#happiness
"To find the kingdom is the easiest thing in the world but also the most difficult. Easy because it is all around you and within you, and all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it. Difficult because if you wish to possess the kingdom you may possess nothing else. That is, you must drop all inward leaning on any person or thing, withdrawing from them forever the power to thrill you, or excite you, or to give you a feeling of security or well-being. For this, you first need to see with unflinching clarity this simple and shattering truth: Contrary to what your culture and religion have taught you, nothing, but absolutely nothing can make you happy. The moment you see that, you will stop moving from one job to another, one friend to another, one place, one spiritual technique, one guru to another. None of these things can give you a single minute of happiness. They can only offer you a temporary thrill, a pleasure that initially grows in intesity, then turns into pain if you lose them and into boredom if you keep them."
React to this quote
More by Anthony de Mello
See allResonant Thoughts
"In all the flat, lethargic, dull moments, when the sensate dominates a person, to him Christianity is a madness because it is incommensurate with any finite wherefore. But then what good is it? Answer…"
— Søren Kierkegaard
Philosophy1813–1855
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"Not only there does not exist, nor can exist, any other revenue than the clear produce of land, but it is t…"
— Anne Robert Jacques Turgot"I think, that if the world were a bit more like ComicCon, it would be a better place."
— Matt Smith"The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness."
— F. H. Bradley"Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give."
— Ben Carson"Bliss Carman bio at carman.net"
— Bliss Carman"The Pax Americana has gone the way of the Pax Britannica. ... The implication for us in Europe is twofold. …"
— Edward Heath
