Mother of Jesus".1 It is as if she had handed over her personal dimension, in order now to be solely at his disposal, and precisely thereby had become a person.

The Fathers of the Church say that prayer, properly understood, is nothing other than becoming a longing for God.

God is so wide that, within his spaciousness, even the longing for unfulfillable longing can soar freely.