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.

Marianne Deborah Williamson (born 8 July 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.

Quotes

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.
There is no more powerful motivation than to feel we’re being used in the creation of a world where love has healed all wounds.
We are no longer ambitious for ourselves, but are rather inspired by the vision of a healed world. Inspiration rearranges our energies. It sources within us a new power and direction.
I do not believe that the average American is a racist, but the average American is woefully undereducated about the history of race in the United States
We no longer feel like we’re... surrounded by hostile forces. We feel instead as though angels are pushing us from behind and making straight our path as we go.
There’s realization that either we will evolve into a higher level of compassion for everyone, or in time there will be no one left. Warmongers, climate change deniers, fossil fuel extractors, capitalists without conscience - they are dinosaurs.
The ground on which we’ll unite as Americans is the higher ground of moral repair. Not Left or Right, or even Democrats or Republicans. We’ll unite as Americans, having come to realize that aligning public policy with the goodness in our hearts is our best and only path forward.
When 1% of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, the last people you should be asking for economic advice are the people who created that situation.
Things are changing swiftly and dramatically in this country, and I have faith that something is awakening among us... Love will prevail.
  • Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.
    • The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles (2012)
  • What I have proposed is $200 to $500 billion (in reparations) to descendants of slaves]/ I think anything less than $100 billion is an insult... We should have a reparations council, board of trustees as it were, selecting this counsel – very, very significant because it has to be a board of trustees ... [that] white America trusts and black America trusts... I don’t think the average American is a racist — actually, I don’t at all, but I do think the average American is vastly undereducated, uninformed
  • We need to talk about more than just the health care plan. We need to realize we have a sickness care rather than a health care system. We need to be the party talking about why so many of our chemical policies and our food policies and our agricultural policies and our environment policies and even our economic policies are leading to people sick to begin with.
  • I haven’t heard anybody on this stage who has talked about American foreign policy in Latin America... There is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence, people heal when there’s some deep truth-telling.

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992)

  • 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. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power, p. 190 (p. 165 in some editions). This famous passage from her book is very often erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela. About the mis-attribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. 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."
    • Variant which appears in the film Coach Carter (2005): "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. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
    • Variant which appears in the film Akeelah and the Bee (2006), displayed in a picture frame on the wall, attributing it to Mandela: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
  • A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There’s no higher art than living a good life. An artist informs the world of what’s available behind the masks we all wear. That’s what we’re all here to do. The reason so many of us are obsessed with becoming stars is because we’re not yet starring in our own lives. The cosmic spotlight isn’t pointed at you; it radiates from within you.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power
  • If we wait for the world’s permission to shine, we will never receive it. The ego doesn’t give that permission. Only God does, and He has already done so. He has sent you here as His personal representative and is asking you to channel His love into the world. Are you waiting for a more important job? There isn’t one.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power
  • How could Leonardo da Vinci not have painted? How could Shakespeare not have written? In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke tells a young writer to write only if he has to. We are to do what there is a deep psychological and emotional imperative for us to do. That’s our point of power, the source of our brilliance. Our power is not rationally or willfully called forth. It’s a divine dispensation, an act of grace.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power
  • The thought system that dominates our culture is laced with selfish values, and relinquishing those values is a lot easier said than done. The journey to a pure heart can be highly disorienting. For years we may have worked for power, money and prestige. Now all of a sudden we’ve learned that those are just the values of a dying world. We don’t know where to search for motivation anymore.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service
  • If we’re not working in order to get rich, then why are we working at all? What are we supposed to do all day? Just sit home and watch TV?
    Not at all, but thinking so is a temporary phase many people go through — when the values of the old world no longer have a hold on us, but the values of the new don’t yet grab your soul. They will.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service
  • There comes a time, not too long into the journey to God, when the realization that the world could work beautifully if we would give it the chance, begins to excite us. It becomes our new motivation.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service
  • The news isn’t how bad things are. The news is how good they could be. And our own activity could be part of the unfolding of Heaven on earth. There is no more powerful motivation than to feel we’re being used in the creation of a world where love has healed all wounds.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service
  • We are no longer ambitious for ourselves, but are rather inspired by the vision of a healed world. Inspiration rearranges our energies. It sources within us a new power and direction. We no longer feel like we’re trying to carry a football to the finish line, clutching it to our chest and surrounded by hostile forces. We feel instead as though angels are pushing us from behind and making straight our path as we go.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service
  • Purity of heart will not make us poor. The exaltation of poverty as a spiritual virtue is of the ego, not the spirit. A person acting from a motivation of contribution and service rises to such a level of moral authority, that worldly success is a natural result.
    Give all your gifts away in service to the world. If you want to paint, don’t wait for a grant. Paint a wall in your town that looks drab and uninviting. You never know who’s going to see that wall. Whatever it is you want to do, give it away in service to your community.
    • Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service

Williamson's quotes in social media

  • The ground on which we’ll unite as Americans is the higher ground of moral repair. Not Left or Right, or even Democrats or Republicans. We’ll unite as Americans, having come to realize that aligning public policy with the goodness in our hearts is our best and only path forward.
  • Economic system of the US was created & designed before women had a voice in the public realm. We do have a voice now; it’s important that we use it not to fit into the system but to change the system. The main engine of our economy should be the care & nurturance of our children
  • The United States is number two in the world for hosting child pornography websites. Dangers to our children should be a top priority, yet only half the money appropriated to fight crimes against children online has been given to the effort .
  • A person disconnected from empathy is a sociopath, but making that all about the president is to displace our outrage & responsibility from where it belongs. Our public policies have lacked empathy for decades. He did not create the spiritual void; the spiritual void created him.
  • The military has more than 130 bands with more than 6000 musicians, costing about a half-billion dollars a year. Meanwhile the National Endowment for the Arts gets $155M, a paltry amount compared to other advanced democracies. Arts & artists should be robustly funded & supported!
  • The US will be a violent society until we decide to be nonviolent. Our task, if we do decide that, is to proactively and intentionally wage peace.
  • We should have total public funding of federal campaigns. That is the only way to get the dark money out of politics. As president that will be my first piece of legislation to submit because the undue influence of money on our politics is the cancer underlying all other cancers.
  • When 1% of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, the last people you should be asking for economic advice are the people who created that situation.
  • From a religious perspective, loving one another is the highest commandment. From a spiritual perspective, loving one another is the wisdom of the ages. From a political perspective, loving one another is just the smartest thing to do. Plus, today it’s the only survivable option.
  • Trump did not create the worst dysfunctions of our democracy; our worst dysfunctions created him. He's the symptom, not the cause, of a dangerous slide away from vital democracy toward corporate authoritarian rule. The slide began 40 years ago and he's simply the climactic event.
  • Being anti-slavery simply meant you didn’t agree with slavery; being an abolitionist meant you’d crossed a bridge inside yourself, from “I don’t agree” to “Not on my watch.” Which are you in relation to a corporate aristocracy that has corrupted our govt and eroded our democracy?
  • Elementary students on suicide watch. Public schools with "trauma rooms." Teachers having to deal with students who have overwhelming behavioral problems on a daily basis. Millions of children with severe PTSD just from living in their neighborhoods. America, we have a problem.
  • 13 million children are hungry in America. Yet most politicians do not even talk about it. Children aren’t old enough to vote, nor old enough to work therefore they have no financial leverage. They’re not old enough to advocate for themselves. That’s our job. The political establishment has simply normalized the despair of millions of American children who are chronically traumatized by poverty, hunger, and all manner of violence. This is what happens when government becomes more an instrument of corporate profits then of conscience. The vulnerabilities, challenges and chronic trauma of millions of American children should be recognized as a social justice issue. An economic system with no particular use for children - or for older people - has left both groups underserved. This country shouldn’t be run like a business, it should be run like a family. First we should take care of our children & older people, making sure they have everything they need to thrive. Everything else would then heal itself from there. Moral repair precedes societal repair.
  • Money in politics is the cancer underlying all the others. The only way to heal it is thru public funding of federal campaigns plus a constitutional amendment. Til then, health insurance, big Pharma, gun manufacturers, oil & gas, food, chem & defense contractors run this country.
  • America’s most important ally should be humanity itself. Our species will not survive another 100 years if we don’t move from a competitive to a cooperative mode of existence. “Me first” is an obsolete, unsustainable perspective.
  • A politics of conscience is still yet possible. And yes….love will prevail.
  • A country that can afford a $738 billion defense budget but will not ensure its school children a more healthy diet is a country whose moral values are spiraling down and whose future health care costs will be spiraling up.

Quotes about Williamson

  • Spiritual teacher Williamson believes, "Our country's way of dealing with security issues is obsolete. We cannot simply rely on brute force to rid ourselves of international enemies." She recognizes that, on the contrary, the U.S. militarized foreign policy creates enemies, and our huge military budget "simply increase(s) the coffers of the military-industrial complex." She writes, "The only way to make peace with your neighbors is to make peace with your neighbors."
    Williamson proposes a 10 or 20 year plan to transform our wartime economy into a "peace-time economy." “"From massive investment in the development of clean energy, to the retrofitting of our buildings and bridges, to the building of new schools and the creation of a green manufacturing base," she writes, "it is time to release this powerful sector of American genius to the work of promoting life instead of death."
  • With the layoff of Williamson’s campaign staff, her presidential bid is “effectively over.” While mainstream journalists “ignored or mocked” her belief in “the fundamentally spiritual nature of our political crisis,” though, their “grotesque jeering” was “the ­ultimate vindication of her position.” Williamson didn’t attack specific policies; her opponents were “cruelty, avarice, crassness, irreligion and indifferentism” — the reasons “our society will remain sick.”
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