Return to Love

by Marianne Williamson

A person acting from a motivation of contribution and service rises to such a level of moral authority, that worldly success is a natural result.

Our power lies in our clarity about the role our work can play in the creation of a more beautiful world. The miracle is to think of our career as our contribution, however small, to the healing of the universe.

The ego’s world is based on finite resources, but God’s world is not. In God’s world, which is the real world, the more we give, the more we have. Our having a piece of the world’s pie doesn’t mean there’s less for anyone else, and someone else having a piece of the pie doesn’t mean there’s less for us. So we needn’t compete, in business or anywhere else. Our generosity towards others is key to our positive experience of the world. There’s enough room for everyone to be beautiful. There’s enough room for everyone to be successful. There’s enough room for everyone to be rich. It is only our thinking that blocks that possibility from happening.

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. The...

We turn our eyes away from sickness to the love that lies beyond it. No sickness can diminish our capacity to love.

We must avoid the temptation to see illness as a block to our capacity to find God, and instead use it as a springboard from which we soar into His arms.

If we had been there to begin with—if we had placed the power of God before our own, putting love before all personal ambitions—then our problems would not have developed.

Disease is love turned into fear—our own energy, meant to sustain us, turned against ourselves. Energy cannot be destroyed. Our job is not to kill disease, but to turn its energy back in the direction it came from—to turn fear back into love.

If we were to achieve a state in which only love and caring filled our minds, and neither past nor future lay as burdens on our shoulders, aging would become a youthing process.

It isn’t my task to judge—to help, in any and every way possible, yes, but not to doubt the ultimate wisdom of all things. The greatest gift we can give to a person in pain is to hold in our own minds the thought that there is a light beyond this darkness.

Usually we figure out what we think would make us happy, and then try to make those things happen. But happiness isn’t circumstance-dependent.

The key to happiness is the decision to be happy.

Ultimately I realized that my cynicism revealed very little understanding of the human condition, because the most important facet of that condition is that we are always at choice. We can always choose to perceive things differently.

whatever you focus on, you’re going to get more of. Creation is an extension of thought. Think lack, and you get lack. Think abundance, and you get more.

We need to be in touch with our negative feelings, but only in order to release them and feel the love which lies beneath them.

Crucifixion is the energy pattern of fear, the manifestation of a closed heart. Resurrection is the reversal of that pattern, brought about by a shift in thought from fear to love.

so it is with us, when things aren’t what we’d like them to be. We know that life is always in process, and always on its way to greater good. We just can’t see that. During those times, we rely on our spiritual radar to navigate for us. We trust there’s a happy ending. By our faith, through our trust, we invoke its proof.

Happiness is a sign that we have accepted God’s will.

Hope is born of participation in hopeful solutions. We are happy to the extent that we choose to notice and to create the reasons for happiness. Optimism and happiness are the results of spiritual work.

The difference between those people “living their potential” and those who don’t, is not the amount of potential itself, but the amount of permission they give themselves to live in the present.

An adolescent dreams of what will be. An adult takes joy in today.

problem was that I wanted to move directly from point A to point x,y and z. She pointed out that I seemed incapable of moving from point A to point B, of putting one foot in front of another. It’s much easier to dream about point Z than to actually move to point B. It’s easier to practice our Oscar acceptance speech, than to get up and go to acting class.

It is not our arrogance but our humility which teaches us that who we are is good enough, and what we have to say is valid.

there is a palpably different feeling between audiences who want me to win, and those who are sitting back signalling, “Oh yeah? Show me.” The former is a context in which I am invited to shine, and the latter is one in which I am challenged to shine.

There’s enough beauty to go around. It’s just an idea. Anyone can have it. As you bless what she has, you multiply your chances of having it too.”

A person who succeeds in any area is only creating more of a possibility for others to do the same. Holding on to the thought of finite resources is a way of holding on to hell.

We must learn to think only divine thoughts. Angels are the thoughts of God, and in Heaven, humans think like angels. Angels light the way. Angels do not begrudge anyone anything, angels do not tear down, angels do not compete, angels do not constrict their hearts, angels do not fear. That’s why ...

There is a feeling of inner peace that comes from total relinquishment of judgment. We don’t feel the need to change others, and we don’t feel the need to be different than we are. We can see, for whatever reason, the total beauty of another person, and we feel that they can see the beauty in us as well.

The work toward enlightenment often entails a painful and not very pretty arousal of the worst of which we’re capable, made plain to both ourselves and others, in order that we might consciously choose to release our personal darkness. But without a commitment to light, a conscious intent to go for Heaven, we remain enamored of darkness, too tempted by its complexities.

The important thing about our past is not what happened, but what we have done with what happened. Anything can contribute to our being a more compassionate person now, if we choose.

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

We recognized how avidly we drill the nails into our own hands and feet, holding on to earthly interpretation of things when a choice to do otherwise would release us and make us happy. We prayed for a more consistent ability to remember that only love is real. We saw, if even for a few minutes, the needlessness of our despair. We saw in that time a glimpse of Heaven and we prayed for the ability to experience more of it.