Saturday, January 5, 2013

Lanza del Vasto


Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto
Servant of Peace
(September 29, 1901 – January 5, 1981)



Don’t muddle everything by untimely agitation and cogitation.
Above all, don’t spend your time regretting the past.  That is really a waste of time.
Don’t undertake anything by your own will alone; ask yourself if the thing is willed, if it has come in its own time.  Question the circumstances and read the signs.
In the hour of happiness, rejoice: in the hour of disaster, reflect.         
If you think other people are to blame for your failures, you will learn nothing from your tribulations, but whoever can say “I was wrong” can right his course.
It is wrong to rush things and wrong to shilly-shally, wrong to force things and wrong to avoid them.  The wise man restrains himself for ten years, then acts like lightning or lets his fruit fall gently when it is ripe.

--Lanza del Vasto, Make Straight the Way of the Lord, tr. Jean Sidgwick

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