Quotes about Freedom

You fight things only when you are directly called and equipped to do so. We all become a well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. You lose all your inner freedom.

Jesus the Christ, in his crucifixion and resurrection, "recapitulated all things in himself, everything in heaven and everything on earth" (Ephesians 1:10). This one verse is the summary of Franciscan Christology. Jesus agreed to carry the mystery of universal suffering. He allowed it to change him ("Resurrection") and—it is to be hoped—us, so that we would be freed from the endless cycle of projecting our pain elsewhere or remaining trapped inside of it.

Cesar Milan, the "dog whisperer," says that dogs cannot be peaceful or teachable if they have no limits set to their freedom and their emotions. They are actually happier and at rest when they live within very clear limits and boundaries, with a "calm and assertive" master. My dog, Venus, is never happier and more teachable than when I am walking her, but on her leash. Could it be the same for humans at certain stages?

God's love is perfectly free. It is not coerced by any of our good actions, nor can we lose it because of our bad actions. We are stuck with it and cannot increase-or decrease-God's love for us by anything we do or don't do.

All great spirituality is somehow about letting go.

Such utterly free and gratuitous love is the only love that validates, transforms, and changes us at the deepest levels of consciousness. It is what we all desire and what we were created for. Once you allow it for yourself, you will almost naturally become a conduit of the same for others.

They are comfortable knowing, and they are comfortable not knowing. They can care and not care—without guilt or shame. They can act without success because they have named their fear of failure. They do not need to affirm or deny, judge or ignore. But they are free to do all of them with impunity. A saint is invincible.

It seems we are not that free to be honest, or even aware, because most of our garbage is buried in the unconscious. So, it is absolutely essential that we find a spirituality that reaches to that hidden level. If not, nothing really changes.

Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment.

we are product of our past but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

Hiding your hurt only intensifies it. Problems grow in the dark and become bigger and bigger, but when exposed to the light of truth, they shrink. You are only as sick as your secrets. So take off your mask, stop pretending you're perfect, and walk into freedom.

You're only as sick as your secrets.