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Evelyn Underhill

Evelyn Underhill Quotes

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Famous Evelyn Underhill Quotes

“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.”

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Book:Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People
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“Never let yourself think that because God has given you many things to do for Himpressing routine jobs, a life full up with duties and demands of a very practical sort---that all these need separate you from communion with Him. God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament; however unexpected its outward form may be receive Him in every sight and sound, joy, pain, opportunity and sacrifice.”

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Author:Evelyn Underhill
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“The spiritual life is a stern choice. It is not a consoling retreat from the difficulties of existence; but an invitation to enter fully into that difficult existence, and there apply the Charity of God and bear the cost.”

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Book:The School of Charity: Meditations on the Christian Creed
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“The mystic cannot wholly do without symbol and image, inadequate to his vision though they must always be: for his experience must be expressed if it is to be communicated, and its actuality is inexpressible except in some hint or parallel which will stimulate the dormant intuition of the reader.”

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Book:Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
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“Much is now being said about evangelism; but before we get effective evangelism, we have to get effective evangelists. Evangelism is useless unless it is the work of one devoted to God, willing and glad to suffer all things for God, penetrated by the attractiveness of God. New machinery, adaptations and adjustments, are not the first need... but more devoted, adoring, sacrificial souls.”

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Book:The Mount of Purification
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“Christianity is a religion which concerns us as we are here and now, creatures of body and soul. We do not "follow the footsteps of his most holy life" by the exercise of a trained religious imagination, but by treading the firm, rough earth, up hill and down dale.”

SoulBodyEarthChristianReligionImaginationReligiousPrayerChristianityExerciseHolyCreaturesConcernHillsFirmRoughHere And NowFootstepsTreadingHoly Life
Book:The School of Charity: Meditations on the Christian Creed. The Mystery of Sacrifice, a Meditation on the Liturgy
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“Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.”

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Book:The School of Charity: Meditations on the Christian Creed
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“Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.”

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Book:Lent With Evelyn Underhill
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“Have you ever noticed that Jesus is never recorded as taking a holiday? He retired for the purposes of his mission, not from it. He was never destroyed by his work; he was always on top of it. He moved among people as the master of every situation. He was busier than anyone; the multitudes were always at him, yet he had time, for everything and everyone. He was never hurried, or harassed, or too busy. He had complete supremacy over time; he never let it dictate to him. He talked of my time; my hour. He knew exactly when the moment had come for doing something and when it had not.”

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Author:Evelyn Underhill
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