Marianne Williamson Quotes

The end does not justify the means. If we try to be someone we are not in order to achieve a result, then the result cannot help but be something other than what we intended.

People who have life-challenging experiences who choose to remain invested in a consistent catastrophic interpretation are not the ones I meet. I have met many more people who have recognized how vital it is to their healing and to the quality of their life to interpret their experiences differently. That is why some of the people I've met who have life-challenging illnesses are much happier than some people I've known who are physically quite healthy and yet who live lives of greater desperation and depression.

I fell in love with the thought that a human life could be a priestly conduit, a connecting link between earth and sky. As I grew and stumbled and, most important, as I began to love and be loved, I realized that the ultimate priest is the lover inside us

Once you've had enough and you can't do it anymore, you consider the possibility that there might be a better way. That's when your head cracks open and God comes in.

The universe is already programmed to give each of us a year of happiness. Our challenge lies in programming ourselves to receive it.

Our internal state determines our experience of our lives; our experiences do not determine our internal state.

Sometimes, when I talk to someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer or some other illness, I'll remind them: "If you were honest with yourself, you were depressed before this happened. And if this were over you would be happy for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, and then something else would come along."

The role of a leader is not to rule over other people, but to hold a space for their own genius.

Take stock of your thoughts and behavior. Each night ask yourself, when were you negative when you could have been positive? When did you withhold love when you might have given it? When did you play a neurotic game instead of behaving in a powerful way? Use this process to self-correct.

You have to make a space in your heart, in your mind and in your life itself for authentic human connection.

Real intimacy; real love has to do with a joining of the mind, a joining of the spirit, a joining of the heart.

Do not fear. Look beyond what's dying to what's being born.

Forgiveness is the choice to see people as they are now. When we're mad at people, we're angry because of something they said or did before this moment. By letting go of the past, we make room for miracles to replace our grievances.

I am very much into politics, but what interests me is sacred principles applied to that area. You know, many people are interested in alternative health who are never going to become doctors, or practitioners. That is how I am about politics. I am interested in the intersection of the Spiritual and the political - how spiritual principles apply to the social and political issues of our day. For me, the spiritual realm, is a more powerful place to speak from on those issues.

I have learned from experience that happiness is an acquired skill. Children are one of the greatest lessons in happiness, constantly challenging us to enjoy the moment, as the next one will not be the same. Gratitude is essential to happiness. Every time our children rush up to us and smile, we have something to be happy about; every time we get out of bed and can take a deep breath and go out for a walk, we have something to be happy about-that is the essence of a happy existence. Happiness is a muscle we must use, or it will wither away.

The more mature we are, the more receptive we are.

The beauty of personal authenticity can compensate for the lost beauty of our youth.

On any given day, in any given moment, something could happen that opens up for you an entirely new path. Be still, be alert, be ready.

The miracle-minded perception would be to make happiness itself our goal and to relinquish the thought that we know what that would look like.

The spiritual journey, the path of recovery and personal growth, is a detoxification process in which we bring up and out the negative beliefs we have carried with us from the past and that now poison the present.

No true search for enlightenment ignores the suffering of other sentient beings. Ever. We simply need to create a way to address that suffering while remaining in a blissful center.

I deepen my experience of God through prayer, meditation, and forgiveness.

Hopefully, I will emerge more shining. If I have that good fortune, if I am blessed in that way - and I do feel I am in the middle of the blessing - then I have faith my service will be greater.

And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves.

There is no they, only us. We are part of a large fellowship called the human race. We all hurt the same. We all love the same. We all bleed the same. We all need understanding and care. We can't separate ourselves from one another. We are all part of the same vast sea of love, one indivisible divine mind.

The gap is not between knowing it and living it, it's between knowing it and living it consistently. You know, we've all had moments when we got it right. Most of us have moments when we get it right every day. The trouble is getting it right when a curve-ball comes at us.

Sobriety itself is today's high, for it is ultimately in the most centered consciousness that we find our power to transcend the world.

A level of anxiety and tension and outright fear that so many people have felt, not only during the recession but during this slow economic recovery since. This made me very much want to up the conversation about how miracle-minded thinking applies to that area of life.

It's soul force that removed the English from India. It's soul force that brought down the Berlin Wall. It's soul force that gave life to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights.

Much like a GPS, love re-calibrates itself if you've made a wrong turn.

A long-term romance is like a rose bush. In any given season, a blossom might fall off. But if the plant is well nourished, then the season will come around again, and new blossoms appear.

If I say to my daughter, "Go say `hi' to Aunt Gertrude," there is a reason there. I'm teaching her manners. I think the idea that she'll say `hi' to Aunt Gertrude only if she wants to is the biggest crock of silliness I've ever heard. Yet I meet people everyday who were clearly brought up to think that if they didn't want to say "hi" to Aunt Gertrude, that was fine.

Thought that is no longer limited, brings experience that is no longer limited

If we only identify with the mortal world, then we identify with a level of scarcity and lack and brokenness, and that will be our experience.

We are always impacting the world...through our presence, energy, interactions - what kind of impact are we having?

When we stay close to the wisdom of our knowing, seeking solutions to our problems in the sanctuary of the heart and not in the vanity of the mind, then we can pretty much trust in the unfolding, mysterious wisdom of life.

As you get older, life gets harder if you're not applying spiritual truths.

Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.

Yes, hardships come. But I see in my life and in the lives of others how often something that does not have to be held as a hardship is dealt with by the mind as though it is.

Children are one of the greatest lessons in happiness, constantly challenging us to enjoy the moment, as the next one will not be the same.

I don't believe the United States is going through a midlife crisis. The United States is going through an adolescent crisis.

Life is hard enough, you don't have to embellish the drama!

Love is not neutral. It takes a stand. It is a commitment to the attainment of the conditions of peace for everyone involved in a situation.

Love is a wave flowing in the direction of bliss for all living things. It will carry you if you allow it to flow through you.

You don't need a new life, just a new lens through which to view the one you have.

Higher thought forms trump lower ones. In the presence of a high frequency of human consciousness, all lower thought forms ultimately drop of their own dead weight.

Usually we try to figure out what we think would make us happy, and then try to make those things happen. But happiness isn't circumstance-de pendent. There are people who have every reason in the world to be happy who aren't. There are people with genuine problems who are. The key to happiness is the decision to be happy.

The spiritual journey has to do with learning to think more deeply and take as long a time as we need. That's the path to wisdom.