Angelus Silesius Quotes

Angelus Silesius

Love unannounced goes in to God,
 Hath instant audience:
Long in the antechamber wait
 Wit and intelligence.

Angelus Silesius
(The Cherubinic Wanderer - Love, 1657)

Deep calls to Deep.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

Be all thy Wealth within thyself.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Poverty and Riches, 1657)

Grow free from self, from all created things grow free,
Then God will graft His Godlike nature on to thee.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Self-Abandonment, 1657)

The poor man seeketh God, the rich man seeketh wealth:
'Tis gold indeed the poor man finds, the rich man filth.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Poverty and Riches, 1657)

All creatures live and move and have their being in God:
Why must thou then needs ask which is the heavenward road?

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Nature, 1657)

Alas, Alas, Love's dead! How came she then to die?
She perished of the cold, for all men passed her by.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Love, 1657)

I am as great as God, He is as small as I:
No higher than I is He, nor I than He less high.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

Being Himself so great, greatly God loves to give,
But ah! man's little heart is so small to receive.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Love, 1657)

Belief alone is dead. It cannot live or move Until united with its soul—its soul is Love.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Love, 1657)

Ask not what is divine. It were too great a task To comprehend—unless thou art what thou dost ask.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

O Man, as long as you exist, know, have, and cherish,
You have not been delivered, believe me, of your burden.

Angelus Silesius

Love is God's nature. He can do naught else. Wouldst thou
Be God, then likewise love in every instant's Now.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Love, 1657)

Christ could be born a thousand times in Bethlehem – but all in vain until He is born in me.

Angelus Silesius

I will be Phoenix, burn myself in God, and then Nothing shall sunder me from Him ever again.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

Naught ever can be known in God: One and Alone Is He. To know Him, Knower must be one with Known.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer, 1657)

The Rose because she is a rose does blossom, she never asks why; She eyeth not herself, nor cares if she is seen of other eye.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Nature, 1657)

The vengeful God of wrath and punishment
is a mere fairytale. It simply is the I
That makes me fail.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer, 1657)

How fleeting is this world
yet it survives.
It is ourselves that fade from it
and our ephemeral lives.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer, 1657)

The All proceedeth from the One,
And into One must All regress:
If otherwise, the All remains
Asunder-riven manyness.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer, 1657)

The purest Love—seraphic—
Is not easy to divine,
Because it is so quiet,
By any outward sign.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Love, 1657)

A Loaf holds many grains of corn
And many myriad drops the Sea:
So is God's Oneness Multitude
And that great Multitude are we.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer, 1657)

Where is my hiding-place? Where there's nor I nor Thou.
Where is my final goal towards which I needs must press?
Where there is nothing. Whither shall I journey now?
Still farther on than God—into a Wilderness.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - The Still Wilderness, 1657)

God is an utter Nothingness,
Beyond the touch of Time and Place:
The more thou graspest after Him,
The more he fleeth thy embrace.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer, 1657)

All this is but a Game which God Fashioneth for Himself alone: He hath devised the World of Things Not for the Things' sake but His own.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Nature, 1657)

All things are one thing unto God,
 He knoweth no diversity.
Art thou in substance one with Him,
 So is He also with the fly.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Nature, 1657)

Body must into Spirit pass,
And Spirit into Deity,
If thou wouldst have thy dearest wish
And know the perfect ecstasy.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

When to the Sea at last it comes
The smallest drop becometh Sea:
Even so thy Soul becometh God
When God at last absorbeth thee.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

I must be Mary and myself
Give birth to God, would I possess
—Nor can I otherwise—God's gift
Of everlasting Happiness.

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Oneness With the Divine, 1657)

My Body is my dearest Friend,
Likewise my bitterest Enemy;
It bears me up and binds me down,
As it doth list, contrarily.
I hate it, yet I love it too,
And when death comes to part us twain,
How joyful will that parting be!
And how that parting will be pain!

Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer - Man and the World, 1657)

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Angelus Silesius Biography

Angelus Silesius portrait

Born: 1624
Died: 1677

Angelus Silesius was a German Christian mystic and poet, best known for his wide-reaching religious poetry and hymns. He was quite influenced by medieval mystics.

Notable Works

The Good Counselor (1642)
The Soul's Holy Desires (1657)
The Cherubinic Pilgrim (1657)