The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.
– Marianne Williamson
Just like a sunbeam can’t separate itself from the sun, and a wave can’t separate itself from
the ocean, we can’t separate ourselves from one another. We are all part of a vast sea of
love, one indivisible divine mind.
– Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves,
who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You
are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening
about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make
manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As
we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As
we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
– Marianne Williamson
Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.
– Marianne Williamson
Thought is cause, experience is effect. If you don’t like the effects in your life, you have to
change the nature of your thinking.
– Marianne Williamson
You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The
truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you
can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think.
– Marianne Williamson
Women are still in emotional bondage as long as we need to worry that we might have to
make a choice between being heard and being loved.
– Marianne Williamson
Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and ablities were used in a
way that served others.
– Marianne Williamson
In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In
every heart, there is the power to do it.
– Marianne Williamson
May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge today, but rather to thoughts of
mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right
minds.
– Marianne Williamson
Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don’t see
in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself.
– Marianne Williamson
When a woman rises up in glory, her energy is magnetic and her sense of possibility contagious.
– Marianne Williamson
When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see
yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of
yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself.
– Marianne Williamson
Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have
forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.
– Marianne Williamson
When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.
– Marianne Williamson
In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and
mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than
our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle
but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don’t want.
– Marianne Williamson
It is our own thoughts that hold the key to miraculous transformation.
– Marianne Williamson
When a woman conceives her true self, a miracle occurs and life around her begins again.
– Marianne Williamson
Whatever we focus on is bound to expand. Where we see the negative, we call forth more
negative. And where we see the positive, we call forth more positive. Having loved and lost, I
now love more passionately. Having won and lost, I now win more soberly. Having tasted the
bitter, I now savor the sweet.
– Marianne Williamson
You know, the heart knows how to beat, and the lungs know how to breathe, and the
kidneys know how to process waste. We were born with similar perfection regarding food
appetites and what has happened for the person who is stuck at a compulsion or an addiction
regarding this issue is that that particular brain circuitry has been thrown out of whack. And
this book is a book about the spiritual healing of that non alignment. So that, once again, we
can in an other area of life express the perfection which is natural to us.
– Marianne Williamson, A Course in Weight Loss
We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not
extending in the present.
– Marianne Williamson
Whether we love, or close our hearts to love, is a mental choice we make, every moment of
every day.
– Marianne Williamson
Whenever we feel lost, or insane, or afraid, all we have to do is ask for His help. The help
might not come in the form we expected, or even thought we desired, but it will come, and
we will recognize it by how we feel. In spite of everything, we will feel at peace.
– Marianne Williamson
Know that there’s enough room for everyone to be passionate, creative and successful. In
fact, there’s more than room for everyone; there is a need for everyone.
– Marianne Williamson
As children, we were taught to be ‘good’ boys and girls, which of course implies we were not
that already. We were taught we’re good if we clean up our room, or we’re good if we make
good grades. Very few of us were taught that we’re essentially good. Very few of us were
given a sense of unconditional approval, a feeling that we’re precious because of what we
are, not what we do.
– Marianne Williamson
Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for
the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.
– Marianne Williamson
No one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves.
– Marianne Williamson
We can’t look to the world to restore our worth; we’re here to restore our worth to the world.
The world outside us can reflect our glory, but it cannot create it. It cannot crown us. Only
God can crown us, and he already has.
– Marianne Williamson
To be a princess is to play at life. To be a queen is to be a serious player. The purpose of life
as a woman is to ascend to the throne and rule with heart.
– Marianne Williamson
Always seek less turbulent skies. Hurt – fly above it. Betrayal – fly above it. Anger – fly above
it. You are the one who is flying the plane.
– Marianne Williamson
What’s difficult in life is to stay centered when somebody does or says something that
tempts us to close our hearts because their heart was closed. That is hard. But that is also
how we grow. We go through those circumstances in order to evolve into people who can
hold to our loving center no matter what the world throws us.
– Marianne Williamson
Where there is peace, there cannot be chaos; the two cannot coexist at the same time.
– Marianne Williamson
It takes courage… to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take
the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.
– Marianne Williamson
Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is
the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts. Love is the essential
reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in
ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.
– Marianne Williamson
We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what’s wrong in your
life, or you can focus on what’s right.
– Marianne Williamson
The mystical journey drives us into ourselves, to a sacred flame at our center.
– Marianne Williamson
Usually, when we think of power, we think of external power. And we think of powerful people
as those who have made it in the world. A powerful woman isn’t necessarily someone who has
money, but we think of her as someone with a boldness or a spark that makes her manifest in
a dramatic way. When we think of a powerful man, we think of his ability to manifest
abundance, usually money, in the world. Most people say that a powerful woman does best
with a powerful man, that she needs someone who understands the bigness of her situation, a
man who can meet her at the same or even greater level of power in the world. Now this is
true, if power is defined as material abundance. A woman often faces cultural prejudice when
she makes more money than a man, as does he. A woman who defines power by worldly
standards can rarely feel totally relaxed in the arms of a man who doesn’t have it. If power is
seen as an internal matter, then the situation changes drastically. Internal power has less to
do with money and worldly position, and more to do than with emotional expansiveness,
spirituality and conscious living… I used to think I needed a powerful man, someone who could
protect me from the harshness and evils of the world. What I have come to realize is that…
the powerful man I was looking for would be foremost, someone who supported me in keeping
myself on track spiritually, and in so maintaining clarity within myself, that life would present
fewer problems. When it did get rough, he would help me forgive. I no longer wanted
somebody who would say to me, “Don’t worry honey, if they’re mean to you I’ll beat them up
or buy them out.” Instead, I want someone who prays and meditates with me regularly so that
fewer monsters from the outer world disturb me, and who when they do, helps me look within
my own consciousness for answers, instead of looking to false power to combat false power.
There’s a big difference between a gentle man and a weak man. Weak men make us nervous.
Gentle men make us calm.
– Marianne Williamson
Spiritual progress is like a detoxification.
– Marianne Williamson
Accepting people as they are has the miraculous effect of helping them improve. Acceptance
doesn’t prohibit growth; rather, it fosters it.
– Marianne Williamson
We cannot give what we do not have: We cannot bring peace to the world if we ourselves are
not peaceful. We cannot bring love to the world if we ourselves are not loving. Our true gift to
ourselves and others lies not in what we have but in who we are.
– Marianne Williamson
Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called “All the things that
could go wrong.”
– Marianne Williamson
I feel that as women we’ve allowed ourselves to be deluded by certain ideas that hold us
back, such as the over- glorification of masculine consciousness. To me, liberation doesn’t
mean that I can think just like a man. Real liberation means that I can think, act, and be like
a woman and receive equal respect, honor, and compensation. Liberation also means that
even though I’m a woman I have masculine parts of my temperament which I can safely
explore and integrate into my experience. In the same way, real liberation for men means that
they can explore and integrate their feminine aspects of consciousness.
– Marianne Williamson
When I went to college in the1970’s, the Women’s Liberation movement was all the buzz.
Women’s “consciousness raising groups” were growing up everywhere, as women shared with
each other their secrets – and anger – that they, their mothers and their great, great
grandmothers had held tight to their chests for centuries. Feminists of the time were right
about some things, but wrong about others. On one hand, there’s no underestimating the
explosion of formerly unavailable choices that became ours at last as a consequence of the
Women’s Movement. Sisterhood truly meant something then; we realized that none of us
would succeed in life unless all of us were allowed to. And it became unequivocally clear that
women could think as well as men, work as well as men, and deserved the opportunity to do
whatever it was that we wanted to do. It’s almost hard to believe that that was still
somewhat of a radical proposition only forty years ago, but it was.
– Marianne Williamson
Miracle workers learn to keep their own counsel. Something that’s important to know about
spiritual wisdom is that, when spoken at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or to the wrong
person, the one who speaks sounds more like a fool than a wise one.
– Marianne Williamson
The Biblical line “There is only one begotten Son” is interpreted by traditional Christians to
mean that Jesus was the only one, but to the metaphysical among us the line means
something different. It is not an exclusive but rather an inclusive statement. “There is only one
begotten Son” means that there is only one of us here. Just as Swiss psychologist Carl Jung
posited the notion of the collective unconscious – mental imagery he called archetypes that we
all share – the spiritual notion of the Divine (or Christ) Mind takes things one step further: if
you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mine, there is something deeper than
just shared imagery. If you go deep enough into all our minds, we share the same Mind. We
share one source point, or true identity, and that is love. For that reason alone, the Golden
Rule is a good idea. For if there is only one of us here, then what we do unto others, we do
unto ourselves. It may seem to take time for things to show up that way: the person we do
whatever we do to may or may not be the person to slap us or hug us back, but someone will.
The realization that there is only one of us here is both an illumined realization and the wisest
guide to behavior. For if I realize that whatever I give I give to myself, then I’m a whole lot
more careful about what I give. They say karma’s a bitch, but in fact it’s a blessing. The point
is to use it well.
– Marianne Williamson
You are here to love and be loved, and the soul in its native intelligence knows this. Accept
the magnitude of your function, and your reignited spiritual intelligence will spark your body’s
intelligence as well. As your mind remembers its natural function, the cells of your body will
remember theirs. You will no longer be at the effect of your compulsion. You will become a
master at living your life.
– Marianne Williamson
The people who have achieved more than you, in any area, are only a half step ahead of you
in time. Bless them and praise their gifts, and bless and praise your own. The world would be
less rich without their contributions, and it would be less rich without yours.
– Marianne Williamson
Some men know that a light touch of the tongue, running from a woman’s toes to her ears,
lingering in the softest way possible in various places in between, given often enough and
sincerely enough, would add immeasurably to world peace.
– Marianne Williamson
We must relinquish our passive observation of the world outside; we can open the door to
the world we want. In understanding ourselves, we come to understand the world. In allowing
ourselves to heal, we become the healers of the world. In praying for peace, we become
bringers of peace. Thus we actualize the power within us to remedy the psychic wounds of
humanity.
– Marianne Williamson
Rather than accepting that we are the loving beings that He created, we have arrogantly
thought that we could create ourselves, and then create God. Because we are angry and
judgmental, we have projected those characteristics onto Him. We have made up a God in our
image. But God remains who He is and always has been: the energy, the thought of
unconditional love.
– Marianne Williamson
What happened to my generation is that we never grew up. The problem isn’t that we’re lost
or apathetic, narcissistic or materialistic. The problem is we’re terrified.
– Marianne Williamson
I am a glorious child of God. I am joyful, serene, positive, and loving.
– Marianne Williamson
Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we’re frantic, life will be
frantic. If we’re peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner
peace.
– Marianne Williamson
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around
you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
– Marianne Williamson