Marianne Williamson Quotes

A marriage is meant to be a blessing on the world, because it is a context in which two people might become more than what they would have been alone. The entire world is healed by the presence of healed people. ~ Marianne Williamson

Some of us believe humanity should be in divine partnership with nature, some people believe that man has been given by God the right to have dominion over nature. But since even they say that we should be good stewards, that right there should be the common ground. ~ Marianne Williamson

You The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. ~ Marianne Williamson

Freedom has its risks. ~ Marianne Williamson

Until you have a child, it's very tempting to look at the state of the world and say, "To hell with it, in 50 years I won't be around anyway." But if you have a child you don't say that, because even if you're not around in 50 years, your children presumably will be, and maybe even their children. You think of yourself as responsible to future generations in a whole different way. ~ Marianne Williamson

Clearly, there is some invisible force that is moving every aspect of reality to its next best expression. And the universe is not only self-organizing, it is also self-correcting. The embryo becomes a baby; the baby is born; its lungs continue to breathe - not only were they created but then they continue to breathe. The heart is not only created but it continues to breathe. If there is injury and disease that becomes present within the body, the body is also equipped with an immune system to correct that. ~ Marianne Williamson

If the train doesn't stop at your station, it's not your train. ~ Marianne Williamson

Give all your gifts away in service to the world. If you want to paint, don't wait for a grant, paint a wall in your town that looks drab and uninviting. You never know who is going to see that wall. Whatever it is you want to do, give it away in service to your community. ~ Marianne Williamson

I have seen so much obstructed potential among people who lack personal discipline, who just slough it off, whatever it is, and who think that nothing matters very much. I want my daughter to have what I think of as a capacity for self-discipline. Not the sort of self-discipline that diminishes her own wild passions, but that makes it safer for her to own those wild passions. ~ Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. ~ Marianne Williamson

The miracle often lies outside our comfort zone. ~ 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

A primary goal of the spiritual life is to learn to quiet the mind through prayer and meditation, through spiritual practice, so that we can hear what in both Judaism and Christianity, is called the small, still voice within. ~ Marianne Williamson

The only thing lacking in any situation is our own awareness of love. ~ Marianne Williamson

An ancient memory of this love haunts all of us all the time, and beckons us to return. ~ 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

Choosing joy involves spiritual surrender, and sometimes we would rather hold on to the pain than surrender our egos. ~ Marianne Williamson

To me, when I think of New Age, I think of crystals and rainbows and platitudes. ~ Marianne Williamson

There is a lot of sixties-bashing going on these days that I don't agree with at all. I feel that extremely important ideals were brought to the forefront of the collective consciousness at that time. Granted, drug use was so pervasive that our generation did not as a group have the capacity to manifest our ideals to any great extent. But many of the people who were young in the sixties and who were most touched by that collective ethos are still touched. ~ Marianne Williamson

Consider the possibility now that anything could happen. I'm not asking you to believe this, but only to consider that it might be true. Simply thinking this thought - that miracles are possible - does more to pave the way for your healing than you can imagine. It opens the door to a realm of infinite possibilities, regardless of what you have been through or what you are going through now. The ~ Marianne Williamson

As we awaken individually, we will act more powerfully collectively. ~ Marianne Williamson

Relationships are the Holy Spirit's laboratories in which He brings together people who have the maximal opportunity for mutual growth. ~ Marianne Williamson

The greatest force of personal liberation is the decision to widen our circle of compassion, moving from focus on self to focus on service. ~ Marianne Williamson

Don't be concerned that things appear to be falling apart: this has to happen in order for something new and wonderful to emerge. ~ Marianne Williamson

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. ~ Marianne Williamson

I've noticed in myself that if something small and ultimately meaningless has gone wrong - I can't find the file I left on top of my desk, my daughter failed to do what I asked her to do before going to a friend's house - I can easily get rattled. But if someone calls to inform me of a serious difficulty - someone has been in an accident, or a child is in trouble - I notice a profound stillness come over me as I focus on the problem. In the former case, my temptation to become frantic does not attract solutions, but rather hinders them. There is nothing in my personal energy that invites help from others, nor do I have the clarity to think through what I need to do next. ~ Marianne Williamson

I'm not a doom-and-gloom person. But I think there is a difference between transcendence and denial, and much of the Western world is in major denial today. ~ Marianne Williamson

God isn't separate from us, because He's the love inside our minds. Every problem, inside and out, is due to a separation from love on someone's part. Thirty-five thousand people a day die of hunger on earth, and there's no dearth of food. The question is not 'what kind of God would let children starve?' but rather, 'What kind of people let children starve?' ~ Marianne Williamson

A Course in Miracles says that only love is real: The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. ~ Marianne Williamson

Withholding love is a form of self-sabotage, as what we withhold from others we are withholding from ourselves. ~ Marianne Williamson

The same group of New York pseudo-intellectuals who've put down prayer are the same ones who put down L.A. ~ Marianne Williamson

Sobriety itself is today's high, for it is ultimately in the most centered consciousness that we find our power to transcend the world. ~ Marianne Williamson

I think optimism is a moral imperative. ~ Marianne Williamson

We are dominated on this planet by a fear-based rather than a love-based thought system. ~ Marianne Williamson

We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined. ~ Marianne Williamson

At midlife, you're pregnant with the best self you can be - someone who has learned enough from both successes and failures to add up to a fine human being. ~ Marianne Williamson

Whether we choose to focus on the guilt in their personality, or the innocence in their soul, is up to us. ~ Marianne Williamson

Spirituality is an inner fire, a mystical sustenance that feeds our souls. The mystical journey drives us into ourselves, to a sacred flame at our center. The purpose of the religious experience is to develop the eyes by which we see this inner flame, and our capacity to live its mystery. In its presence, we are warmed and ignited. When too far from the blaze, we are cold and spiritually lifeless. We are less than human without that heat. Our connection to God is life itself. ~ Marianne Williamson

Every problem emerges from the false belief we are separate from one another, and every answer emerges from the realization we are not. ~ Marianne Williamson

You've committed no sins, just mistakes. ~ Marianne Williamson

The gap is not between knowing it and living it, it's between knowing it and living it consistently. You know, we've all had moments when we got it right. Most of us have moments when we get it right every day. The trouble is getting it right when a curve-ball comes at us. ~ Marianne Williamson

I believe that the most urgent need of parents today is to instill in our children a moral vision: what does it mean to be a good person, an excellent neighbor, a compassionate heart? What does it mean to say that God exits, that He loves us and He cares for us? What does it mean to love and forgive each other? Parents and caregivers of children must play a primary role in returning our society to a healthy sense of the sacred. We must commit to feeding our children's souls in the same way we commit to feeding their bodies. ~ Marianne Williamson

If we only identify with the mortal world, then we identify with a level of scarcity and lack and brokenness, and that will be our experience. But if we shift our experience of self-identification - and this is what enlightenment is - from the body-self to the spiritual-self, then we place ourselves under an entirely different set of possibilities and probabilities. ~ Marianne Williamson

Love merely becomes clouded over, or surrounded by mental mists. ~ 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

We need more than new policies. We need a new worldview, and a new bottom line. We need to replace economic values as our ordering principle, with humanitarian values as our ordering principle. ~ Marianne Williamson

Just as you wouldn't leave the house without taking a shower, you shouldn't start the day without at least 10 minutes of sacred practice: prayer, meditation, inspirational reading. ~ Marianne Williamson

A queen is wise. She has earned her serenity, not having had it bestowed on her but having passer her tests. She has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it. She has proved she can hold her kingdom together. She has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power. ~ Marianne Williamson

The ego is our pain, but it is what we know and we resist moving out of it. The effort it takes to grow out of painful patterns often feels more uncomfortable than remaining within them. Personal growth can be so painful because it can make us ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But the goal of personal growth is the journey out of dark emotional patterns which cause us pain to those which cause us peace. ~ Marianne Williamson

Judaism is interesting in that there is something there that I think you just can't understand if you're not a Jew - it moves into a realm of true mystery. ~ Marianne Williamson

All manifestation of fear is a reflection of the fact that humanity has forgotten its spiritual identity. In beginning to remember it, we put fear on notice that its days are numbered. ~ Marianne Williamson

All of us wish we'd had perfect childhoods, with a mother and father who modeled ideal parental attitudes and taught us to internalize the tenets of self-love. Many of us, however, did not. ~ Marianne Williamson

The past doesn't determine your future unless you carry it with you into the present. Forgiving yourself and others, you free the universe to begin again at any moment. ~ Marianne Williamson

If you deny yourself your own passion, your own path, your own longing, your own drama, your own life force, your own truth - then you might be tempted to live vicariously through those who allow themselves theirs. Your creative energy has got to go somewhere, even if it is projected onto others. You're tempted to live a life of fantasy if you deny yourself a life of truth. ~ Marianne Williamson

If you're trained in metaphysics, you don't see the world as distinct from yourself. You are one with the world. ~ Marianne Williamson

Dear God, As I rise up, I thank You for the opportunity to be on this earth. I thank You for my mind and body, I thank You for my life. Please bless my body and use it for Your purposes. May I rise up strong today, and may my body and soul radiate Your love. May all impurities be cast out of my mind, my heart, my body. May every cell of my being be filled with Your light. ~ Marianne Williamson

But when we ask Him to change them, He will. When we're angry, or upset for any reason, we're asked to say, "I'm angry but I'm willing not to be. I'm willing to see this situation differently." We ask the Holy Spirit to enter into the situation and show it to us from a different perspective. ~ Marianne Williamson

If we're talented at music, that talent is of god. If something makes our heart sing, that's god's way of telling us its a contribution he wants us to make. Sharing our gifts is what makes us happy. We're most powerful and god's power is most apparent on the earth when we're happy. A course in miracles teaches that we are only truly happy when we're doing god's will. The only thing to be saved from is our own negativity and fear. The crux of salvation in any area is a shift in our sense of purpose. That shift is a miracle, as always we consciously ask for it: 'Dear god, please give my life some sense of purpose. use me as an instrument of your peace. Use my talents and abilities to spread love. I surrender my job to you. Help me to remember that my real job is to love the world back to health. ~ Marianne Williamson

The new midlife is where you realize that even your failures make you more beautiful and are turned spiritually into success if you became a better person because of them. You became a more humble person. You became a more merciful and compassionate person. ~ Marianne Williamson

There will be no peace in the world until there is peace in our hearts. ~ Marianne Williamson

Dear God, I surrender this relationship to you," means, "Dear God, let me see this person through your eyes." In accepting the Atonement, we are asking to see as God sees, think as God thinks, love as God loves. We are asking for help in seeing someone's innocence. ~ Marianne Williamson

As I see it, the greatest responsibility of motherhood is to make sure that our children know that there are principles of kindness, compassion, integrity, excellence, and discipline. ~ Marianne Williamson

I'm better than I used to be.
Better than I was yesterday.
But hopefully
not as good as I'll be tomorrow. ~ Marianne Williamson

The point of life is not who falls down. The point is who gets up and how you do it. ~ Marianne Williamson

Real liberation for men means that they can explore and integrate their feminine aspects of consciousness. ~ Marianne Williamson

Physical circumstances have very little to do with either our capacity to love or to attract love. ~ Marianne Williamson

Marriage can be a magnificent lesson in becoming our best selves; that is true. ~ Marianne Williamson

If you went to live in the Himalayas and everyone was lovely there, I'm sure it would be fairly easy to be a spiritual master. ~ 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

In every moment we make a decision - whether conscious or unconscious. Will I choose to open my heart, send love, withhold judgment and thus free myself from fear? Or will I close my heart, project fear instead of extending love, judge others, and thus bind myself to fear? The choice is mine and mine alone. ~ Marianne Williamson

When you've written 10 books and have six on the New York Times best-seller list - and four have been No. 1 - I think you have a right to be a member of Congress. ~ Marianne Williamson

The meaningful question is never what we did yesterday, but what we have learned from it and are doing today. ~ Marianne Williamson

Without nourishing our own souls, we can't nourish the world, for we cannot give what we do not have. As we attend to our souls, we emanate invisibly and involuntarily the light we have received. ~ Marianne Williamson

Society never progresses because the majority one day wakes up and says, "Let's do things differently." The majority didn't wake up and say, "Oh, let's just free the slaves." Society always progressed because a relatively small group of people usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time had a better idea and articulated another way. That's simply how evolution works; it's the mutation. The member of the species who does things differently - that points the way to the future because they're better adapted for survival. ~ Marianne Williamson

If you are not grieving, you are not conscious. But if you are not rejoicing in the possibilities of how this could all change, then you are not looking through the filter of the greatest spiritual perspicacity. ~ Marianne Williamson

Can the purpose of a relationship be to trigger our wounds? In a way, yes, because that is how healing happens; darkness must be exposed before it can be transformed. The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts. ~ Marianne Williamson

As long as there are ways we can serve, then we have a job to do. ~ Marianne Williamson

I think of prayer as a spiritual lifeline back to where I most want to be. ~ Marianne Williamson

A story, no matter how factually true, is still just a story. ~ Marianne Williamson

Painful experiences are not meant to linger. They are meant to teach us what they need to teach us, and then dissolve. ~ Marianne Williamson

Once the Western mind was disconnected from its sense of divine responsibility and genuine reverence towards nature, all hell broke loose. And that's where we are. ~ Marianne Williamson

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "No lie will last forever." We have to work at removing lies from our own hearts. And on the national level, we do this not because we blame our country, but because we love it. ~ Marianne Williamson

Children are not children. They are just younger people. ~ Marianne Williamson

Everyone we meet will either be our crucifier or our savior, depending on what we choose to be to them. ~ Marianne Williamson

In most of our situations in life, if we take a good honest look at our lives, we are holding to small, limiting thoughts, cynical thoughts. ~ Marianne Williamson

In the Kabbala, it says that we receive the light in order to impart the light, and thus we repair the world. ~ Marianne Williamson

Sometimes we think, "We're the only people who see it this way," but that's really not the case. ~ Marianne Williamson

There is no amount of money I can make which could buffer my daughter from the horrors that will explode in our society if we do not address the huge amount of suffering in our midst. ~ Marianne Williamson

God is the water, and you are the faucet. ~ Marianne Williamson

How we sit within the body is an extremely important part of the spiritual journey. The body itself is used either by the spirit within us, or by the fear-based mind. When it is used by the spirit, then it is a thing of holiness. How we dwell within it, how we treat it, and how we use it in relationship to other aspects of the planet is extremely important. When we use the body without reverence, we are destructive elements on the planet. We become destructive to ourselves, to other life forms, and to the earth. ~ Marianne Williamson

Individuals seem to have reached their walls and so has the entire human race. Whatever isn't working, isn't life-producing, isn't producing love for ourselves or others, is going to have to go now. Or, literally, there will be hell to pay. ~ Marianne Williamson

If you did something in 1975 that you deeply regret and that you now can recognize as having been profoundly irresponsible, for example, the only way to be lifted out of deep regret and the pain over it is through atonement - through the kind of remorse that leads to genuine atonement, the making of amends, and forgiveness of self and others. ~ Marianne Williamson

There's only one of us here: What we give to others, we give to ourselves. What we withhold from others, we withhold from ourselves. In any moment, when we choose fear instead of love, we deny ourselves the experience of Paradise. ~ Marianne Williamson

Our self-perception determines our behavior. If we think we're small, limited, inadequate creatures, then we tend to behave that way, and the energy we radiate reflects those thoughts no matter what we do. If we think we're magnificent creatures with an infinite abundance of love and power to give, then we tend to behave that way. Once again, the energy around us reflects our state of awareness. ~ Marianne Williamson

People don't live in Los Angeles because we are tied to the same old, same old. We live in Los Angeles because of the intoxicating energy of new beginnings that permeate our city. ~ Marianne Williamson

LOVE" is the Answer...
Whatever the Question.... ~ Marianne

We're not at the mountaintop until any zone is comfortable. Love isn't love until it's unconditional. ~ Marianne Williamson

I'm certainly not saying anything new, and I'm not even saying anything all that different from what everyone else I know is saying right now - I'm saying what millions of people are saying. I'm just saying it publicly. ~ Marianne Williamson

People who have life-challenging experiences who choose to remain invested in a consistent catastrophic interpretation are not the ones I meet. I have met many more people who have recognized how vital it is to their healing and to the quality of their life to interpret their experiences differently. That is why some of the people I've met who have life-challenging illnesses are much happier than some people I've known who are physically quite healthy and yet who live lives of greater desperation and depression. ~ Marianne Williamson

The places in our personality where we tend to deviate from love are not out faults, but our wounds. God doesn't want to punish us, but to heal us. And that is how He wishes us to view the wounds in other people. ~ Marianne Williamson