Best Quotes by Evelyn Underhill (Top 10)

  1. If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshipped.
  2. In mysticism that love of truth which we saw as the beginning of all philosophy leaves the merely intellectual sphere, and takes on the assured aspect of a personal passion. Where the philosopher guesses and argues, the mystic lives and looks; and speaks, consequently, the disconcerting language of first-hand experience, not the neat dialectic of the schools. Hence whilst the Absolute of the metaphysicians remains a diagram —impersonal and unattainable—the Absolute of the mystics is lovable, attainable, alive.
  3. For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.
  4. After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
  5. Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds. Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.
  6. All things are perceived in the light of charity, and hence under the aspect of beauty; for beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love.
  7. Mysticism is the art of union with Reality.
  8. The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has realized it, he is not a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers.
  9. As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. 'I come to seek God because I need Him', may be an adequate formula for prayer. 'I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet', is the only possible formula for worship.
  10. Delicate humor is the crowning virtue of the saints.