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Compassion is a wound in the heart whence flows a common love to all mankind and which cannot be healed so long as any suffering lives in man.

— John Ruysbroeck The Spiritual Espousals (1340)

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Love

More quotes by John Ruysbroeck

We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold.

Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912)

Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going. We come from God, and we are in exile.

Ruysbroeck the Admirable (1925)

God contemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor end.

The Spiritual Espousals (1340)

God in the depths of us receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God.

An Anthology of Mysticism and Mystical Philosophy (1927)

Then are we ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price.

All John Ruysbroeck quotes →

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Ruysbroeck (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.