David Steindl-Rast Quotes

We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful: for having good weather, to have slept well last night, to be able to get up, to be healthy, to have enough to eat. ... There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is.

The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.

Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning.

Day and night gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze. A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.

A single crocus blossom ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratuitous, gratis, a grace.

Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefullness, and gratefullness is a measure of our aliveness.

There is no closer bond than the one that gratefulness celebrates, the bond between giver and thanksgiver. Everything is a gift. Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging. Can our world survive without gratefulness? Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: to say an unconditional yes to the mutual belonging of all beings will make this a more joyful world. This is the reason why Yes is my favorite synonym for God.

People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.

We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.

Gratefulness is the inner gesture of giving meaning to our life by receiving life as gift.

Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise then you will discover the fullness of your life.

If you learn to respond as if it’s the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.

Any place is sacred ground, for it can become a place of encounter with the divine Presence.

The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness. You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness. There's a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you're doing.

Among the many things that profoundly impress me about the Dalai Lama, quite high up on the list is his ability to say "I don't know". I've often wished that other people in prominent positions wouldn't feel the compulsion to have an answer for everything and would feel equally free to say "I don't know." It's a sign of wisdom to know that you don't know and a sign of stupidity to think that you know everything. I admire it enormously in him, and wonder why so few people in leading positions reach that stage.

As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center.

Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted.

Gratefulness has the courage to trust and so overcomes fear.

The hope that is left after all your hopes are gone - that is pure hope, rooted in the heart.

Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens.

Solitude without togetherness deteriorates into loneliness. One needs strong roots in togetherness to be solitary rather than lonely when one is alone.

If there is anything the artist or a true work of art teaches us, it is that variety and complexity really increase the unity, and that to achieve unity within a great variety of complexity is a greater achievement and more satisfying piece of art than to achieve unity with just a few elements, which is relatively easily achieved.

Impatience makes us get ahead of ourselves, reaching out for something in the future and not really being content with where we are, here and now.

Each string of a wind harp responds with a different note to the same breeze. What activity makes you personally resonate most strongly, most deeply?

Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song.

What brings fulfillment is gratefulness, the simple response of our heart to this life in all its fullness.

Home and journey together constitute the creative polarity of the heart, the two dimensions we must cultivate if we want to 'develop the heart.

Beauty seen makes the one who sees it more beautiful.

The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves.

A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it -- that alone can be like waking up from a dream.

Gratefulness is the gallantry of a heart ready to rise to the opportunity a given moment offers.

From experience we know that whenever we are truly awake and alive, we are also truly grateful.

What is necessary when we want to face reality? Stillness.

One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve the ties of our alienation.

The challenge is to learn to respond immediately to whatever it is time for. Not to wonder whether you have time for it or whether you like it, but simply to respond when it is time.

Gratefulness is not just saying "thank you." It's acting. It is being yourself. A mother is grateful, shows gratefulness by mothering, a scientist by doing science.

Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door. Such pauses take a brief moment, yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you.

The artist ought to know that a thousand painful deaths always lead into greater life.

One can learn to focus on "opportunity" as the gift within every given moment. This attitude towards life always improves the situation. Even in times of sickness, someone who habitually practices grateful living will look for the opportunity that a given moment offers and use it creatively.

Gratefulness is the great task, the how of our spiritual work, because, rightly understood, it re-roots us.

"The root of joy is gratefulness."

There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is.

Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.

Only gratefulness, in the form of limitless openness for surprise, lays hold of the fullness of life in hope.

Gratefulness makes us aware of the gift and makes us happy. As long as we take things for granted they don't make us happy. Gratefulness is the key to happiness. Practicing gratitude is so central to my spirituality.

Gratitude is here presented as more than a feeling, a virtue, or an experience; gratitude emerges as an attitude we can freely choose in order to create a better life for ourselves and for others. The Nigerian Hausa put it this way: Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.

By looking up, by raising our eyes above our limited horizon, we are more likely to perceive the blessings hidden in affliction.

The universe is gratis. It cannot be earned, nor need it be earned.

We can't really waste our time; we have to see that we are all in the same boat and that different religious traditions point in the same direction, and now let's get moving together, doing something for peace.