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'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' Blessed are those who have preserved internal sanctity of soul; who are conscious of no secret deceit; who are the same in act as they are in desire; who conceal no thought, no tendencies of thought, from their own conscience; who are faithful and sincere witnesses, before the tribunal of their own judgments, of all that passes within their mind. Such as these shall see God.

Percy Bysshe Shelley#177

TruthDivineConsciencePurity

About this quote

What does it mean?
People without deceit or hidden thoughts will perceive divine truth.
In plain terms
Honest people with no secrets can see God.
What can you take from it?
Inner purity allows one to see the divine.

Where it applies

  • moral reflection
  • spiritual practice
  • confession

Putting it to work

  • keeping honesty
  • self-examination
  • spiritual reading

Questions to consider

  • Are you free of secret deceit?
  • What does seeing God mean to you?

Another view

Purity does not guarantee visible religious experiences.

More from Percy Bysshe Shelley

  1. It is important to observe that the author of the Christian system had a conception widely differing from the gross imaginations of the vulgar relatively to th…

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  2. God, it has been asserted, was contemplated by Jesus Christ as every poet and every philosopher must have contemplated that mysterious principle. He considered…

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  3. The thoughts which the word 'God' suggests to the human mind are susceptible of as many variations as human minds themselves. The Stoic, the Platonist, and the…

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