Admonitions Concerning the Inner Life
Thomas à Kempis·about 1418 to 1427·112 pages
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“The kingdom of God is within you.”
Thomas à Kempis · chosen by someone who read it first
Underline it in the book. In the You.Prjct app, a line from this volume meets you on today’s invitation.
A ruled margin beside the text, four lines at the foot of every page, and the Notes leave their last page open under the thing they ask you to do. A chapter opening and a Notes close, as printed.
Your peace depends on everything going right. Book Two turns inward: keep your own peace first, because the peaceable man does more good than the learned one.
Book Two of four, and the shortest. Twelve chapters that turn from conduct to what is underneath it: the inward life, a pure mind, one’s own peace before anyone else’s.
Its most-quoted sentence is the one about keeping your own peace before you try to make it anywhere else, and he means something harder by it than calm: the peaceable man, he says, does more good than the well-learned one. It closes with two essays.
- OneOf the Inward Life11
- TwoOf Lowly Submission19
- ThreeOf the Good, Peaceable Man25
- FourOf a Pure Mind and Simple Intention31
- FiveOf Self-esteem37
- SixOf the Joy of a Good Conscience43
- SevenOf Loving Jesus Above All Things49
- EightOf the Intimate Love of Jesus55
- NineOf the Lack of All Comfort61
- TenOf Gratitude for the Grace of God69
- ElevenOf the Fewness of Those Who Love the Cross of Jesus75
- TwelveOf the Royal Way of the Holy Cross81
The portrait is printed on the back cover. Turn the book over, above, to meet him.
The outside follows the inside.
You.Prjct is for the extra work: the lift nobody assigned, the hour with a book that nobody sees. The reading sits next to the training on purpose. A barbell does not lie about the body. A book like these does not lie about the rest of you, and the rest of you decides what the training is for.
Black covers, a metal emblem, one range across every spine. We made the outside beautiful because of what happens on the inside. A life works the same way: put the interior in order and the rest of it follows. If that is the work you are already doing, these were made for you.
Every one closes with the Notes, and a page left open under the thing they ask you to do. Read the rest with a pen.