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Dark Night Of The Soul Quotes

Browse 55 quotes about Dark Night Of The Soul.

Dark Night Of The Soul Quotes

“Teresa (Saint Teresa of Avila) herself was starved for such companionship, especially when her mystical experiences of God reached a cosmic level to which no one else could relate. If is a great comfort to be understood by others who trust and believe in the personal experiences that we share with them, especially those for which there are no witnesses....When Teresa was fifty-two years old, she met John of the Cross, who was then only twenty-five. After they exchanged their experiences of God, they recognized each other as soul companions. In John, Teresa finally found someone with whom she could share the mystery of her life with God. After they met, she no longer needed to prove or defend her experiences of the soul. (Sadly, John burned all their correspondence shortly before his death.) Teresa emphasized the need for companions on the spiritual journey. No one should travel through her Castle alone, she wrote again and again. Teresa knew firsthand the difficulty of inner work required of the soul pilgrim, who was as likely to experience a dark night of the soul, to borrow a phrase from John of the Cross, as she was to experience the light and grace of liberation.”

SoulSpiritualityMysticismSoulmatesDark Night Of The SoulTeresa Of AvilaJohn Of The Cross
Book:Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul
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“And Our Lord took me by the hand, and led me through an underground passage where it is neither hot nor cold, where the sun shines not, and where neither wind nor rain can enter—a place where I see nothing but a half-veiled light, the light that gleams from the downcast Eyes of the Face of Jesus. My Spouse speaks not a word, and I say nothing save that I love Him more than myself; and in the depths of my heart I know this is true, for I am more His than mine. I cannot see that we are advancing toward our journey's goal since we travel by a subterranean way; and yet, without knowing how, it seems to me that we are nearing the summit of the Mountain.”

LoveSoulReligionJesusSalvationCatholicismSpiritual LifeDark Night Of The SoulSpiritual Formation
Author:Thérèse de Lisieux
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“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.”

WisdomHappinessJoyLife LessonsSadnessTearsGratitudeBlessingAppreciationCurseDesperationPearlsBlessingsLight And DarknessDualityLife JourneyBlessings In DisguiseDualismYin And YangDark Night Of The Soul
Book:Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny
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“Some of these beginners, too, make little of their faults, and at other times become over-sad when they see themselves fall into them, thinking themselves to have been saints already; and thus they become angry and impatient with themselves, which is another imperfection. Often they beseech God, with great yearnings, that He will take from them their imperfections and faults, but they do this that they may find themselves at peace, and may not be troubled by them, rather than for God's sake; not realizing that, if He should take their imperfections from them, they would probably become prouder and more presumptuous still. They dislike praising others and love to be praised themselves; sometimes they seek out such praise. Herein they are like the foolish virgins, who, when their lamps could not be lit, sought oil from others.”

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Book:Dark night of the soul
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“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I may wake up sometime next year without my mind again; it is not likely to stick around all the time. Meanwhile, however, I have discovered what I would have to call a soul, a part of myself I could never have imagined until one day, seven years ago, when hell came to pay me a surprise visit. It's a precious discovery.”

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Book:The Noonday Demon: An Atlas Of Depression
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“No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need risk it, but it is certain that someone will. And let those who go down the sunset way do so with open eyes, for it is a sacrifice which daunts even the gods. Yet every descent is followed by an ascent; the vanishing shapes are shaped anew, and a truth is valid in the end only if it suffers change and bears new witness in new images, in new tongues, like a new wine that is put into new bottles.”

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Book:Symbols of transformation
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“Harvey wanted to dive into his ugliness; he intentionally reached for those long hours of soul desolation. He waited. He paced, ready to face down whatever was to come. Paulette’s, though, busted loose uninvited, catching her completely off guard when she was already hurting, feeling crumbled, and vulnerable. When all she really wanted was some quiet gentle feelings for a change. A few flowers. Some sunshine. A way out of all that inner torment for even just a moment. Had she had brought only nastiness out of her childhood? Hadn’t there been anything sweet she could remember instead? As she wandered back to her cabin, searching for even a single fond memory, light faded everywhere around her. Aw, c’mon, she thought. Everyone had some happy childhood memories. She had to have at least a couple. How about the coloring? Children enjoy coloring; how about that? She’d spent hours and days on her art. It was as close as she could remember to having her Mamma stand over her with anything even remotely resembling approval. Her books and comics could be tales of Jesus, but coloring books had to be Old Testament because “No child’s impure hand could touch a crayon to the sweet beautiful face of our beloved Lord and savior Christ Jesus.” So the little girl had scrunched down over Daniel in the lion’s den. Samson screaming in rage, pain, and terror as they blinded him with daggers and torches. The redder she made the flowing wounds of a man of God shot full of arrows, the richer the flames around those three men being burned in an iron box, the longer Mamma let her stay out of that closet. - From “The Gardens of Ailana”

SpiritualityPersonal GrowthSpiritual GrowthChildhood AbuseDark Night Of The SoulTheosophyThe Path
Book:The Gardens of Ailana
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“The Dark Night of the Soul is not merely “having a bad day” or even week. The Dark Night is a long, pervasive, and very dark experience. If you’re experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul, you will constantly carry around within you a sense of being lost. Your heart will constantly, in some shape or form, be in mourning, and this is because you long deep down to feel the presence of your Soul again.”

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Book:Awakened Empath: The Ultimate Guide to Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual Healing
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“When we lose touch with our Souls, we lose touch with our inner guidance, wisdom, and strength. Sometimes, it can take us many years to get back in touch with the divine presence within us. This period of feeling lost and disconnected from the divine is called the Dark Night of the Soul.”

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Book:Awakened Empath: The Ultimate Guide to Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual Healing
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“It is only when we are truly alone without someone else to lean on; left with our own inner solitude that we can undergo a real process of change. The introspection that is needed to bring out the light that has dwindled down to ash and reignite the fire of our being. So let the darkness shape you, let it reform you, let it cradle you and birth you into a new life; a new way of being. Let the spark flame again, in the darkness is where you will find it.”

Dark Night Of The SoulDark Night Of The Soul Quotes
Book:Ether: Into the Nemesis
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“There's a dark side to each and every human soul. We wish we were Obi-Wan Kenobi, and for the most part we are, but there's a little Darth Vader in all of us. Thing is, this ain't no either or proposition. We're talking about dialectics, the good and the bad merging into us. You can run but you can't hide. My experience? Face the darkness, stare it down. Own it. As brother Nietzsche said, being human is a complicated gig. Give that old dark night of the soul a hug! Howl the eternal yes!”

GivingHumansLittlesSaidSoulRunningFacesNightWishSidesDarkTalkingDarknessBrotherEternalComplicatedStaringHugBeing HumanPropositionsExposureHuman SoulGigsDark SideHowlDark NightDialecticsEither OrMergingDark Night Of The SoulVaderObi Wan Kenobi
Author:Stuart Stevens
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“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.”

WorldWellsLongDoeSoulReasonWholeSeemsNightIndividualDarkAbilityEmotionHigherPeriodsRight NowSaintWhole WorldWitnessParadoxStomachDisturbingHideousDark NightDark Night Of The Soul
Author:Flannery O'Connor
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“But for the present I would lie there and know I didn't have to get up, and feel the holy emptiness and blessed fatigue of a saint after the dark night of the soul. For God and Nothing have a lot in common. You look either one of Them straight in the eye for a second and the immediate effect on the human constitution is the same.”

KnowsFeelsHumansLooksSoulEyeLyingNightDarkCommonEffectsHolyConstitutionBlessedSaintGet UpEmptinessFatigueDark NightDark Night Of The Soul
Book:All the King's Men
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“I'm an atheist, I always thought, 'This is it.' If there is going to be a heaven, it should be on earth. I feel much happier than most people. I'm fairly stoic about death, but I'm not keen on dying if it's going to be long and protracted. I don't have dark nights of the soul, except occasionally. I'm such a little busy bee.”

PeopleIfsFeelsShouldLittlesLongSoulEarthNightHeavenDarkDyingBusyAtheistBeesStoicDark NightDark Night Of The SoulBusy Bee
Author:Edmund White
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“The dark night of the soul for me was one night in Florida, when I had been on the road for about four years and I realized that everybody around me was on my payroll, that my old friends hadn't been in touch with me and my family didn't know where to get me. I was a very unhappy guy and it was because I was really alone.”

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Author:Barry Manilow
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“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

DoeLightKnowledgeDarknessFiguresEnlightenmentConsciousShadowThoughtfulEnlightenedLove LifeSuicidalMemories Dreams ReflectionsConscious MindIndividuationLight And ShadowShadow WorkSithDark Night Of The SoulInner DarknessBecoming EnlightenedShadow Of Love
Book:The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Alchemical studies
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“Now the standard cure for one who is sunk is to consider those in actual destitution or physical suffering—this is an all-weather beatitude for gloom in general and fairly salutary day-time advice for everyone. But at three o’clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance as a death sentence, and the cure doesn’t work—and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.”

RealSoulNightSufferingThreeDarkMorningAdviceStandardsImportanceForgottenSentencesWeatherCuresClockTragicPackagesGloomDark NightDeath SentenceDark Night Of The Soul
Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald
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“And through a dark night of the soul, I came to realize that salvation happens through a mysterious, indefinable, relational interaction with Jesus in which we become one with Him. I realized Christian conversion worked more like falling in love than understanding a series of concepts of ideas. This is not to say there are no true ideas, it is only to say there is something else, something beyond.”

IdeasSoulHappensChristianNightFallJesusUnderstandingRealizingDarkConceptsSalvationSeriesFalling In LoveI RealizedConversionMysteriousInteractionDark NightIndefinableDark Night Of The Soul
Author:Donald Miller
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“Perhaps, the answer is that my ravaged mind rails against the idea of God, but something deeper in me calls out as if God might answer. 'There are not foxholes,' I guess, and depression is the deepest and deadliest foxhole I've been in. It may be the 'dark night of the soul' that the mystics talk about but in depression it is not so much that one becomes lost in the dark as one becomes the dark.”

IfsMindMayIdeasSoulMightNightLostDarkAnswersDepressionDeeperRailDark NightDark Night Of The SoulFoxholes
Author:Parker J. Palmer
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“Awareness born of love is the only force that can bring healing and renewal. Out of our love for another person, we become more willing to let our old identities wither and fall away, and enter a dark night of the soul, so that we may stand naked once more in the presence of the great mystery that lies at the core of our being. This is how love ripens us -by warming us from within, inspiring us to break out of our shell, and lighting our way through the dark passage to new birth.”

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Author:John Welwood
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“A Prayer Refuse to fall down If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. If you cannot refuse to stay down, lift your heart toward heaven, and like a hungry beggar, ask that it be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven only you. It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says nothing good came of this, is not yet listening.”

IfsHeartMayFallAsksHeavenPrayerClearMiddleListeningFilledMiseryRefuseHungryLiftsRisingFalling DownLiftingBeggarDark Night Of The Soul
Author:Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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“The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity. So it is that we must weather that dark time, the period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness is not yet ours.”

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Book:Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
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