"Nothing liberates our greatness like the desire to help, the desire to serve." -- Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson (born July 8, 1952) is a spiritual activist, author, lecturer and founder of The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace. She is also the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. Marianne Williamson - The Miracle Matrix She has published nine books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers.
Her book, The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife, was published in January 2008 and spent five weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. As of the late 2000s, she appears on a weekly radio show on the Oprah & Friends channel of XM Satellite Radio.
"As we become purer channels for God's light, we develop an appetite for the sweetness that is possible in this world. A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be.""As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.""Dear God, Please send to me the spirit of Your peace. Then send, dear Lord, the spirit of peace from me to all the world. Amen.""Fill you mind with the meaningless stimuli of a world preoccupied with meaningless things, and it will not be easy to feel peace in your heart.""Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.""God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.""God is definitely out of the closet.""I deepen my experience of God through prayer, meditation, and forgiveness.""If I choose to bless another person, I will always end up feeling more blessed.""If you give your life as a wholehearted response to love, then love will wholeheartedly respond to you.""In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.""In our natural state, we are glorious beings. In the world of illusion, we are lost and imprisoned, slaves to our appetites and our will to false power.""Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.""Joy, has no cost.""Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.""Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself.""May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge today, but rather to thoughts of mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.""Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.""Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.""Our past is a story existing only in our minds. Look, analyze, understand, and forgive. Then, as quickly as possible, chuck it.""Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.""Some men know that a light touch of the tongue, running from a woman's toes to her ears, lingering in the softest way possible in various places in between, given often enough and sincerely enough, would add immeasurably to world peace.""The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.""The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self.""The only work that will ultimately bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.""The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.""The spiritual path - is simply the journey of living our lives. Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don't know it.""We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present.""We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right.""We may have bad weather in Ireland, but the sun shines in the hearts of the people and that keeps us all warm.""We receive His peace when we ask Him for it. We keep His peace by extending it to others. Those are the keys and there are no others.""When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.""You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure about you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us."
Williamson attended (but did not graduate from) Pomona College in Claremont, California, where her roommate was film producer Lynda Obst. She is a minister in the Unity Church.
Williamson's philosophy adopts a New Thought approach to spirituality. She incorporates both established Christianity and Judaism with statements such as "You've committed no sins, just mistakes." She also promotes tenets of Zen Buddhism such as the belief that one must empty their mind through enlightenment to truly find God.
She gained early attention discussing A Course in Miracles with Oprah Winfrey. She credits her claimed insight to Oprah Winfrey, who invited Williamson to The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss her first book A Return to Love.
A passage from Williamson's book, A Return to Love, has become popular as an inspirational quote and has been used, amongst other places, in the 2005 film, Coach Carter and the 2006 film, Akeelah and the Bee. It is often incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela; Williamson herself is quoted as saying, "As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people." She has also been featured in some films, including The Power of Forgiveness showcased at the Dawn Breakers International Film Festival in 2009.
