Kevin Stilley

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December 30, 2017 by kevinstilley

The Bible – select quotes

The distribution of Bibles, if the simplest, in not the least efficacious of the means of extending the blessings of the Gospel to the remotest corners of the earth; for the Comforter is in the sacred volume: and among the receivers of that million of copies distributed by the Society, who shall number the multitudes awakened thereby, with good will to man in their hearts, and with the song of the Lamb upon their lips? The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper, till the Lord shall have made “bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
~ John Quincy Adams

For me the Word of God is a happening, not a thing. Therefore the Bible must become the Word of God, and it does this through the work of the Spirit.
~ Karl Barth

Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.
~ E. Paul Harvey

The Bible is the cornerstone of American liberty. A student’s perusal of this sacred volume will make them a better citizen.
~ Thomas Jefferson. According to Daniel Webster, Jefferson said this to him in regard to why the Bible was foundational in the educational plan he helped program for the school system in Washington D.C. Daniel Webster to Professor Peace, June 15, 1852 in The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, edited by Edward Everett, (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1903).

The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.
~ Dwight L. Moody

I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again.
~ John Newton, in The Works of the Rev. John Newton (London: Nathan Whiting, 1824), page 466.

The Bible is the Constitution of Christian civilization.
~ Gordon Palmer, in By Freedom’s Holy Light (NY: Devin-Adair Co., 1964), page 4

I could not believe that anyone who had read this book would be so foolish as to proclaim that the Bible in every literal word was the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God. Have these people simply not read the text? Are they hopelessly uninformed? Is there a different Bible? Are they blinded by a combination of ego needs and naivete?
~ Bishop John Shelby Spong

A Book which will lift men up to God must have come down from God.
~ R.A. Torrey, quoted by A.W. Pink in “The Miraculous Power of the Bible Shows Forth That Its Inspirer Is The Almighty”

If every book but the Bible were destroyed not a single spiritual truth would be lost.
~ R.A. Torrey, quoted by A.W. Pink in “The Completeness of the Bible Demonstrates Its Divine Perfection”

Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.
~ A.W. Tozer

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.
~ A. W. Tozer

It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible.
~ George Washington

If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we or our prosperity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.
~ Daniel Webster

God himself has condescended to teach me the way. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God. Let me be a man of one book.
~ John Wesley

We search the world for truth: we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful
From graven stone and written scroll:
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our Mothers read.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier

The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life.
~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States

When you have read the Bible you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.
~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
~ The Bible, Hebrews 4:12
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Filed Under: Bibliology, Blog, Quotes, Theology Tagged With: Bible, canon, inspiration, quotations, quote, revelation, Scripture

August 3, 2016 by kevinstilley

Audacity and Boldness – select quotes

De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace! [Audacity, audacity again, and audacity always.]
~ Georges Danton, to the French Legislative Assembly on September 2, 1792

We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.
~ Vaclav Havel, The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice

Impetuosity and audacity often achieve what ordinary means fail to achieve.
~ Nicholi Machiavelli, in Discourses

In audacity and obstinacy will be found safety.
~ Napoleon I, in Maxims of War

Desperate affairs, require desperate remedies
~ Horatio Nelson

The gods favour the bold.
~ Ovid, in Metamorphoses, x

Bold decisions give the best promise of success.
~ Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, in Rules of Desert Warfare

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.
~ Edmund Spenser, in The Faerie Queene

Boldness be my friend!
Arm me, audacity, from heat to foot!
~ William Shakespeare, in Cymbeline

Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
~ Tacitus, in Histories

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: audacity, boldness, bravery, courage, quotations, quote, risk

March 29, 2016 by kevinstilley

Maya Angelou – select quotes

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better!

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Maya Angelou, quotations, quote

May 12, 2015 by kevinstilley

Writers on Writing – select quotes

writing.001

If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.
~ Kingsley Amis

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.
~ Maya Angelou

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
~ Maya Angelou

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
~ Issac Asimov

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
~ Isaac Asimov

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
~ Richard Bach

I have cultivated my hysteria with joy and terror.
~Charles Baudelaire

When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
“His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
~ Hilaire Belloc

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
~ Robert Benchley

Nice writing isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to have smooth and pretty language. You have to surprise the reader frequently, you can’t just be nice all the time. Provoke the reader. Astonish the reader. Writing that has no surprises is as bland as oatmeal. Surprise the reader with the unexpected verb or adjective. Use one startling adjective per page.
~ Anne Bernays

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
~ Josh Billings

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.
~ Ray Bradbury

You fail only if you stop writing.
~ Ray Bradbury

It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.
~ Gerald Brenan

No one ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have tried while trying to write one.
~ Robert Byrne

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as idleness.
~ Thomas Carlyle

Medicine is my lawful wife. Literature is my mistress.
~ Anton Chekhov

Literary people are forever judging the quality of the mind by the turn of expression.
~ Frank Moore Colby

Writing only leads to more writing.
~ Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Writers are too self-centered to be lonely.
~ Richard Condon

One always has a better book in one’s mind than one can manage to get onto paper.
~ Michael Cunningham

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in new way or to say a new thing an old way.
~ Richard Harding Davis

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
~ E. L. Doctorow

Nothing is new except arrangement.
~ Will Durant

It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else.
~ Havelock Ellis

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.
~ Epictetus

The desire to write grows with writing.
~ Erasmus

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.
~ William Faulkner

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.
~ Gene Fowler

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
~ Robert Frost

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.
~ Robert Frost

Writing is a struggle against silence.
~ Carlos Fuentes

Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.
~ John Green

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in the human situation.
~ Graham Greene

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterward.
~ Robert A. Heinlein

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
~ Ernest Hemingway

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being about water.
~ Ernest Hemingway

In order to write about life, first you must live it!
~ Ernest Hemingway

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
~ Ernest Hemingway

The first draft of anything is shit.
~ Ernest Hemingway

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
~ Ernest Hemingway

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.
~ Hermann Hesse

Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.
~ Christopher Hitchens

Originality is undetected plagiarism.
~ William Inge

The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
~ Samuel Johnson

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.
~ Franz Kafka

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
~ Jack Kerouac

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.
~ Tracy Kidder

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.
~ Stephen King

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
~ Stephen King

The scariest moment is always just before you start.
~ Stephen King

I’ve experienced t he pain and joy of hte birth of babies and the birth of books and there’s nothing like it: when a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or composing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationshiip with those he loves, with the whole world.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, in  A Circle of Quiet (NY: Harper, 1972), page 54

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.
~ Madeleine L’Engle

You can make anything by writing.
~ C. S. Lewis

Though old the thought and oft exprest,
‘Tis his at last who says it best.
~ James Russell Lowell

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Writing is the supreme solace.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism.
~ George Moore

Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.
~ John Morley

Empty your knapsack of all adjectives, adverbs and clauses that slo your stride and weaken your pace. Travel light. Remember the most memorable sentences in the English language are also the shortest: “The King is dead” and “Jesus wept.”
~ Bill Moyers

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.
~ Vladimir Nabokov

All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.
~ Friedrich Neitzsche

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.
~ Anaïs Nin

Good writing is like a windowpane.
~ George Orwell

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
~ George Orwell

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
~ George Orwell

I hate writing, I love having written.
~ Dorothy Parker

The last thing that we discover in writing a book is to know what to put at the beginning.
~ Pascal

Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.
~ Sylvia Plath

Words spoken may fly away… The writing-brush leaves its mark.
~ Chinese Proverb

There is nothing like literature: I lose a cow, I write about her death, and my writing pays me enough to buy another cow.
~ Jules Renard

You can fix anything but a blank page.
~ Nora Roberts

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.
~ J. K. Rowling

Words are loaded pistols.
~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well.
~ John Sheffield

The great art of writing is the art of making people real to themselves with words.
~ Logan Smith

Originality is not saying something new, originality is taking the mundane and remaking it afresh.
~ Kevin Stilley

A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent.
~ Logan Pearsall Smith

There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
~ Red Smith

Writing is a form of self-flagellation.
~ William Styron

Word has somehow got around that the split infinitive is always wrong. That is a piece with the outworn notion that it is always wrong to strike a lady.
~ James Thurber

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.
~ Lionel Trilling

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
~ Mark Twain

Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before him.
~ Mark Twain

As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.
~ Mark Twain

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
~ Voltaire

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.
~ Alice Walker

Be obscure clearly.
~ E. B. White

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
~ E. B. White

I write to understand as much as to be understood.
~ Elie Wiesel

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.
~ Tennessee Williams

Obscurity in writing is commonly an argument of darkness in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness.
~ John Wilkins

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.
~ Virginia Woolf

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.
~ Virgina Woolf

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
~ William Wordsworth

 

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November 26, 2014 by kevinstilley

Thanksgiving – select quotes

It is therefore recommended… to set apart Thursday the eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise, that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor.
~ Samuel Adams, First Official Thanksgiving Proclamation

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

Remember God’s bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!
~ Henry Ward Beecher

On Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence.
~ William Jennings Bryan

Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.
~ Johnny Carson

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
~ Cicero

FORASMUCH as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of… It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these United States, to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth Day of December next, for Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise…
~ Continental Congress 1777

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
~ Epictetus

Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.
~ John Henry Jowett

Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? . .. It is not he who prays most or fasts most. It is not he who gives the most money . . . but it is he who is always thankful to God, who will everything that God wills, and who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.
~ William Law

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence…
~ Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for His goodness.
~ Robert Casper Lintner

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.
~ Edward Sandford Martin

Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above.
~ Henry Melville

Thanksgiving is the antidote to sinful behaviour.
~ Philo

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.
~ Estonian Proverb

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.
~ W. T. Purkiser

If I have enjoyed the hospitality of the Host of this universe, Who daily spreads a table in my sight, surely I cannot do less than acknowledge my dependence.
~ G. A. Johnston Ross

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.
~ Jon Stewart

How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child’s personality. A child is resentful, negative—or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people.
~ Sir John Templeton

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God… ’
~ George Washington, 1789

The pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts… nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.
~ H. W. Westermayer

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
~ Bible, Hebrews 13:15

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Quotes Tagged With: Gratitude, quotations, quote, Thanksgiving

June 14, 2014 by kevinstilley

Joseph Addison – select quotes

bookaddiction.001A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

An empty desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.

He who hesitates is lost.

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment.

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in proper figures.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

The gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength and throw out into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.

True benevolence, or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathises with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, in the enjoyment of one’s self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Books, Essays, literature, quotations, Quotes, wisdom

February 28, 2014 by kevinstilley

C.S. Lewis – select quotes

A book which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A book which is not worth reading at age 50 is not worth reading at age 10.
~ in “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”

But if the lords were glum, the common people in the streets were huzzaing and throwing caps in the air. It would have puffed me up if I had not looked in their faces. There I could read their mind easily enough. Neither I nor Glome was in their thoughts. Any fight was a free show for them; and a fight of a woman with a man better still because an oddity–as those who can’t tell one tune from another will crowd to hear the harp if a man plays it with his toes.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seem to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity
Thou, who wouldst give no other sign, deliver me
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of my head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take me from all my trumpery lest I die.
~ The Apologists Evening Prayer

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains. Suffering is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.

He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.

He wants a child’s heart, but a grown up’s head.

He who converts his neighbour has performed the most practical Christian-political act of all.
~ in God in the Dock

Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.

I had known Redival’s tears ever since I could remember. They were not wholly feigned, nor much dearer than ditchwater…. It’s likely enough she meant less mischief than she had done (she never knew how much she meant) and was now, in her fashion, sorry; but a new brooch, much more a new lover, would have had her drying her eyes and laughing in no time.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

I want God, not my idea of God.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

The one sin the gods never forgive us is that of being born women.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

“We’ve had scores of matches together. The gods never made anyone–man or woman–with a better natural gift for it. Oh, Lady, Lady, it’s a thousand pities they didn’t make you a man.” (He spoke it as kindly and heartily as could be; as if a man dashed a gallon of cold water in your broth and never doubted you’d like it all the better.)
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

When I fail as a critic I may yet be useful as a specimen.

Yet it surprised me that he should have said it; for I did not yet know that, if you are ugly enough, all men (unless they hate you deeply) soon give up thinking of you as a woman at all.
~ Character in  Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or the guilt of sin.

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, and the contempt of this world along with the hope of our eternal country.

__________

Book Cover

__________

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Quotes Tagged With: Apologetics, C.S. Lewis, quotations, Quotes, Theology, wisdom

February 14, 2014 by kevinstilley

Zora Neale Hurston – select quotes

She got so she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference.
~ From Their Eyes Were Watching God

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
~ From Their Eyes Were Watching God

There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man’s spice-box seasons his own food.

There was no doubt that the town respected him and even admired him in a way. But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate. So when speakers stood up when the occasion demanded and said “Our beloved Mayor,” it was one of those statements that everybody says but nobody actually believes like “God is everywhere.” It was just a handle to wind up the tongue with.
~ From Their Eyes Were Watching God

When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made if even nicer to listen to.
~ From Their Eyes Were Watching God

Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.

It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Quotes, Worldview Tagged With: literature, quotations, Quotes, Zora Neale Hurston

September 24, 2013 by kevinstilley

Potential – select quotes

Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.
~ Richard Byrd

Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Potential, quotations, Quotes, success

September 23, 2013 by kevinstilley

Self-Righteousness – select quotes

self contratulation yay meThe hardest people to reach with the love of God are not the bad people. They know they are bad. They have no defense. The hardest ones to win for God are the self-righteous people.
~ Charles L. Allen

When the mask of self-righteousness has been torn from us and we stand stripped of all our accustomed defenses, we are candidates for God’s generous grace.
~ Erwin Lutzer

Open sin kills its thousands of souls. Self-righteousness kills its tens of thousands.
~ J.C. Ryle, from The Cross of Christ

The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.
~ Charles Spurgeon

To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, form any people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.
~ A.W. Tozer, in The Pursuit of God, Chapter 3 – Removing the Veil

You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
~ Bible, Psalm 18:27

 

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Humility, Pride, quotations, Quotes, Righteousness

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