Richard Rohr is a Catholic priest and author who has written extensively on spirituality and theology. He is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, a New Mexico–based organization that promotes contemplation and action in the world. Rohr is known for his provocative and thoughtful quotes on a variety of subjects.
Father Richard Rohr is a bestselling author and internationally known speaker on the subjects of spirituality, contemplation, and social justice.
The Franciscan Friar and best-selling author Richard Rohr explores topics of spirituality and the human condition, including love and relationships, finding meaning in life, prayer, creativity and forgiveness.
Richard Rohr Quote
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”
― Richard Rohr
“Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.”
― Richard Rohr
“Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.”
― Richard Rohr
“every time God forgives us, God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr Quotes on Grace
“Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“There is nothing to prove and nothing to protect. I am who I am and it’s enough.”
― Fr. Richard Rohr
“People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.”
― Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr Quotes on Hope
“The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.”
― Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
“The most common one-liner in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid.” Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it’s difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr Quotes on Love
“Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!”
― Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr
“The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth. ”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
“When you get your,’Who am I?’, question right, all of your,’What should I do?’ questions tend to take care of themselves”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Let’s state it clearly: One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not through purity codes and moral achievement contests, which are seldom achieved anyway.”
― Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr Quotes on Forgiveness
“I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr Quotes on Death
“Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“there is no path to peace, but peace itself is the path.”
― Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
“In solitude, at last, we’re able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined—by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence”
― Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr Quotes Falling Upward
“All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.”
― Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
“The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo – even when it’s not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr Quotes on Faith
“We all become well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. Most frontal attacks on evil just produce another kind of evil in yourself, along with a very inflated self-image to boot.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“The morning glories and the sunflowers turn naturally toward the light, but we have to be taught, it seems.”
― Richard Rohr
“What some now call ’emerging Christianity’ or ‘the emerging church’ is not something you join, establish, or invent. You just name it and then you see it everywhere- already in place! Such nongroup groups, the ‘two or three’ gathered in deep truth, create a whole new level of affiliation, dialogue, and friendship…”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr Quotes on Joy
“…religion either produces the very best people or the very worst.”
― Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater: Spirituality and the 12 Steps“Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“The big truth for men is that often we have to leave home in the first half of life before we can return home at a later stage and find our soul there.”
― Richard Rohr
“Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.”
― Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
“Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life, which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Thomas Merton, the American monk, pointed out that we may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to find when we get to the top that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr Quotes on Suffering
“If we don’t learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them.”
― Richard Rohr
“If you accept a punitive notion of God, who punishes or even eternally tortures those who do not love him, then you have an absurd universe where most people on this earth end up being more loving than God!”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“There are two ways of being a prophet. One is to tell the enslaved that they can be free. It is the difficult path of Moses. The second is to tell those who think they are free that they are in fact enslaved. This is the even more difficult path of Jesus.”
― Richard Rohr, From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality
“Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.”
― Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
“Those who are not true leaders will just affirm people at their own immature level.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Whatever good, true, or perfect things we can say about humanity or creation, we can say of God exponentially. God is the beauty of creation and humanity multiplied to the infinite power.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“If we seek spiritual heroism ourselves, the old ego is just back in control under a new name. There would not really be any change at all, but only disguise, just bogus self-improvement on our own terms.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“In the second half of life, we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“As Desmond Tutu told me on a recent trip to Cape Town, “We are only the light bulbs, Richard, and our job is just to remain screwed in!”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God.”
― Richard Rohr, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective
“A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone.”
― Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe
“God does not love us if we change, God loves us so that we can change.”
― Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater
“a person must pass the lessons learned on to others—or there has been no real gift at all.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Yes, transformation is often more about unlearning than learning, which is why the religious traditions call it “conversion” or “repentance.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Pain and suffering that are not transformed are usually projected onto others.”
― Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
“God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Denial of our pattern of failure seems to be a kind of practical atheism or chosen ignorance among many believers and clergy.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe.”
― Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater
“I guess prophets are those who do not care whether you are ready to hear their message. They say it because it has to be said and because it is true.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“A mystic doesn’t say “I believe.” They say “I know.” A true mystic will ironically speak with that self-confidence but at the same time with a kind of humility. So when you see that combination of calm self-confidence, certitude, and humility all at the same time you have the basis for mysticism in general.”
― Richard Rohr
“The shape of evil is much more superficiality and blindness than the usual list of hot sins. God hides, and is found, precisely in the depths of everything.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Truth is not always about pragmatic problem solving and making things “work,” but about reconciling contradictions. Just because something might have some dire effects does not mean it is not true or even good. Just because something pleases people does not make it true either.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“The Risen Christ is the standing icon of humanity in its final and full destiny. He is the pledge and guarantee of what God will do with all of our crucifixions. At last, we can meaningfully live with hope. It is no longer an absurd or tragic universe. Our hurts now become the home for our greatest hopes.”
― Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
“Integrity largely has to do with purifying our intentions and a growing honesty about our actual motives.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.”
― Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
“We have spent centuries of philosophy trying to solve “the problem of evil,” yet I believe the much more confounding and astounding issue is the “problem of good.” How do we account for so much gratuitous and sheer goodness in this world? Tackling this problem would achieve much better results.”
― Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
“God for us, God alongside us, God within us.”
― Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation
“We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“Surrender will always feel like dying, and yet it is the necessary path to liberation.”
― Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater
“Our wounds are the only thing humbling enough to break our attachment to our false self.”
― Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
“Controlling people try to control people, and they do the same with God—but loving anything always means a certain giving up of control. You tend to create a God who is just like you—whereas it was supposed to be the other way around.”
― Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe
“all mature spirituality, in one sense or another, is about letting go and unlearning.”
― Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater
“The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God not by doing it right but by doing it wrong!”
― Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
“Jesus praised faith and trust – even more than love. It takes a foundational trust to fall, or to fail, and not to fall apart.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Richard Rohr is a Franciscan friar and author who has written extensively on theology, spirituality and Christian mysticism. In this quote, Rohr points out that the Cross is not simply an event in history, but is something that continues to happen in the lives of Christians.