John O'Donohue
Irish poet, philosopher, and former Catholic priest, one of the most beloved spiritual writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Born in 1956 in County Clare, on the limestone Burren of Ireland's western coast, he wrote his doctoral thesis on Hegel and spent two decades as a parish priest before leaving the priesthood to write full-time. His 1997 book Anam Cara — Gaelic for 'soul friend' — introduced English-speaking readers to the Celtic spiritual imagination and became one of the most quoted contemporary spiritual texts. His subsequent books, especially To Bless the Space Between Us (his collected blessings, published the year of his sudden death in 2008), made him a household name in the global contemplative community. His blessings — 'For a New Beginning,' 'For Solitude,' 'Beannacht' — are read at weddings, funerals, and ordinary mornings around the world.
quotes in library
Quotes by John O'Donohue
107 quotes“It is in the depth of your life that you will find the invisible necessity that has brought you here.”
“When you find your inner voice, the language is uniquely yours.”
“Always there is this voice waiting to be heard.”
“To be born is to be chosen. No one is here by accident.”
“Each one of us has been sent here for a special destiny.”
“The soul knows the geography of your destiny.”
“A blessing evokes a privileged intimacy.”
“To bless is to acknowledge the unseen otherness in our midst.”
“In a sense, all the contemporary crises can be reduced to a crisis about the nature of beauty.”
“There is in each of us a strange and unique presence.”
“To live in awareness is to be in tune with the rhythm of one's own life.”
“The slow word is the deepest word.”
“Imagination is the surest sign of the divine in us.”
“Imagination is the only thing that can hold the contradictions in your life together.”
“In our times we are very much under the imperative of the visible.”
“The visible is the icon of the invisible.”
“Each soul has its own particular signature.”
“Anam Cara is the friend of your soul. With your Anam Cara, you can share your innermost self.”
“You can never love another person unless you are equally involved in the beautiful but difficult spiritual work of learning to love yourself.”
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