Saints

"I have a "Task": To foster all mankind and ensure for all of them lives full of ananda (bliss). I have a "Vow": To lead all who stray away from the straight path again into goodness and save them. I am attached to a "work" that I love: To remove the sufferings of the poor and grant them what they lack. I have a "reason to be proud", for I rescue all who worship and adore me, aright. I have my definition of the "devotion" I expect: Those devoted to me have to treat joy and grief, gain and loss, with equal fortitude. This means that I will never give up those who attach themselves to me."

"There is no one who can change My course or affect My conduct to the slightest extent. I am the Master over all."

"Life is a song - sing it."

"My construction will cover the entire Universe."

"Christ declared. Sathya means Truth. 'He will wear a robe of red, a blood-red robe.' (Here the baba pointed to the red colored robe he happened to be wearing that day!). He will be short, with a crown (here he points to his hair). The lamb is the sign and symbol of love. Christ did not declare that he will come again, he said, 'He who made me will come again.' That ba ba (bleating of the sheep or lamb) is this Baba, and Sai, the short, curly-hair-crowned red-robed Baba, is come. He is not only this Form, but, he is every one of you, as the Dweller in the Heart."

"The same Divine Compassion that blessed Dharma; saved Gajendra; restored Kuchela; and stood by Prahlada, has come to the Earth as the Refuge of the refugeless; as the Lord of Peace, Harmony and Righteousness; as the Lord of all the Worlds; as the Sath-Chith-Anandamurthi; and as the Puttaparthi Sathya Sai Sath-Chakravarthi - the King of Kings."

"My power is immeasurable; My truth inexplicable, unfathomable."

"I am all deities in one. You may endeavour your best for thousands of years and have all mankind with you in your search. But you cannot understand My Reality."

"There was no one to understand Me until I created the whole world"

"What is it that brings to It the adoration of millions from all over the world? You will be convinced that the basic reason for this is the fact that this is the Supra-worldly Divinity in Human Form."

"This is a human form in which every Divine entity, every Divine principle, that is to say, all the names and forms ascribed by man to God, are manifest... You are very fortunate that you have the chance to experiences the bliss of the vision of the form, which is the form of all gods, now, in this life itself."

"God can do anything. He has all power in the palm of His Hand. My Body, like all other bodies, is a temporary habitation; but, My Power is eternal, all-pervasive, ever-dominant."

"Formerly when the Govardhanagiri (mountain) was raised aloft by a little boy, the gopis and gopalas realised that Krishna was the Lord. Now, it is not one Govardhanagiri, a whole range will be lifted, you will see!"

"The Lord is the refuge of all who seek refuge, the saviour of all who have to be saved. He is the Embodiment of Being-Awareness-Bliss (Sat-chit-ananda). He is now at Puttaparthi as the Effulgent Emperor over the region of Truth, Goodness and Beauty."

"Were it not for the mind change of Sai devotees the world would already have fallen into complete chaos. The deterioration of mind and man has been very rapid and abrupt, even precipitous during the last fifteen years. That the world is not in total destruction is due to the change of mind of Sai devotees and to Sai's grace."

"I will have to forego the car and even the aeroplane when I move from place to place, for the crowds pressing around them will be too huge; I will have to move across the sky; yes, that too will happen, believe Me."

"I know everything that has happened to everybody in the past, everything that is happening now and everything that will happen in the future."

"Practise silence, for the voice of God can be heard in the region of your heart only when the tongue and the inner storm are stilled, and the waves (of the mind) are calmed. There will be no temptation for others to shout when you talk to them in whispers. Set the level of the tone yourself: as low as possible, as high as necessary to reach the outermost boundary of the circle you are addressing. Conserve sound, since it is the treasure of the element ether (Akasa), an emanation from God Himself. Reason can prevail only when the arguments are advanced without the whipping up of sound. Silence is the speech of the spiritual seeker. Soft speech is the expression of genuine love. Hate screeches; fear squeals; conceit trumpets; but love sings lullabies, it soothes, it applies balm. Practise the vocabulary of love; unlearn the language of hate and contempt."

"LIFE + DESIRE = MAN; LIFE – DESIRE = GOD."

"No one can understand my Mystery. The best you can do is to get immersed in it. It is no use your arguing about pros and cons; dive and know the depth; eat and know the taste."

"Trust in my wisdom. I do not make mistakes. Love my uncertainty for it is not a mistake. It is my intent and will. Remember -- nothing happens without my will. Be still. Do not ask to understand. Do not want to understand."

"Everyone should prepare NOW for this change, for I promise you that it will come, and only those who are ready will survive."

"Sai holds the universe in his hand"

"The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all."

"Today man is putting his senses to misuse and as a result his body is becoming weaker day by day. He shortens his life-span by his unsacred vision and by indulgence in sensual pleasures. Lakhs of light rays in his eyes are being destroyed because of his unsacred vision. That is the reason what man is developing eye defects."

"Some people think, Swami calls himself a powerful magnet, but He is unable to attract us. The fault lies in them only."

"As the attraction power is increasing in Me... you are going to witness many astounding events in future... Even while I am speaking to you now, My feet are being pulled by the earth. If I lift one foot, the earth attracts the other foot. Whatever I touch with My hand, it also gets attracted. This magnetic power is present in every man... I try to lift My foot but it is very difficult."

"As a matter of fact, there is no trace of ill-health in Me. I am always healthy. Not only today, till 96 years I will be like this."

"Be sincere; talk only about your genuine experience; do not distort, exaggerate or falsify that experience."

"Prema (love): practise that; develop that; spread that; and all the hatreds and jealousies of today will disappear. That is the duty of the Divine Life Society, here as well as elsewhere."

"Leadership is Idealism in Action. The Avatar comes to reveal man to himself, to restore him his birthright of Atmic (Divine) Bliss. He does not come to found a new creed, to breed a new faction, to install a new god. The Avatar comes as Man in order to demonstrate that Man is Divine, in order to be within reach of man. I have come to restore Love among mankind, to cleanse it of narrowness, and restrictive attitudes. That is the main task in the revival of Dharma (Righteousness). Be assured that the Lord has come to save the world from calamity. Your duty is to keep calm, and pray for the happiness and prosperity of all. You cannot be happy when the rest of mankind is unhappy. I offer help; never receive it. My Hand always gives; it never takes. Conclude from this that this must be Divine, not human power. I do not mention about Sai Baba in any of My discourses, though I bear the name as Avatar of Sai Baba. I do not appreciate in the least the distinction between the varied appearances of God: Sai, Rama, Krishna, Christ, Nanak, Buddha etc. I do not proclaim that this is more important or that the other is less important. Continue your worship of your chosen God along the lines already familiar to you. Then you will find that you are coming nearer and nearer to Me, for all names are Mine and all forms are Mine. There is no need to change your chosen God and adopt a new one when you have seen Me and heard Me. Come just one step forward, I shall take a hundred steps towards you. Shed just one tear, I shall wipe a hundred from your eyes. I bless only thus: May your Ananda, may your Bliss grow. I have come to give you the Key of the treasure of Ananda or Bliss, to tell you how to tap that spring, for you have forgotten the way to blessedness. I never exult when I am extolled, nor shrink when I am reviled. Few have realized My Purpose and Significance, but I am not worried. When things that are not in Me are attributed to Me, why should I worry? When things that are in Me are mentioned, why should I exult? For Me, it is always, "Yes, yes, yes." IF you give up all and surrender to the Lord, He will guard you and guide you. The Lord has come just for this very task. Many hesitate to believe that things will improve, that life will be happy for all and full of joy, and that the Golden Age will recur. Let me assure you that this Dharmaswarupa, this divine body, has not come in vain. It will succeed in averting the crisis that has come upon humanity."

"Sathya Sai Baba was an avatar of compassion, love, and selfless service for all mankind. He made no distinction between human beings. Thousands of poor people undergo treatment at his super-specialty hospital in Puttapurthi free of cost. That is the ultimate sewa; for people who cannot afford expensive treatment. Sai Baba's high ideals will show mankind the way for ages to come. His followers will always feel blessed with his emotional and spiritual proximity at all times."

"Elevated souls like Sathya Sai Baba do not come on this earth plane often. Unborn generations to come will wonder at and be amazed by the grandeur of the individual that Baba was and will revere him as a benefactor of humanity. His overpowering love mesmerised and drew to him thousands from all over the world. His giving nature, his caring and sharing made him focus his energies towards ameliorating the suffering of others. For him to live was to love. His enigmatic and charismatic persona will hold sway over the generations to come. His teachings will continue to guide and assist thousands. The world has been left a richer and a better place by having been blessed by the holy presence of Sathya Sai Baba."

"The demise of the body was inevitable. But like the sun, which neither rises nor sets, consciousness was indestructible. The message of love and compassion given by Sai Baba had the power to inspire all. Through the implementation of his teachings, he would live forever. May his devotees be able to follow the path of truth and dharma shown by him"

"As a proponent of egalitarian values, he strived to create a world free of the divisions of caste, creed, religion, race and gender. His social initiatives, notably in the fields of education and public health, have been a great service to the world. His demise brings to a close an enigmatic persona that has been a great inspiration."

"Sri Sathya Sai Baba will continue to live in the hearts of millions of devotees. His message of 'Love All and Serve All' will resonate in the world forever. His messages have always been universal; especially his message of 'Satya Dharma Shanti Prema' which has transcended all barriers of caste and religion. As Baba has departed earlier than he had predicted, he will return to the planet earlier."

"Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, as he was known, is one of the great spiritual luminaries of the 21st century. Even after his Mahasamadhi, his life and teachings will continue to inspire and influence people to live a noble life. The monumental work that he initiated and achieved is indeed exemplary. In Chinmaya Mission we have many fond memories of our Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda relating his many meetings with Bhagawan, and the love and regard they shared for each other. We pay our reverential homage to him."

"It would be simpler to say that the more you limit yourself the more normal you are and the more you expand yourself the more special you are. Here the implication of the word expansion goes beyond one’s own body and immediate family, say, maybe, expanding till your neighbourhood, colony, city, country, world... the entire creation. Expansion is directly proportional to your level of evolution — the more evolved you are, the more expanded you are and the more you will care about your surroundings. Satya Sai Baba was one such evolved, expanded human being... A person who is in vairagya, which is called one of the finalities in Sanatan Kriya, is least concerned about critics or acclaims. He just moves on the chosen path. It’s of no consequence to him who is saying what about him... good or bad. It’s his mission which is important and of utmost concern to him. No matter who says what, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the occasion, he finds some way to put his point across and that too very effectively."

"When such a spiritual personality passes away, we do not pray for their Satgati (divine beatitude) or Atma Shanti (Supreme Peace). On the contrary, we pray to them for our peace and happiness, for they have attained all that and more even when they are in the physical bodies. Mankind will be ever greatful to Babaji for making their lives more beautiful and worth living. May Babaji's blessing continue to shower on one and all alike!"

"Baba's words and actions have lit the lamp of love in the hearts of devotees and they will always remember him for the good things he has done."

"I learnt of the passing away of Sri Satya Saibaba with deep and profound sadness. Sri Satya Saibaba was a spiritual leader who inspired millions to lead a moral and meaningful life even as they followed the religion of their choice. His teachings were rooted in the universal ideals of truth, right conduct, peace, love and non-violence... He believed that it is the duty of every person to ensure that all people have access to the basic requirements for sustenance of life. Sri Satya Saibaba was an inspiration to people of all faiths. The passing away of Sri Satya Saibaba is an irreparable loss to all and the nation deeply mourns his passing away..."

"He's been the moving force behind my life and the life of my family. For us he is God almighty and therefore we are pained."

"Baba has always been my mentor and it was a great loss when he left us. But I remember his lessons and will continue to adhere to them. I felt very low on the day that I sat near his body."

"The news of the death of Sai Baba of Puttaparthi has greatly pained me. He was a spiritual person on whom lakhs of people had faith. In his lifetime, he inspired the people of this country and those abroad towards spiritualism and religion."

"In passing away of Sri Sathya Sai Baba the country has lost an iconic spiritual leader and a philanthropist."

"The topmost elite of Indian society were also endorsing him. The Indian President, the Prime Minister, the highest judge of the county, governors, chief ministers, members of parliament, vice chancellors of universities, super rich businessmen from Hongkong or America, scientists from all over the world—they all came to see Sai Baba during the seven years I lived in the ashram. He was, as it were, a publicly certified saint. Can so many people go wrong in their judgment regarding his genuineness? I did not think so. I was by now 100 per cent sure that Sai Baba was what he claimed to be—a full avatar—and was glad that I had the good fortune to have him as my guru. To share my guru with millions of others was not what I had dreamt of but, since Sai Baba was extraordinary special, I felt it was great that so many people recognised him as an avatar. We were lucky, because it was not easy, said Sai Baba himself, to entrust oneself to somebody who was still alive. It is much easier, if someone has passed away already."

"Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee: All things pass; God never changes. Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices."

"To have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that."

"It is love alone that gives value to all things."

"Pain is never permanent."

"He who cares nothing for the good things of the world has dominion over them all."

"One of my brothers was nearly of my own age; and he it was whom I most loved, though I was very fond of them all, and they of me. He and I used to read Lives of Saints together. When I read of martyrdom undergone by the Saints for the love of God, it struck me that the vision of God was very cheaply purchased; and I had a great desire to die a martyr's death, — not out of any love of Him of which I was conscious, but that I might most quickly attain to the fruition of those great joys of which I read that they were reserved in Heaven; and I used to discuss with my brother how we could become martyrs. We settled to go together to the country of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, that we might be there beheaded; and our Lord, I believe, had given us courage enough, even at so tender an age, if we could have found the means to proceed; but our greatest difficulty seemed to be our father and mother."

"It will be as well, I think, to explain these locutions of God, and to describe what the soul feels when it receives them, in order that you, my father, may understand the matter; for ever since that time of which I am speaking, when our Lord granted me that grace, it has been an ordinary occurrence until now, as will appear by what I have yet to say. The words are very distinctly formed; but by the bodily ear they are not heard. They are, however, much more clearly understood than they would be if they were heard by the ear. It is impossible not to understand them, whatever resistance we may offer. When we wish not to hear anything in this world, we can stop our ears, or give attention to something else: so that, even if we do hear, at least we can refuse to understand. In this locution of God addressed to the soul there is no escape, for in spite of ourselves we must listen; and the understanding must apply itself so thoroughly to the comprehension of that which God wills we should hear, that it is nothing to the purpose whether we will it or not; for it is His will, Who can do all things."

"All things fail; but Thou, Lord of all, never failest! They who love Thee, oh, how little they have to suffer! oh, how gently, how tenderly, how sweetly Thou, O my Lord, dealest with them! Oh, that no one had ever been occupied with any other love than Thine! It seems as if Thou didst subject those who love Thee to a severe trial: but it is in order that they may learn, in the depths of that trial, the depths of Thy love. O my God, oh, that I had understanding and learning, and a new language, in order to magnify Thy works, according to the knowledge of them which my soul possesses! Everything fails me, O my Lord; but if Thou wilt not abandon me, I will never fail Thee. Let all the learned rise up against me, — let the whole creation persecute me, — let the evil spirits torment me, — but do Thou, O Lord, fail me not; for I know by experience now the blessedness of that deliverance which Thou dost effect for those who trust only in Thee. In this distress, — for then I had never had a single vision, — these Thy words alone were enough to remove it, and give me perfect peace: "Be not afraid, my daughter: it is I; and I will not abandon thee. Fear not." It seems to me that, in the state I was in then, many hours would have been necessary to calm me, and that no one could have done it. Yet I found myself, through these words alone, tranquil and strong, courageous and confident, at rest and enlightened; in a moment, my soul seemed changed, and I felt I could maintain against all the world that my prayer was the work of God. Oh, how good is God! how good is our Lord, and how powerful! He gives not counsel only, but relief as well. His words are deeds. O my God! as He strengthens our faith, love grows."

"Seeing, then, that our Lord is so powerful, — as I see and know He is, — and that the evil spirits are His slaves, of which there can be no doubt, because it is of faith, — and I a servant of this our Lord and King, — what harm can Satan do unto me? Why have I not strength enough to fight against all hell? I took up the cross in my hand, — I was changed in a moment into another person, and it seemed as if God had really given me courage enough not to be afraid of encountering all the evil spirits."

"I feared them so little, that the terrors, which until now oppressed me, quitted me altogether; and though I saw them occasionally, — I shall speak of this by and by, — I was never again afraid of them — on the contrary, they seemed to be afraid of me. I found myself endowed with a certain authority over them, given me by the Lord of all, so that I cared no more for them than for flies. They seem to be such cowards; for their strength fails them at the sight of any one who despises them. These enemies have not the courage to assail any but those whom they see ready to give in to them, or when God permits them to do so, for the greater good of His servants, whom they may try and torment."

"May it please His Majesty that we fear Him whom we ought to fear, and understand that one venial sin can do us more harm than all hell together; for that is the truth. The evil spirits keep us in terror, because we expose ourselves to the assaults of terror by our attachments to honours, possessions, and pleasures. For then the evil spirits, uniting themselves with us, — we become our own enemies when we love and seek what we ought to hate, — do us great harm. We ourselves put weapons into their hands, that they may assail us; those very weapons with which we should defend ourselves. It is a great pity. But if, for the love of God, we hated all this, and embraced the cross, and set about His service in earnest, Satan would fly away before such realities, as from the plague. He is the friend of lies, and a lie himself. He will have nothing to do with those who walk in the truth. When he sees the understanding of any one obscured, he simply helps to pluck out his eyes; if he sees any one already blind, seeking peace in vanities, — for all the things of this world are so utterly vanity, that they seem to be but the playthings of a child, — he sees at once that such a one is a child; he treats him as a child, and ventures to wrestle with him — not once, but often. May it please our Lord that I be not one of these; and may His Majesty give me grace to take that for peace which is really peace, that for honour which is really honour, and that for delight which is really a delight. Let me never mistake one thing for another — and then I snap my fingers at all the devils, for they shall be afraid of me. I do not understand those terrors which make us cry out, Satan, Satan! when we may say, God, God! and make Satan tremble. Do we not know that he cannot stir without the permission of God? What does it mean? I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors. I have spent some years of such great anxiety, that even now I am amazed that I was able to bear it. Blessed be our Lord, who has so effectually helped me!"

"I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful — his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it.I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying."

"It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is a great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond and in the outer wall of the castle – that is to say in these bodies of ours."

"We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble."

"Just as we cannot stop the movement of the heavens, revolving as they do with such speed, so we cannot restrain our thought. And then we send all the faculties of the soul after it, thinking we are lost, and have misused the time that we are spending in the presence of God. Yet the soul may perhaps be wholly united with Him in the Mansions very near His presence, while thought remains in the outskirts of the castle, suffering the assaults of a thousand wild and venomous creatures and from this suffering winning merit. So this must not upset us, and we must not abandon the struggle, as the devil tries to make us do. Most of these trials and times of unrest come from the fact that we do not understand ourselves."

"God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher."

"We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him."

"Never exaggerate, but express your feelings with moderation."

"Never affirm anything unless you are sure it is true."

"Always think of yourself as everyone's servant; look for Christ Our Lord in everyone and you will then have respect and reverence for them all."

"Reflect upon the providence and wisdom of God in all created things and praise Him in them all."

"Never compare one person with another: comparisons are odious."

"Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul."

"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself."

"Dear brothers and sisters, St Teresa of Jesus is a true teacher of Christian life for the faithful of every time. In our society, which all too often lacks spiritual values, St Teresa teaches us to be unflagging witnesses of God, of his presence and of his action. She teaches us truly to feel this thirst for God that exists in the depths of our hearts, this desire to see God, to seek God, to be in conversation with him and to be his friends. This is the friendship we all need that we must seek anew, day after day. May the example of this Saint, profoundly contemplative and effectively active, spur us too every day to dedicate the right time to prayer, to this openness to God, to this journey, in order to seek God, to see him, to discover his friendship and so to find true life; indeed many of us should truly say: “I am not alive, I am not truly alive because I do not live the essence of my life”. Therefore time devoted to prayer is not time wasted, it is time in which the path of life unfolds, the path unfolds to learning from God an ardent love for him, for his Church, and practical charity for our brothers and sisters."

"You ask whether it is possible to understand the indication regarding the appearance of Christ in lesser images and in reality. Certainly. Medievalism made an inaccessible idol of Christ and deprived him of any humanity, therefore also of divinity. Thus, all the Teachings of the East proclaim that there is no god (or gods) who was not at one time a man. Such a forced separation of Christ from human essence threatened and still threatens a complete break in the communion of humanity with the Higher World. One can trace how in the Middle Ages there appeared every now and then great saints who tried to re-establish this almost lost communion, and all of them insisted precisely on the human essence of Christ. Especially strong affirmations of this can be found in the pages of the autobiography of St. Theresa, the Spanish saint of the sixteenth century, and still earlier, in the visions and writings of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Gertrude. Thus, the form and the quality of the visions and communications received through such communion always correspond with the level of the consciousness of those who see and receive them, and also with the needs of the time. As it was said, "In is precisely by following the character of the visions that the best history of the intellect may be written.""

"I strongly recommend that all read the autobiography of St. Theresa. In spite of the fact that this work went through the "spiritual" censorship of the Church, some amazing pages have been preserved. By propagating the dogma of Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, the Church contradicts the very sense of the prayer given to us by Jesus Christ himself, "Our Father which art in heaven." And also the words of the Scriptures, "So God created man in his own image." (Genesis 1:27) Thus, by claiming the exclusiveness of sonship and divine origin for Jesus Christ, the Church, by that very claim, forever divorced him from mankind. From this came a whole train of grave events; the exclusion of Jesus Christ from the life of humanity, the obliteration of his human Sacrifice and the awful suggestion implying that the death of Christ on the Cross saved humanity from "original" sin (?!) and from all subsequent sins."

"The image of St. Theresa, the Spaniard, is not less than that of St Francis of Assisi. Let us also recall the ancient times when, in spite of the fact that masculine egoism always attempted to suppress the achievements of women, there were always some illumined minds that did not submit to this shameful weakness."

"Souls are not Spaniards too; one friendly flood Of baptism blends them all into a blood. Christ's faith makes but one body of all souls, And love's that body's soul; no law controls Our free traffic for heav'n; we may maintain Peace, sure, with piety, though it come from Spain. What soul soe'er, in any language, can Speak heav'n like hers is my soul's countryman. Oh, 'tis not Spanish, but 'tis heav'n she speaks! 'Tis heaven that lies in ambush there, and breaks From thence into the wond'ring reader's breast, Who feels his warm heart hatched into a nest Of little eagles and young loves, whose high Flights scorn the lazy dust and things that die."

"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."

"Christ has no body [...] but yours. [...] Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. [...] Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world."

"The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling."

"The poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is. Let them therefore have sufficient to maintain them…"

"And now I would ask a strange question: who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all others; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plough; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory...O that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel."

"Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

"Saviour! teach me, day by day, Love's sweet lesson to obey; Sweeter lesson cannot be, Loving Him who first loved me. Charity is the very livery of Christ."

"My father was delighted to teach me to shoot with the bow. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body to the bow; not to draw with strength of arm as other nations do, but with the strength of the body."

"I have come to save the devotees. I was sent here because the world was seen in misery."

"I've burned my own house down, the torch is in my hand. Now I'll burn down the house of anyone who wants to follow me."

"Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false."

"Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way."

"A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up."

"When you were born, you cried while others laughed. Perform such deeds that when dying, you laugh while others cry.”"

"O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee. I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash: Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation. If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time."

"Kabîr says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.""

"It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs; For the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God. It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be; The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter — Even Raidas was a seeker after God."

"Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no mark of distinction."

"O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death? It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body: If He is found now, He is found then, If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter."

"Do not go to the garden of flowers! O Friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty."

"Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world! consider it well, and know that this is your own country."

"When you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart; He will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you will know indeed that He transcends this universe."

"He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded: He has spread His form of love throughout all the world. From that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are perpetually springing: and He pervades those forms."

"There the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite One; There in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon the great Being sits — Millions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of His body."

"On the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded! and its notes pierce the heart: There the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death."

"They call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all truths are stored! There within Him creation goes forward, which is beyond all philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him: There is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the Nameless Being, of whom naught can be said. Only he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than all that is heard and said. No form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I tell you that which it is?"

"He comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the Lord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains to Him. Kabîr says: "It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it cannot be written on paper: It is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing — how shall it be explained?""

"I do not quote from the scriptures; I simply see what I see."

"When the bride is one with her lover, who cares about the wedding party?"

"I am not a Hindu, Nor a Muslim am I! I am this body, a play Of five elements; a drama Of the spirit dancing With joy and sorrow."

"A drop Melting into the sea, Everyone can see. But the sea Absorped In a drop — A rare one can follow!"

"I am looking at you, You at him, Kabir asks, how to solve This puzzle — You, he, and I?"

"Poets like Jayasi, Rahim, and Raskhan are rare phenomena. So are saints like Kabir, Nanak and Gharib Das. They attempted a synthesis of the two cultural streams in the field of literature in their own way. But their endeavours were severly limited and short-lived. They failed to be popular amongst and influence the Muslims."

"I have it on good authority that Kabir's thought is Hindu through and through. The fable that Kabir brought a synthesis between Islam and Hinduism, does not survive a comparison between his works and the Quran. That Kabir was a simple weaver who produced lofty poetry just like that, is another fable for children of socialists : Kabir was well-read and knew his classics. There are hardly any Muslims in the Kabirpanth, and it is only the Hindus who venerate him. The simplest proof that his contribution to Indian culture was un-Islamic, is that he was persecuted for his Kafir ideas by the Muslim ruler Sikandar Lodi."

"It is often said that the 15th-century poet Kabir was neither a Hindu nor a Muslim because he criticized and mocked both Hinduism and Islam, or rather, both Hindus and Muslims... Thus, Kabir’s rejection of Islamic animal sacrifice... does pit him against Islam as such. But Hinduism has far more fluid boundaries: most things Hindu have been rejected at one time or other by authoritative thinkers whose inclusion in the Hindu category is not in doubt... Kabir’s relative originality lies in his combination of devotion with the conception of the object of devotion as faceless (nirguna, “without quality”) rather than iconographically distinct, but that doesn’t place him outside the Hindu continuum... Scholars who place Kabir (or Sikhism founder Guru Nanak) as much outside Hinduism as outside Islam, may be suspected of projecting non-Hindu, mainly Christian categories of box-type religious divisions onto a civilization in which they don’t apply."

"While there is evidence that both Hindus and Muslims were ready to assault Kabir physically during his lifetime, they have since his death been ready to assault each other over the privilege of claiming him as their own. … Some modern commentators have tried to present Kabir as a synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam; but the picture is a false one. While drawing on various traditions as he saw fit, Kabir emphatically declared his independence from both the major religions of his countrymen, vigorously attacked the follies of both, and tried to kindle the fire of similar autonomy and courage in those who claimed to be his disciples."

"The basis of Kabir’s belief was not, as has been commonly supposed, Vaisnava bhakti or Sufism but tantric yoga. Kabir’s name is certainly a Muslim one, but it has always been clear that his knowledge of Islam was relatively slight. In contrast to this there is a wealth of hatha-yoga terminology and a thought-structure with obvious resemblances to that of the Naths. In the light of this contrast the theory that Kabir belonged to a caste which had recently been converted from tantric yoga to Islam is at once convincing."

"The contrast of Kabir’s intimate Hindu thought, writings and ritual with the purely superficial knowledge of Moslem belief revealed in the Bijak is too striking to be ignored."

"Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the "sure true Friend" of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, "melted and merged in the Unity," and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole."

"The whole background of Kabir’s thought is Hindu."

"Augustine, Augustine, quid quaeris? Putasne brevi immettere vasculo mare totum?"

"Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. Et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, trascende et teipsum."

"Nowhere in the Gospel do we read that the Lord said: "I am sending you a Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon." For He wanted to make Christians, not mathematicians."

"The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others."

"Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum."

"An unjust law is no law at all."

"God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist."

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works."

"Ergo noli quaerere intelligere ut credas, sed crede ut intelligas."

"Spiritalis enim virtus Sacramenti ita est ut lux: et ab illuminandis pura excipitur, et si per immundos transeat, non inquinatur."

"If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Jesus spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think that he will find in it, so far as regards the highest morals, a perfect standard of the Christian life: and this we do not rashly venture to promise, but gather it from the very words of the Lord Himself. For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life. … He has sufficiently indicated, as I think, that these sayings which He uttered on the mount so perfectly guide the life of those who may be willing to live according to them, that they may justly be compared to one building upon a rock."

"What, then, does He say? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." We read in Scripture concerning the striving after temporal things, "All is vanity and presumption of spirit"; but presumption of spirit means audacity and pride: usually also the proud are said to have great spirits; and rightly, inasmuch as the wind also is called spirit. And hence it is written, "Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of tempest." But, indeed, who does not know that the proud are spoken of as puffed up, as if swelled out with wind? And hence also that expression of the apostle, "Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies". And the poor in spirit are rightly understood here, as meaning the humble and God-fearing, i.e. those who have not the spirit which puffs up. Nor ought blessedness to begin at any other point whatever, if indeed it is to attain unto the highest wisdom; "but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"; for, on the other hand also, "pride" is entitled "the beginning of all sin." Let the proud, therefore, seek after and love the kingdoms of the earth; but "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.""

"Patientia comes est sapientiae"

"If thou shouldst say, 'It is enough, I have reached perfection,' all is lost. For it is the function of perfection to make one know one's imperfection."

"Timeo Dominum transeuntem"

"Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider."

"If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God."

"All those of you who rejoice in peace, now it is time to judge the truth.... Undoubtedly in days gone by there were holy men as Scripture tells, For God stated that he left behind seven thousand men in safety, And there are many priests and kings who are righteous under the law, There you find so many of the prophets, and many of the people too. Tell me which of the righteous of that time claimed an altar for himself? That wicked nation perpetrated a very large number of crimes, They sacrificed to idols and may prophets were put to death, Yet not a single one of the righteous withdrew from unity. The righteous endured the unrighteous while waiting for the winnower: They all mingled in one temple but were not mingled in their hearts; They said such things against them yet they had a single altar."

"Venite fratres, si vultis ut inseramini in vite; Dolor est cum vos videmus praecisos ita jacere. Numerate sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Petri sede; Et in ordine illo Patrum quis cui successit videte. Ipsa est petra, quam non vincunt superbae inferorum portae. (PL 43:30 )."

"Laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitatem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium, quia superbis resistis; et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae. Tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te."

"The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls."

"I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake."

"Nondum amabam, et amare amabam...quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare."

"Et illa erant fercula, in quibus mihi esurienti te inferebatur sol et luna."

"Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels — both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish."

"For it still seemed to me “that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us.” And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong not to have to confess that I had done wrong. … I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin then was all the more incurable because I did not deem myself a sinner."

"The Catholic faith, … I now realized could be maintained without presumption. This was especially true after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically—whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had “killed” me spiritually."

"I read there [in "certain books of the Platonists"] that God the Word was born "not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God." But, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" — I found this nowhere there."

"At ego adulescens miser ualde, miser in exordio ipsius adulescentiae, etiam petieram a te castitatem et dixeram, 'Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo."

"Dicebam haec et flebam amarissima contritione cordis mei. Et ecce audio vocem de vicina domo cum cantu dicentis et crebro repetentis, quasi pueri an puellae, nescio: tolle lege, tolle lege. Statimque mutato vultu intentissimus cogitare coepi utrumnam solerent pueri in aliquo genere ludendi cantitare tale aliquid. Nec occurrebat omnino audisse me uspiam, repressoque impetu lacrimarum surrexi, nihil aliud interpretans divinitus mihi iuberi nisi ut aperirem codicem et legerem quod primum caput invenissem. Audieram enim de Antonio quod ex evangelica lectione cui forte supervenerat admonitus fuerit, tamquam sibi diceretur quod legebatur: "Vade, vende omnia quae habes, et da pauperibus et habebis thesaurum in caelis; et veni, sequere me," et tali oraculo confestim ad te esse conversum. Itaque concitus redii in eum locum ubi sedebat Alypius: ibi enim posueram codicem apostoli cum inde surrexeram. arripui, aperui, et legi in silentio capitulum quo primum coniecti sunt oculi mei: "Non in comessationibus et ebrietatibus, non in cubilibus et impudicitiis, non in contentione et aemulatione, sed induite dominum Iesum Christum et carnis providentiam ne feceritis in concupiscentiis." Nec ultra volui legere nec opus erat. Statim quippe cum fine huiusce sententiae quasi luce securitatis infusa cordi meo omnes dubitationis tenebrae diffugerunt."

"But the inner part is the better part; for to it, as both ruler and judge, all these messengers of the senses report the answers of heaven and earth and all the things therein, who said, "We are not God, but he made us." My inner man knew these things through the ministry of the outer man, and I, the inner man, knew all this — I, the soul, through the senses of my body. I asked the whole frame of earth about my God, and it answered, "I am not he, but he made me.""

"Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi! et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam."

"(On the Trinitarian indwelling personally experienced by Saint Augustine) But what is it that I love in loving You? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man — where that light shines unto my soul which no place can contain, where that sounds which time snatches not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperses, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clings which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God."

"Da quod iubes, et iube quod vis. Imperas nobis … continentiam."

"Mihi quaestio factus sum."

"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."

"There is another form of temptation, more complex in its peril. … It originates in an appetite for knowledge. … From this malady of curiosity are all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. Hence do we proceed to search out the secret powers of nature (which is beside our end), which to know profits not, and wherein men desire nothing but to know."

"Ecce respondeo dicenti, 'quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?' respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse perhibetur, ioculariter eludens quaestionis violentiam: 'alta,' inquit, 'scrutantibus gehennas parabat.' aliud est videre, aliud ridere: haec non respondeo. libentius enim responderim, 'nescio quod nescio' quam illud unde inridetur qui alta interrogavit et laudatur qui falsa respondit."

"Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio."

"You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours."

"Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum."

"Wonderful is the depth of Thy oracles, whose surface is before us, inviting the little ones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my God, wonderful is the depth. It is awe to look into it; and awe of honour, and a tremor of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently. Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with Thy two-edged sword, that they be not its enemies! For thus do I love, that they should be slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee."

"To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer. There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness."

"Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor."

"Thus, in this universal catastrophe, the sufferings of Christians have tended to their moral improvement, because they viewed them with eyes of faith."

"Ipsa libido dominandi, quae inter alia uitia generis humani meracior inerat uniuerso populo Romano, postea quam in paucis potentioribus uicit, obtritos fatigatosque ceteros etiam iugo seruitutis oppressit.'Nam quando illa quiesceret in superbissimis mentibus, donec continuatis honoribus ad potestatem regiam perueniret? Honorum porro continuandorum facultas non esset, nisi ambitio praeualeret. Minime autem praeualeret ambitio, nisi in populo auaritia luxuriaque corrupto."

"The Heavenly City outshines Rome, beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity."

"The dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of which vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, “For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.”"

"Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? quia et latrocinia quid sunt nisi parua regna? Manus et ipsa hominum est, imperio principis regitur, pacto societatis astringitur, placiti lege praeda diuiditur. Hoc malum si in tantum perditorum hominum accessibus crescit, ut et loca teneat sedes constituat, ciuitates occupet populos subiuget, euidentius regni nomen adsumit, quod ei iam in manifesto confert non dempta cupiditas, sed addita inpunitas. Eleganter enim et ueraciter Alexandro illi Magno quidam comprehensus pirata respondit. Nam cum idem rex hominem interrogaret, quid ei uideretur, ut mare haberet infestum, ille libera contumacia: Quod tibi, inquit, ut orbem terrarum; sed quia ego exiguo nauigio facio, latro uocor; quia tu magna classe, imperator."

"Ad eum dilectione tendimus, ut perueniendo quiescamus, ideo beati, quia illo fine perfecti. Bonum enim nostrum, de cuius fine inter philosophos magna contentio est, nullum est aliud quam illi cohaerere, cuius unius anima intellectualis incorporeo, si dici potest, amplexu ueris impletur fecundaturque uirtutibus. Hoc bonum diligere in toto corde, in tota anima et in tota uirtute praecipimur; ad hoc bonum debemus et a quibus diligimur duci, et quos diligimus ducere. Sic complentur duo illa praecepta in quibus tota lex pendet et prophetae: Diliges Dominum Deum tuum in toto corde tuo et in tota anima tua et in tota mente tua, et: Diliges proximum tuum tamquam te ipsum. Vt enim homo se diligere nosset, constitutus est ei finis, quo referret omnia quae ageret, ut beatus esset; non enim qui se diligit aliud uult esse quam beatus. Hic autem finis est adhaerere Deo. Iam igitur scienti diligere se ipsum, cum mandatur de proximo diligendo sicut se ipsum, quid aliud mandatur, nisi ut ei, quantum potest, commendet diligendum Deum?"

"For if they imagine infinite spaces of time before the world, during which God could not have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the world infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that the Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it not follow that they must adopt Epicurus’ dream of innumerable worlds? with this difference only, that he asserts that they are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they will hold that they are made by God’s hand, if they maintain that, throughout the boundless immensity of space, stretching interminably in every direction round the world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they suppose Him to make cannot be destroyed. ...neither does it follow that we should suppose that God was guided by chance when He created the world in that and no earlier time, although previous times had been running by during an infinite past, and though there was no difference by which one time could be chosen in preference to another. But if they say that the thoughts of men are idle when they conceive infinite places, since there is no place beside the world, we reply that, by the same showing, it is vain to conceive of the past times of God’s rest, since there is no time before the world."

"For when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called “Day,” in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” — this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”"

"We both are, and know that we are, and delight in our being, and our knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things outside of us of all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but not themselves which we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved, the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish [themself] to be [into being]. For how can he be happy, if he is nothing?"

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked."

"The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank the friendship of the holy angels in the fourth circle of society, advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to the universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear that the angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as familiarly as with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we read, sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary to discipline, or just to deceive, there is great need of God’s mercy to preserve us from making friends of demons in disguise, while we fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the astuteness and deceitfulness of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness."

"But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another, say that a people is an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love, then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and is bound together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it is reasonably called a people; and it will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together by lower."

"Quaerite, Donatistae, si nescitis, quaerite ab Ierusalem per terrena itinera in circuitu usque in Illyricum quot mansiones sint: si tot Ecclesias computemus, dicite quemadmodum per Africanas contentiones perire potuerunt. Ad Corinthios, ad Ephesios, ad Philippenses, ad Thessalonicenses, ad Colossenses vos solas Apostoli epistulas in lectione, nos autem et epistulas in lectione ac fide et ipsas Ecclesias in communione retinemus. PL 43, 414"

"The Head and the body are Christ wholly and entirely. The Head is the only begotten Son of God, the body is His Church; the bridegroom and the bride, two in one flesh. All who dissent from the Scriptures concerning Christ, although they may be found in all places in which the Church is found, are not in the Church; and again all those who agree with the Scriptures concerning the Head, and do not communicate in the unity of the Church, are not in the Church"

"We may not assent to the teaching even of the Catholic bishops, if at any time they are deceived into opinions contrary to the canonical Scriptures of God; but if they should so fall into error, and yet maintain the bond of unity and charity, let the apostle's saying avail in their case: 'And if in anything ye are otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.' Now these divine words have so manifest an application to the whole Church, that none but heretics in their stubborn perverseness and blind fury can bark against them. (Cf. Augustine's Reply to Faustus the Manichaean (Contra Faustum), book 11, 5 )"

"The light will not shame you, if it shows you your own ugliness, and that ugliness so offends you that you perceive the beauty of the light."

"What is love's perfection? To love our enemies, and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers."

"In a quarrel for earth, turn not to earth."

"Shut out the evil love of the world, that you may be filled with the love of God. You are a vessel that was already full: you must pour away what you have, that you may take in what you have not."

"A man might say, "The things that are in the world are what God has made. ... Why should I not love what God has made?" ...Suppose, my brethren, a man should make for his betrothed a ring, and she should prefer the ring given her to the betrothed who made it for her, would not her heart be convicted of infidelity? ... God has given you all these things: therefore, love him who made them."

"Let each look to his own heart: let him not keep hatred against his brother for any hard word; on account of earthly contention let him not become earth."

"Quantum in te crescit amor, tantum crescit pulchritudo; quia ipsa caritas est animae pulchritudo."

"The inclination to seek the truth is safer than the presumption which regards unknown things as known."

"When I, who conduct this inquiry, love something, then three things are found: I, what I love, and the love itself. … There are, therefore three things: the lover, the beloved and the love."

"The mind itself, its love [of itself] and its knowledge [of itself] are a kind of trinity."

"Yes, you see the Trinity if you see charity."

"Even then [at the time of Peter's speech in Acts 2] it was the last days; how much more so now, when there must still be as much time till the end of the world as has passed since the ascension of the Lord! We do not know the end of the world, because it is not for us to know the times or the seasons that the Father has set in his power; but we know that, like the apostles, we live in the last times, in the last days, in the last hour. Those who lived after the apostles and before us were more in what we call the last times, and we ourselves are in them even more than they; those who will come after us will be so much more, till one gets to those who will be, if one may say so, the last of the last, and finally till that day, the very last, of which the Lord means to speak when he said, "And I will raise him up on the last day". How far are we from that day? That is an impenetrable secret."

"Salus extra ecclesiam non est or Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus"

"Who dismisses his adulterous wife and marries another woman, whereas his first wife still lives, remains perpetually in the state of adultery. Such a man does not any efficacious penance while he refuses to abandon the new wife. If he is a catechumen, he cannot be admitted to baptism, because his will remains rooted in the evil. If he is a (baptized) penitent, he cannot receive the (ecclesiastical) reconciliation as long as he does not break with his bad attitude."

"Quapropter bono christiano, sive mathematici, sive quilibet impie divinantium, maxime dicentes vera, cavendi sunt, ne consortio daemoniorum animam deceptam, pacto quodam societatis irretiant."

"In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.""

"To such a one my answer is that I have arrived at a nourishing kernel in that I have learnt that a man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith which he ought to make to those who try to defame our Holy Scripture. When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the Catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. And we will so cling to our Mediator, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” that we will not be led astray by the glib talk of false philosophy or frightened by the superstition of false religion. When we read the inspired books in the light of this wide variety of true doctrines which are drawn from a few words and founded on the firm basis of Catholic belief, let us choose that one which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the author. But if this is not clear, then at least we should choose an interpretation in keeping with the context of Scripture and in harmony with our faith. But if the meaning cannot be studied and judged by the context of Scripture, at least we should choose only that which our faith demands. For it is one thing to fail to recognize the primary meaning of the writer, and another to depart from the norms of religious belief. If both these difficulties are avoided, the reader gets full profit from his reading.""

"Plerumque enim accidit ut aliquid de terra, de coelo, de caeteris mundi huius elementis, de motu et conversione vel etiam magnitudine et intervallis siderum, de certis defectibus solis ac lunae, de circuitibus annorum et temporum, de naturis animalium, fruticum, lapidum, atque huiusmodi caeteris, etiam non christianus ita noverit, ut certissima ratione vel experientia teneat. Turpe est autem nimis et perniciosum ac maxime cavendum, ut christianum de his rebus quasi secundum christianas Litteras loquentem, ita delirare audiat, ut, quemadmodum dicitur, toto coelo errare conspiciens, risum tenere vix possit. Et non tam molestum est, quod errans homo deridetur, sed quod auctores nostri ab eis qui foris sunt, talia sensisse creduntur, et cum magno eorum exitio de quorum salute satagimus, tamquam indocti reprehenduntur atque respuuntur. Cum enim quemquam de numero Christianorum in ea re quam optime norunt, errare comprehenderint, et vanam sententiam suam de nostris Libris asserere; quo pacto illis Libris credituri sunt, de resurrectione mortuorum, et de spe vitae aeternae, regnoque coelorum, quando de his rebus quas iam experiri, vel indubitatis numeris percipere potuerunt, fallaciter putaverint esse conscriptos? Quid enim molestiae tristitiaeque ingerant prudentibus fratribus temerarii praesumptores, satis dici non potest, cum si quando de prava et falsa opinatione sua reprehendi, et convinci coeperint ab eis qui nostrorum Librorum auctoritate non tenentur, ad defendendum id quod levissima temeritate et apertissima falsitate dixerunt, eosdem Libros sanctos, unde id probent, proferre conantur, vel etiam memoriter, quae ad testimonium valere arbitrantur, multa inde verba pronuntiant, non intellegentes neque quae loquuntur, neque de quibus affirmant."

"Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good."

"God is one, and the Church is a unity; only unity can respond to him who is one. But there are some people why say, “Yes, that certainly was the case. The Church spread among all nations did respond to him, bearing more children than did the wedded wife. It responded to him in the way of his strength, for it believed that Christ had risen. All nations believed in him. But that Church which was drawn from all nations no longer exists: it has perished.” So say people who are not within the Church. What an impudent assertion! The Church does not exist because you are not in it? Be careful lest such an attitude result in your not existing yourself, for the Church will be here even if you are not. But the Spirit of God anticipated this abominable, detestable assertion, this claim full of presumption and falsehood, a claim with nothing to support it, illumined by no spark of wisdom, seasoned by no salt. God’s Spirit anticipated this empty, unfounded, foolhardy and pernicious proposition and seemingly refuted it in advance by proclaiming that the Church is united by the gathering of the people together into one, and kingdoms to serve the Lord."

"We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot."

"So the Church imitates the Lord’s mother — not in the bodily sense, which it could not do — but in mind it is both mother and virgin. In no way, then, did Christ deprive his mother of her virginity by being"

"But it isn’t just a matter of faith, but of faith and works. Each is necessary. For the demons also believe — you heard the apostle — and tremble (Jas 2:19); but their believing doesn’t do them any good. Faith alone is not enough, unless works too are joined to it: Faith working through love (Gal 5:6), says the apostle."

"Non enim amat Deus damnare sed salvare, et ideo patiens est in malos, ut de malis faciat bonos."

"Magnus esse vis, a minimo incipe. Cogitas magnam fabricam construere celsitudinis, de fundamento prius cogita humilitatis. Et quantam quisque vult et disponit superimponere molem aedificii, quanto erit maius aedificium, tanto altius fodit fundamentum."

"Quid est ira? Libido vindictae. Quid est odium? Ira inveterata."

"Ira festuca est, odium trabes est."

"Date ergo pauperibus: rogo, moneo, praecipio, iubeo."

"But let us realize what sort of rich people. Here comes heaven knows who across our path, wrapped in rags, and he has been jumping for joy and laughing on hearing it said that the rich man can’t enter the kingdom of heaven; and he’s been saying, “I, though, will enter; that’s what theses rags will earn me; those who treat s badly and insult us, those who bear down hard upon us won’t enter; no, that sort certainly won’t enter. But just a minute, Mr. Poor Man; consider whether you can, in fact, enter. What if you’re poor, and also happen to be greedy? What if you’re sunk in destitution, and at the same time on fire with avarice? So if that’s what you’re like, whoever you are that are poor, it’s not because you haven’t wanted to be rich, but because you haven’t been able to. So God doesn’t inspect your means, but he observes your will. So if that’s what you’re like, leading a bad life, of bad morals, a blasphemer, an adulterer, a drunkard, proud, cross yourself off the list of God’s poor; you won’t be among those of whom it is said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, since theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3)."

"The fellow who eggs you on to avenge yourself will rob you of what you were going to say – as we forgive our debtors. When you have forfeited that, all your sins will be held against you; absolutely nothing is forgiven."

"Columba amat et quando caedit. Lupus odit et quando blanditur."

"Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times."

"So there you are; listen; as I said, God "worships" us in the sense of tending our worth. That we worship God, of course, doesn't need proving to you. It's on everybody's lips, after all, that human beings worship God. That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God. So I've got to prove to you that God too does "worship" human beings, or you will consider, perhaps, that I have used the word very carelessly, and begin arguing against me in your thoughts, and finding fault with me because you don't in fact grasp what I have been saying. So it's agreed that this is what has to be demonstrated to you: that God also "worships" us; but in the sense I have already mentioned, that he tends our worth as his field, to make improvements in us. The Lord says in the gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the farm worker (Jn 15:5,1). What does a farm worker do? I'm asking you, those of you who are farm workers and farmers. What does a farm worker do? I presume he works his farm, that is, tends its worth, that is, "worships" it, in a sense. So if God the Father is a farmer or farm worker, it means he has a farm, and he works or "worships" his farm, and expects a crop from it."

"Factus est Deus homo ut homo fieret Deus."

"Roma locuta est; causa finita est."

"He who created you without you will not justify you without you."

"He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent."

"Caritas radix est omnium operum bonorum."

"I too have sworn heedlessly and all the time, I have had this most repulsive and death-dealing habit. I’m telling your graces; from the moment I began to serve God, and saw what evil there is in forswearing oneself, I grew very afraid indeed, and out of fear I applied the brakes to this old, old, habit."

"When the apostle James was talking about faith and works against those who thought their faith was enough, and didn’t want to have good works, he said, You believe God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and tremble.” (Jas 2:19)"

"So the Church too, like Mary, enjoys perpetual virginity and uncorrupted fecundity."

"Don’t hold yourselves cheap, seeing that the creator of all things and of you estimates your value so high, so dear, that he pours out for you every day the most precious blood of his only-begotten Son."

"Nobody should ever doubt that in the washing of rebirth (Titus 3:5) absolutely all sins, from the least to the greatest, are altogether forgiven."

"You can live, provided you live; that is, you can live for ever, provided you live a good life."

"Ideo, carissimi, veneramini martyres, laudate, amate, praedicate, honorate: Deum martyrum colite."

"Non ergo accedas, si potes, nisi liberorum procreandorum causa."

"Cantare amantis est."

"Temporibus enim nostris venit imperator in urbem Romam: ibi est templum imperatoris, ibi est sepulcrum piscatoris. Itaque ille ad deprecandam a Domino salutem imperator pius atque christianus non perrexit ad templum imperatoris superbum, sed ad sepulcrum piscatoris, ubi humilis ipsum piscatorem imitaretur, ut tunc respectus aliquid impetraret a Domino, quod superbiens imperator mereri non posset."

"Mors est poena peccati."

"Quid de se praesumit mortuus? Mori potuit de suo, reviviscere de suo non potest. Peccare per nos ipsos et potuimus et possumus nec tamen per nos resurgere aliquando poterimus. Spes nostra non sit, nisi in Deo 14. Ad illum gemamus, in illo praesumamus; quod ad nos pertinet, voluntate conemur, ut oratione mereamur."

"Dicturi ergo sunt: Dicis mihi quod resurrexerit Christus, et inde speras resurrectionem mortuorum; sed Christo licuit resurgere a mortuis. Et incipit iam laudare Christum, non ut illi det honorem, sed ut tibi faciat desperationem. Serpentis astuta pernicies, ut laude Christi te avertat a Christo, dolose praedicat quem vituperare non audet. Exaggerat maiestatem illius, ut singularem faciat, ne tu speres tale aliquid, quale in illo resurgente monstratum est. Et quasi religiosior apparet erga Christum, cum dicit: Ecce qui se audet comparare Christo, ut quia resurrexit Christus, et se resurrecturum putet. Noli perturbari perversa laude Imperatoris tui; hostiles insidiae te perturbant, sed Christi humilitas et humanitas te consolatur. Ille praedicat quantum erectus sit Christus a te: Christus autem dicit quantum descendit ad te."

"For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared."

"We were ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God."

"Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you."

"Securus iudicat orbis terrarum."

"Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: ‘Forgive us our debts,’ because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness."

"I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.""

"As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. As therefore the body perishes when the soul leaves it, so the soul dies when God departs from it."

"Christ is not valued at all unless He be valued above all."

"It is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits."

"Give, O Lord, what Thou commandest, and then command what Thou wilt."

"Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee."

"It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed."

"The true servants of God are not solicitous that He should order them to do what they desire to do, but that they may desire to do what He orders them to do."

"What is the Church? She is the body of Christ. Join to it the Head, and you have one man: The Head and the body make up one man. Who is the head? He who was born of the Virgin Mary. … And what is His body? It is His Spouse, that is, the Church.... The Father willed that these two, the God Christ and the Church, should be one man. All men are one man in Christ, and the unity of the Christians constitutes but one man. And this man is all men, all men are this man; for all are one, since Christ is one."

"Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, but we are become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If He is the Head, and we the members, then together He and we are the whole man.... This would be foolish pride on our part, were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what He promised by the mouth of the Apostle: “You are the body of Christ, and severally His members” (1 Cor. 12:27)."

"In order to understand the Scriptures, it is absolutely necessary to know the whole, complete Christ, that is, Head and members. For sometimes Christ speaks in the name of the Head alone … sometimes in the name of His body, which is the holy Church spread over the entire earth. And we are in His body … and we hear ourselves speaking in it, for the Apostle tells us: “We are members of His body” (Eph. 5:30). In many places does the Apostle tell us this."

"Christ Himself has said: “They are no longer two, but they are one flesh” (Matt. 19:6). Is it strange then, if they are one flesh, that they should have one tongue and should say the same words, since they are one flesh, Head and body? Let us therefore hear them as one. But let us listen to the Head speaking as Head, and to the body speaking as the body. We do not separate the two realities, but two different dignities; for the Head saves, and the body is saved."

"What has the Church done to thee, that thou shouldst wish to decapitate her? Thou wouldst take away her Head, and believe in the Head alone, despising the body. Vain is thy service, and false thy devotion to the Head. For to sever it from the body is an injury to both Head and body."

"Though absent from our eyes, Christ our Head is bound to us by love. Since the whole Christ is Head and body, let us so listen to the voice of the Head that we may also hear the body speak. He no more wished to speak alone than He wished to exist alone, since He says: “Behold, I am with you all days, unto the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28:20). If He is with us, then He speaks in us, He speaks of us, and He speaks through us; and we too speak in Him."

"He who disdained not to assume us unto Himself, did not disdain to take our place and speak our words, in order that we might speak His words."

"On the words of Ps. 21:3: "O My God, I shall cry day by day, and Thou wilt not hear"."

"Certainly He says this for me, for thee, for this other man, since He bears His body, the Church. Unless you imagine, brethren, that when He said: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me” (Matt. 26:39), it was the Lord that feared to die. . . . But Paul longed to die, that he might be with Christ. What? The Apostle desires to die, and Christ Himself should fear death? What can this mean, except that He bore our infirmity in Himself, and uttered these words for those who are in His body and still fear death? It is from these that the voice came; it was the voice of His members, not of the Head. When He said, “My soul is sorrowful unto death” (Matt. 26:38), He manifested Himself in thee, and thee in Himself. And when He said, “My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46), the words He uttered on the cross were not His own, but ours."

"Therefore, on hearing His words let no one say either: "These are not Christ's words," or "These are not my words." On the contrary, if he knows that he is in the body of Christ, let him say: "These are both Christ's words and my words." Say nothing without Him, and He will say nothing without thee. We must not consider ourselves as strangers to Christ, or look upon ourselves as other than Himself."

"No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word, by whom He made all things, and to unite them as members to that Head. Thus the Word became both Son of God and Son of man: one God with the Father, one Man with men. Hence, when we offer our petitions to God, let it not detach itself from its Head. Let it be He, the sole Saviour of His body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, who prays in us, and who is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our Priest; He prays in us as our Head; He is prayed to by us as our God. Let us therefore hear both our words in Him and His words in us.... We pray to Him in the form of God; He prays in the form of the slave. There He is the Creator; here He is in the creature. He changes not, but takes the creature and transforms it into Himself, making us one man, head and body, with Himself. We pray therefore to Him, and through Him, and in Him. We pray with Him, and He with us; we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites it in us."

"On Ps 60:3: “To Thee have I cried from the ends of the earth.”"

"Who is this that cries from the ends of the earth? Who is this one man who reaches to the extremities of the universe? He is one, but that one is unity. He is one, not one in a single place, but the cry of this one man comes from the remotest ends of the earth. But how can this one man cry out from the ends of the earth, unless he be one in all?"

"Christ’s whole body groans in pain. Until the end of the world, when pain will pass away, this man groans and cries to God. And each one of us has part in the cry of that whole body. Thou didst cry out in thy day, and thy days have passed away; another took thy place and cried out in his day. Thou here, he there, and another there. The body of Christ ceases not to cry out all the day, one member replacing the other whose voice is hushed. Thus there is but one man who reaches unto the end of time, and those that cry are always His members."

"The Apostle says: “I make up in my flesh what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ” (Col. 1:24). “I make up,” he tells us, “not what is lacking to my sufferings, but what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ; not in Christ’s flesh, but in mine. not in Christ's flesh, but in mine. Christ is still suffering, not in His own flesh which He took with Him into heaven, but in my flesh, which is still suffering on earth.”"

"What does the Scripture mean when it tells us of the body of one man so extended in space that all can kill him? We must understand these words of ourselves, of our Church, or the body of Christ. For Jesus Christ is one man, having a Head and a body. The Saviour of the body and the members of the body are two in one flesh, and in one voice, and in one passion, and, when iniquity shall have passed away, in one repose. And so the passion of Christ is not in Christ alone; and yet the passion of Christ is in Christ alone. For if in Christ you consider both the Head and the body, the Christ’s passion is in Christ alone; but if by Christ you mean only the Head, then Christ’s passion is not in Christ alone. Hence if you are in the members of Christ, all you who hear me, and even you who hear me not (though you do hear, if you are united with the members of Christ), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who are no among the members of Christ, was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. It is added precisely because it was lacking. You fill up the measure; you do not cause it to overflow. You will suffer just so much as must be added of your sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who suffered as our Head and who continues to suffer in His members, that is, in us. Into this common treasury each pays what he owes, and according to each one’s ability we all contribute our share of suffering. The full measure of the Passion will not be attained until the end of the world."

"When the Head and members are despised, then the whole Christ is despised, for the whole Christ, Head and body, is that just man against whom deceitful lips speak iniquity (Ps. 30:19)."

"O sons of Peace, sons of the One Catholic [Church], walk in your way, and sing as you walk. Travelers do this in order to keep up their spirits."

""For I am holy." When I hear these words I recognize the voice of the Saviour. But shall I take away my own? Certainly when He speaks thus He speaks in inseparable union with His body. But can I say, "I am holy"? If I mean a holiness that I have not received, I should be proud and a liar; but if I mean a holiness that I have received - as it is written: "Be ye holy because I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2) - then let the body of Christ say these words. And let this one man, who cries from the ends of the earth, say with his Head and united with his Head: "I am holy." … That is not foolish pride, but an expression of gratitude. If you were to say that you are holy of yourselves, that would be pride; but if, as one of Christ's faithful and as a member of Christ, you say that you are not holy, you are ungrateful. …"

"Therefore let every Christian, yea, let the whole body of Christ everywhere cry out, despite the tribulations it endures, despite temptations and countless scandals, saying: "Preserve my soul, for I am holy; save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee" (Ps. 85:2) No, this holy one is not proud, for he trusts in God."

"The members of Christ, many though they be, are bound to one another by the ties of charity and peace under the one Head, who is our Saviour Himself, and form one man. Often their voice is heard in the Psalms as the voice of one man; the cry of one is as the cry of all, for all are one in One."

"The Word takes to Himself one man, for He takes unity. He does not take schisms to Himself, nor does He take heresies. … So it is one man who is taken, and his Head is Christ. … This is that "blessed man who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly" (Ps. 1:1); this is he that is assumed. He is not outside of us. … Let us be in Him, and we shall be assumed; let us be in Him, and we shall be chosen. … Therefore this one man that is taken to become the temple of God, is at once many and one."

"Since He is the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus has been made Head of the Church, and the faithful are His members. Wherefore He says: "For them I hallow Myself" (John 17:19). But when He says, "For them I hallow Myself," what else can He mean but this: "I sanctify them in Myself, since truly they are Myself"? For, as I have remarked, they of whom He speaks are His members, and the Head of the body are one Christ. … That He signifies this unity is certain from the remainder of the same verse. For having said, "For them I hallow Myself," He immediately adds, "in order that they too may be hallowed in truth," to show that He refers to the holiness that we are to receive in Him. Now the words "in truth" can only mean "in Me," since Truth is the Word who in the beginning was God. The Son of man was Himself sanctified in the Word as the moment of His creation, when the Word was made flesh, for Word and man became one Person. It was therefore in that instant that He hallowed Himself in Himself; that is, He hallowed Himself as man, in Himself as the Word. For there is but one Christ, Word and man, sanctifying the man in the Word. But now it is on behalf of His members that He adds: "and for them I hallow Myself." That is to say, that since they too are Myself, so they too may profit by this sanctification just as I profited by it as man without them. "And for them I hallow Myself"; that is, I sanctify them in Myself as Myself, since in Me they too are Myself. "In order that they too may be hallowed in truth." What do the words "they too" mean, if not that thy may be sanctified as I am sanctified; that is to say, "in truth," which is I Myself? [Quia et ipsi sunt ego. "Since they too are myself"]"

"We are He, since we are His body and since He was made man in order to be our Head."

"We are members of this Head, and this body cannot be decapitated. If the Head is in glory forever, so too are the members in glory forever, that Christ may be undivided forever."

"In this one man, the whole Church has been assumed by the Word."

"Incomprehensible and immutable is the love wherewith God loves. He did not begin to love us only on the day we were reconciled to Him by the blood of His Son; He loved us before the world was made, that we too might become His sons together with His Only-begotten Son, long before we had any existence...."

"Love all men, even your enemies; love them, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers. Thus you will ever burn with fraternal love, both for him who is already your brother and for your enemy, that he may by loving become your brother. … Even he that does not as yet believe in Christ … love him, and love him with fraternal love. He is not yet thy brother, but love him precisely that he may be thy brother."

"What is the use of believing, if the dost blaspheme? Thou adorest Him as Head, and dost blaspheme Him in His body. He loves His body. Thou canst cut thyself off from the body, but the Head does not detach itself from its body. "Thou dost honor me in vain," He cries from heaven, "thou dost honor Me in vain!" If someone wished to kiss thy cheek, but insisted at the same time on trampling thy feet; if with his hailed boots he were to crush thy feet as he tries to hold thy head and kiss thee, wouldst thou not interrupt his expression of respect and cry out: "What are thou doing, man? Thou art trampling upon me!" … It is for this reason that before He ascended into heaven our Lord Jesus Christ recommended to us His body, by which He was to remain upon earth. For He foresaw that many would pay Him homage because of His glory in heaven, but that their homage would be vain, so long as they despise His members on earth. (pp. 436-437)"

"Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow. Thou mayest say, "I love only God, God the Father." Wrong! If Thou lovest Him, thou dost not love Him alone; but if thou lovest the Father, thou lovest also the Son. Or thou mayest say, "I love the Father and I love the Son, but these alone; God the Father and God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, the Word by whom all things were made, the Word who was made flesh and dwelt amongst us; only these do I love." Wrong again! If thou lovest the Head, thou lovest also the members; if thou lovest not the members, neither dost thou love the Head."

"Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae Ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas. (chapter 5)"

"Humilitas homines sanctis angelis similes facit, et superbia ex angelis demones facit."

"My mother spoke of Christ to my father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, gained him at the close of his life to Christ."

"Charity is no substitute for justice withheld."

"What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."

"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are."

"To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal."

"By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity."

"Woman, compared to other creatures, is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them. But compared unto man, she may not be called the image of God, for she bears not rule and lordship over man, but ought to obey him. The woman shall be subject to man as unto Christ. For woman, has not her example from the body and from the flesh, that so she shall be subject to man, as the flesh is unto the Spirit, because that the flesh in the weakness and mortality of this life lusts and strives against the Spirit, and therefore would not the Holy Ghost give example of subjection to the woman of any such thing."

"Do not despair: one thief was saved. Do not presume: one thief was damned."

"Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not."

"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."

"To my God a heart of flame; To my fellow man a heart of love; To myself a heart of steel."

"Quando hic sum, non iuieno Sabbato; quando Romae sum, iuieno Sabbato."

"In necessariis unitas, In dubiis libertas, In omnibus autem caritas."

"Qui cantat, bis orat"

"Inter faeces et urinas nascimur."

"The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page."

"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future."

"Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point."

"The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose and it will defend itself."

"There is no greater freedom than the freedom to obey."

"All truth is God's truth."

"I know, but it is no longer I."

"Many centuries ago, Saint Augustine, a saint of my church, wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love—defined by the common objects of their love. What are the common objects we as Americans love? That define us as Americans? I think we know: opportunity, security, liberty, dignity, respect, honor, and yes, the truth."

"St. Augustine occupied himself with several religious works, and among others, a Treatise on the Trinity. One day, as he was walking up and down the shore, meditating on this mystery with his mother, they saw a little child, who, having dug a tiny hole in the sand, was filling it with sea-water out of a cockle-shell. Augustine, smiling, asked him whether he thought to empty the whole ocean into it? The child replied, "Why not? It would be easier than to get into your head the incomprehensible ocean of the Holy Trinity!""

"Monica his mother was almost certainly a Berber and his father was probably a mixture of Berber and Roman ancestry."

"A Berber, born in 354 at Thagaste (now Souk-Ahras) in Africa... The exceptional brilliance of his works (The City of God, The Confessions), his contradictory nature, his desire to bring together faith and intelligence, classical and Christian civilization, the old wine and the new — these deliberate efforts made him in some ways a rationalist. For him, faith came first: but he nevertheless declared 'Credo ut intelligam' — 'I believe in order to understand.' He also said 'Si fallor, sum' — 'If I am mistaken, I exist' — and 'Si dubitat, vivit' — 'If he doubts, he is alive'... Posterity undoubtedly concentrated its attention on St Augustine as a theologian, and on what he wrote about predestination. But Augustinianism gave Western Christianity some of its colour and its ability to adapt and debate — if only by insisting on the vital need to embrace the faith in full awareness, after deep personnal reflection, and with the will to act accordingly."

"Of all the fathers of the church, St. Augustine was the most admired and the most influential during the Middle Ages. He was well suited by background and experience to conduct a fundamental examination of the relationship of the Christian experience to classical culture. Augustine was an outsider — a native North African whose family was not Roman but Berber (today regarded as "Arabs"). … Not born to the imperial power elite, he could disassociate himself from the empire and its destiny. Augustine was enormously learned. He was a genius — an intellectual giant — and he received a thorough classical education. He was not much of a linguist (his Greek was poor, and he never learned Hebrew) but he was a master of Latin rhetoric; certain passages in The City of God equal the writings of Cicero in complexity and eloquence."

"His considered answer to what God was doing before creating the universe was "the world was made with time and not in time." Augustine's God is a being who transcends time, a being located outside time altogether and responsible for creating time as well as space and matter. Thus Augustine skillfully avoided the problem of why the creation happened at that moment rather than some earlier moment. There were no earlier moments. Identical reasoning applies to the scientific problem. If the universe originated in time, then it cannot have been caused by any physical process that has a finite probability, because if it did, then the event would already have happened, an infinite time ago. ...He wasn't even the first person to hit on the idea of time coming into being with the universe. Plato said much the same thing hundreds of years earlier. The history of philosophy is so rich and diverse that it would be astonishing if theories emerging from science hadn't been foreshadowed in some vague way by somebody."

"He was himself a true African. Indeed, we may say he was an African first and a Roman afterwards, since, in spite his genuine loyalty towards the Empire, he shows none of the specifically Roman patriotism which marks Ambrose or Prudentius."

"In the history of thought and civilization, Saint Augustine appears to me to be the first thinker who brought into prominence and undertook an analysis of the philosophical and psychological concepts of person and personality. These ideas, so vital to contemporary man, shape not only Augustine's own doctrine on God but also his philosophy of man: man as an individual, man as a member of societies and institutions — the family, the city, the state and the church."

"The paper emphasizes that ideas about masturbation are crucial to understanding any societal attitudes toward sex. It examines attitudes to masturbation in ancient Egypt, Tigris Euphrates Valley, India, and China. It looks at Biblical views and their misinterpretations and at the Greek and Roman descriptions of masturbatory practices. Key to the development of western attitudes was the Augustinian version of sex which was influenced by Augustine's personal background in Manichaeanism, a religion which was based on ancient Persian beliefs. The Augustinian view of all non-procreative sex as a sin was carried over into medicine in the eighteenth century which changed sins into pathologies."

"The greatest influence during the dark ages was Augustine, who was influenced by Plotinus, who was influenced by Indian mysticism. Long before Aldous Huxley found Yoga a remedy for our Brave New World, Schopenhauer called the Upanishads the consolation of his life."

"Augustine, the North African of Berber descent, is today the spiritual father of multitudes who are remote indeed from him racially, politically, and culturally."

"He used to say, half in jest, that his great ambition was to complete St. Augustine's Confessions, but that St. Augustine, like a great artist, had worked from multiplicity to unity, while he, like a small one, had to reverse the method and work back from unity to multiplicity."

"As a Theologian, I learned from my master, St. Augustine, a Berber, that all nations are necessarily a mixture, which it is not impossible for us to disentangle, of the City of Good and the City of Evil."

"There was a Christian redaction of the historical vision of reality, associated especially with the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo."

"Augustine distinctly rejected Special Creation in favor of a doctrine which, without any violence to language, we may call a theory of Evolution."

"Augustine in his anti-Pelagian work, Marriage and Concupiscence, analyzed abortion with his usual attention to psychology. Using terms that seem to anticipate modern analyses of sadism, he described it as the work of minds characterized by "lustful cruelty" or "cruel lust." Speaking of the married who avoided offspring, he declared, Sometimes [Aliquando] this lustful cruelty or cruel lust comes to this that they even procure poisons of sterility, and if these do not work, they extinguish and destroy the fetus in some way in the womb, preferring that their offspring die before it lives, or if it was already alive in the womb, to kill it before it was born. Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning, they come together not joined in matrimony but seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband, or he is an adulter with his own wife."

"Augustine thus condemned three kinds of act: contraception, the killing of the fetus before it is formed or "lives," and the killing of the live fetus. The analysis was a new approach in treating each of these acts as a sin against marriage. Elsewhere Augustine treated abortion as a form of homicide."

"If the orthodoxy of Augustine had remained the teaching of the Church, the final establishment of Evolution would have come far earlier than it did, certainly during the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth century, and the bitter controversy over this truth of Nature would never have arisen."

"Plainly as the direct or instantaneous Creation of animals and plants appeared to be taught in Genesis, Augustine read this in the light of primary causation and the gradual development from the imperfect to the perfect of Aristotle. This most influential teacher thus handed down to his followers opinions which closely conform to the progressive views of those theologians of the present day who have accepted the Evolution theory."

"Augustine thus sought a naturalistic interpretation of the Mosaic record, or potential rather than special creation, and taught that in the institution of Nature we should not look for miracles but for the laws of Nature."

"I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before. ...I am far from affirming that Descartes is not the real author of it, even if he may have learned it only in reading this distinguished saint; for I know how much difference there is between writing a word by chance without making a longer and more extended reflection on it, and perceiving in this word an admirable series of conclusions, which prove the distinction between material and spiritual natures, and making of it a firm and sustained principle of a complete metaphysical system, as Descartes has pretended to do. ...it is on this supposition that I say that this expression is as different in his writings from the saying in others who have said it by chance, as in a man full of life and strength, from a corpse."

"The whole of North Africa was a glory of Christendom with St. Augustine, himself a Berber, its chief ornament."

"No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds?"

"And how wisely this has been decreed St. Augustine thus shows: "This indeed is fitting, that the lower be subject to the higher, so that he who would have subject to himself whatever is below him, should himself submit to whatever is above him. Acknowledge order, seek peace. Be thou subject to God, and thy flesh subject to thee. What more fitting! What more fair! Thou art subject to the higher and the lower is subject to thee. Do thou serve Him who made thee, so that that which was made for thee may serve thee. For we do not commend this order, namely, "The flesh to thee and thou to God," but "Thou to God, and the flesh to thee." If, however, thou dost despise the subjection of thyself to God, thou shalt never bring about the subjection of the flesh to thyself. If thou dost not obey the Lord, thou shalt be tormented by thy servant." This right ordering on the part of God's wisdom is mentioned by the holy Doctor of the Gentiles, inspired by the Holy Ghost, for in speaking of those ancient philosophers who refused to adore and reverence Him Whom they knew to be the creator of the universe, he says: "Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves;" and again: "For this same God delivered them up to shameful affections.""

"Augustine of Hippo (350–430 C.E.), an influential bishop of the early Christian church, taught that masturbation and other alternatives to penile-vaginal intercourse —outercourse —were worse sins than fornication, rape, incest, and adultery. He argued that masturbation and other non reproductive sexual activities were “unnatural” sins because they were contraceptive. Since fornication, rape, incest, and adultery could lead to pregnancy, they were “natural” sins and much less serious than “unnatural” sins (Ranke-Heinemann, 1990)."

"Augustine’s importance to the subsequent history of Europe is impossible to exaggerate. His political theory, which is all we focus on here, was a very small part of what he wrote in some 113 books and innumerable letters and sermons. Nonetheless, it is pregnant with arguments that racked not only Christian Europe but the modern world: how seriously should a Christian with his eyes on eternity take the politics of this earthly life; is it the duty of the state to protect the church, repress heresy, and ensure that its citizens adhere to the one true faith; absent a Christian ruler, are we absolved of the duty to obey our rulers, or must we follow Saint Paul’s injunction to “obey the powers that be”? More generally, Augustine articulated distinctive and long-lived thoughts on matters that remain controversial: the nature of just war, the illegitimacy of the death penalty, the limits of earthly justice. The fact that his views on all these matters were embedded in a theology of some bleakness does not mean that they do not survive on their own merits. One needs only the barest sympathy with the thought that we are fallen creatures to find many of his views deeply appealing, far from cheerful as they may be."

"Augustine saw a noble purpose in rape; while promising women that “savage lust perpetuated against them will be punished,” he also praises rape for keeping women humble, letting them know “whether previously they were arrogant with regard to their virginity or over-fond of praise, or whether they would have become proud had they not suffered violation.”"

"There would be no end to quotations that bring out the unequalled influence of Augustine’s thought and work on the Latin West. « No work by a Christian author in the Latin tongue was to stir such great admiration and inquietude and enjoy such glory » (Dominique de Courcelles, Augustin ou le génie de l’Europe). To the point that the author of this passage, while aware that he is speaking, as he says, « of a Christian Berber », nevertheless gives his book the title Augustine or the Genius of Europe. And the genius was a Numidian of the Roman Empire. What a decanting of wisdom from the south to the north of the Mediterranean!"

"As the dynamics of trade relations began to change during the African Middle Ages, the continent became the source of endless speculation. The visions of monstrous men and anthropophagi that had filled St. Augustine's descriptions of sub-Saharan Africa were not expelled until other Europeans such as Scotsman Mungo Park "penetrated the interior of Africa.""

"This idea of these great fathers of the Eastern Church took even stronger hold on the great father of the Western Church. For St. Augustine, so fettered usually by the letter of the sacred text, broke from his own famous doctrine as to the acceptance of Scripture and spurned the generally received belief of a creative process... In his great treatise [De Cenesi contra Manichæos] on Genesis he says: "To suppose that God formed man from the dust with bodily hands is very childish. ...God neither formed man with bodily hands nor did he breathe upon him with throat and lips.""

"In the Middle Ages society was far more static and was essentially hierarchical in nature. As a result the causal or genetic attitude was far less important in medieval thought that it is in ours and the concept of evolution had little influence compared with the role of symbolism in the general world-view... Moreover, even the concept of time itself was of less significance to historians... For St Augustine the date of an event was of far less importance than its theological significance. His tendency to see everything in a theological rather than in a historical perspective was a powerful influence in the Middle Ages... It was not until the nineteenth century that the fundamental significance of the historical perspective came to be generally recognized. This was several hundred years after the theory and practice of perspective had been developed by painters and others. In each case a new way of looking at the world resulted."

"If they suffer without deserving it, the implication is that God punishes them without any reason. This is to say that God is unjust. This is exactly what Augustine accuses Julian of doing: “When you say that these miseries happen to the little ones without any sin, you really make God unjust.” However, this position is impossible because only justice and goodness can be ascribed to God. Augustine is concerned with the salvation of the little ones, and emphasizes that Christ died for them too. He refers to several passages of the New Testament which say that Christ’s salvific work was intended for all human beings. For instance, after having quoted the words of Paul that God demonstrated his love toward us by the fact that Christ died for us when we were sinners (Romans 5:8-9), he argues that if the little ones are not fetted by sin, then Christ did not die for them. The premise is that all those for whom Christ has died are guilty, otherwise there would be nothing from which to save them. According to Augustine, the Palagian position implies that little ones do not benefit from the death of Christ. Similarly if the little ones are not affected by original sin, there is no need to baptize them since baptism provides remedies for sins. The grave consequence would be that they are excluded from the kingdom of God. “Why do you exclude from the kingdom of God so many images of God in little ones if they are not baptized, since they have done nothing evil?” In fact, if one denies the existence of original sin, one exposes little ones to serious harm. Consequently, Augustine asserts, it is not he who is cruel to infants (as the Pelagians alleged because of his view that little ones who died without being baptized were not saved) but the Pelagians themselves. Instead of leaving them in the power of the devil, Augustine exhorts his audience to : speak for the babies all the more mercifully, the less they can do it for themselves. The Church habitually comes to the assistance of orphans in watching over their interests; let us all peak for the babies, all of us come to their assistance, lest they should lose their heavenly inheritance. It was for their sakes too that their Lord became a baby. How can they not be included in his liberation, seeing that they were the first who were found worthy to die for him? In spite of his attempt to convince his readers that it is his own position that in the deepest sense takes care of little ones who die unbaptized, Augustine felt troubled by his conclusion. Early in the debate he speculated that they would suffer only “the mildest condemnation of all.” He does not discuss how a milder form of punishment might differ from a “normal” punishment, not does he return to this question in other writings. This may be because it is difficult to combine the idea of different levels of condemnation with his criticism of the Pelagians’ distinction between different levels of salvation for unbaptized infants. Given their position on the innocence of babies, the Pelgians asserted that babies are not to be baptized for the sake of obtaining salvation and eternal life, but for the kingdom of heaven. Against this position, Augustine argued that there is no intermediary place between the kingdom of heaven and eternal damnation."

"At one point Augustine wrote a letter to Jerome asking for advice on the possibility of combining belief in original sin with the creationist position he imputed to Jerome. Though what Augustine says is related to this particular position regarding the origin of the soul, the offense he felt at the view that little ones were condemned by God is apparent. “”What kind of justice is it that so many thousands of souls should be damned because they departed from their bodies by death in infancy, without the grace of the Christian sacrament … when He [God] certainly knew that each one of them by no fault of its own would leave the body without the baptism of Christ?” Jerome never answered. Augustine explicitly states his uneasiness about his view in “Sermon 294’’. He admits that the question is profoundly difficult and recognized that his powers are not sufficient to get to the bottom of it . . . . I cannot find a satisfactory and worthy explanation; because I cannot find one.”” His interpretation of scripture led him to the conclusion that unbaptized babies go to damnation, and he felt obliged to maintain this. He could not “condemn divine authority” and quotes Romans 11:33-36 as he often does when he faces a question that goes beyond the limit of his reason: “Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of Go! How inscrutable are his judgments, and untraceable his ways!” Ultimately, the damnation of unbaptized children is a mystery, and therefore cannot be given a logical explanation. However, because Augustine was convinced that his view on this matter was in agreement with God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures, he maintained it. Although he apparently felt that this doctrine was harsh, he never wavered from his view that little ones who died unbaptized were punished by god."

"In addition to theological arguments, Augustine refers to the practice of the church. Infants, like adults, underwent the exsufflatio, a rite of exorcism conducted before the baptism took place. This implies that little ones, like adults, needed exorcism to be rescued from the darkness of the devil. “What does my exorcism work in that babe, if he be not held in the devil’s family?” Augustine asks rhetorically. His point is, of course, that infants are afflicted with original sin and need remission of sins through baptism in order to be reconciled with God. He also takes the crying and struggling of babies when they are baptized as an expression of their original sin. Due to their condition, they resist grace. He even takes the hurrying of mothers to church with their babies to baptize them as an argument that children need to be redeemed from the power of the devil."

"We have seen that Augustine draws an ambiguous picture of childhood. On the one hand, he emphasizes that the child is from birth a sinner. Against the Pelagians, who asserted that the little ones are innocent with respect both to actual sins and to their nature, Augustine ascribed to infants an original sin inherited from Adam. In Augustine’s boyhood, this universal human condition is manifested in behavior and deeds that seek pleasures, renown, and truth in things that belong to the created world instead of in the Creator. In his adolescence, this was manifested by unrestrained sexual desire and by the committing of sin without the purpose of gain, illustrated by the theft of pears. Though the infant has not committed any personal sin, Augustine tends to take babies’ greed for the breast and their jealousy as manifestations of their sinful nature. It is hard for a modern reader to agree with his explanation and evaluation of children’s behavior. What we tend to regard as sign of development, Augustine takes as evidence of the sinful nature of the child. His view that assigns little ones who die unbaptized to eternal punishment also sounds harsh to modern readers, and might be invoked (as the Pelagaian did) as evidence of a hostile attitude towards children. On the other hand, Augustine’s apparently negative view is balanced by an attitude that acknowledges the value of children, in whom Augustine finds that “everything is wonderful and worthy of praise.” Although this appraisal is related to the fact God has provided children with the gifts that enable them to seek and find him, so that they thus realize the ultimate purpose of life, it also reflects a striking recognition of the value of children. Likewise, the description of infants and children in his ‘’Confessions’’ reflects warm sympathy with how they experience life. Perhaps more importantly, Augustine’s deep concern about the salvation of children, for which baptism was a precondition, indicates that he regarded children as full and worthy religious beings who need to same spiritual nourishment as adults. However, I can find no connection between this expression of concern for the well0being of the child’s soul and the status and role of children in social life. Furthermore Augustine considers children as subjects with responsibility for their moral behavior. He depicts an increasing accountability as they mature and their abilities to speak and to reason develop Because babies lack speech and the faculty of reason, there is no point for adults to rebuke them. But when they reach the age when they learn to speak and reason develops, the conditions for knowing and understanding what is right and wrong gradually emerge and children become increasingly responsible for their moral behavior. When children reach adolescence, their abilities to speak and reason are so developed that they are fully accountable for their deeds. Augustine assumes that children are capable of behaving according to his moral ideals, if they receive a proper Christian upbringing."

"Of all the church fathers, it is Augustine (354-430) who speaks most frequently of abortion and presents the most detailed discussions of the nature and status of the fetus. This is a fruit of his lifelong concern and theological wrestlings with the questions of the origin of the soul, and when and how the fetus received a soul. He discusses a variety of solutions: (1) the soul is pre-existent (2) the soul is created by god at the moment of conception; (3) like the body, the soul comes from the parents; (4) the soul is infused at a particular stage in the development of the fetus. As I have mentioned in an earlier chapter, he never found a satisfactory solution to this question. He frequently makes a distinction between the unformed and the formed fetus; the latter term refers to the fetus which has received a soul. We find one example of this distinction in the treatise ‘’De Nuptiis et Concupiscientia’’, when Augustine condemns sexual intercourse detached from reproduction: “At times this lust-filled cruelty or cruel lust goes far that it even procured drugs to cause sterility, and if they are not effective, it somehow extinguishes and destroys within the womb the fetus already conceived, desiring that its own offspring perish before it begins to live. Or, if it was living in the womb, it desires that it be killed before it is born. Naturally, this distinction presupposed that the fetus receives a soul at one particular stage in its development; the consequence of this idea, which he shares with Jerome, is that only the abortion of a formed fetus that has a soul can be classified as murder. This becomes clear in the ‘’Questiones in Heptateuchum’’ 2.80, where Augustine refers to the Septuagint version of Exodus 21:2 and following and argues that the abortion of an unformed fetus is not murder, since one cannot say whether it already has a soul at that stage. Although the abortion even of an unformed fetus is morally reprehensible, the punishment for this act is limited to a fine. On the question whether the embryo is to be define as a part of the mother’’s body, Augustine breaks with Stoic thinking and Roman law, which affirmed that this was not the case."

"O most grateful burden, which comforts them that carry it! The burdens of earthly masters gradually wear out the strength of those who carry them; but the burden of Christ assists the bearers of it, because we carry not grace, but grace us."

"I beg that, chiefest of all, you will remember constantly that not to share our own riches with the poor is a robbery of the poor, and a depriving them of their livelihood; and that that which we possess is not only our own, but also theirs. If our minds are disposed in accordance with this truth, we shall freely use all our possessions; we shall feed Christ while hungering here, and we shall lay up great treasures there."

"[T]he Jewish people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: "Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer." … Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter. This is why Christ said: "But as for these my enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay them." (Luke 19:27)"

"Nothing is more miserable than those people who never failed to attack their own salvation. When there was need to observe the Law, they trampled it under foot. … On this account Stephen said: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you always resist the Holy Spirit", not only by transgressing the Law but also by wishing to observe it at the wrong time."

"The Master is gracious and receives the last even as the first; He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one He gives, and to the other He is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention."

"Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness. Let no one lament their poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn their transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Saviour's death has set us free."

"By descending into hades, He made hades captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. ... It took a body, and met God face to face. ... Christ is risen, and you are overthrown! Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life reigns! Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb! For Christ, being raised from the dead, has become the first-fruits of them that have slept."

"For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force...it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice."

"And should you hear any one in the public thoroughfare, or in the midst of the forum, blaspheming God; go up to him and rebuke him; and should it be necessary to inflict blows, spare not to do so. Smite him on the face; strike his mouth; sanctify thy hand with the blow..."

"If you are a Christian, no earthly city is yours. Of our City ‘the Builder and Maker is God.’ Though we may gain possession of the whole world, we are withal but strangers and sojourners in it all. We are enrolled in heaven: our citizenship is there! Let us not, after the manner of little children, despise things that are great, and admire those which are little! Not our city’s greatness, but virtue of soul is our ornament and defence. If you suppose dignity to belong to a city, think how many persons must partake in this dignity, who are whoremongers, effeminate, depraved and full of ten thousand evil things, and at last despise such honour! But that City above is not of this kind; for it is impossible that he can be a partaker of it, who has not exhibited every virtue."

"Just as maniacs, who never enjoy tranquility, so also he who is resentful and retains an enemy will never have the enjoyment of any peace; incessantly raging and daily increasing the tempest of his thoughts calling to mind his words and acts, and detesting the very name of him who has aggrieved him. Do you but mention his enemy, he becomes furious at once, and sustains much inward anguish; and should he chance to get only a bare sight of him, he fears and trembles, as if encountering the worst evils. Indeed, if he perceives any of his relations, if but his garment, or his dwelling, or street, he is tormented by the sight of them. For as in the case of those who are beloved, their faces, their garments, their sandals, their houses, or streets, excite us, the instant we behold them; so also should we observe a servant, or friend, or house, or street, or any thing else belonging to those we hate and hold our enemies, we are stung by all these things; and the strokes we endure from the sight of each one of them are frequent and continual. What is the need then of sustaining such a siege, such torment and such punishment? For if hell did not threaten the resentful, yet for the very torment resulting from the thing itself we ought to forgive the offences of those who have aggrieved us. But when deathless punishments remain behind, what can be more senseless than the man, who both here and there brings punishment upon himself, while he thinks to be revenged upon his enemy!"

"As it is not to be imagined that the fornicator and the blasphemer can partake of the sacred Table, so it is impossible that he who has an enemy, and bears malice, can enjoy the holy Communion.… I forewarn, and testify, and proclaim this with a voice that all may hear! ‘Let no one who hath an enemy draw near the sacred Table, or receive the Lord’s Body! Let no one who draws near have an enemy! Do you have an enemy? Draw not near! Do you wish to draw near? Be reconciled, and then draw near, and touch the Holy Thing!’"

"We are commanded to have only one enemy, the devil. With him never be reconciled! But with a brother, never be at enmity in thy heart."

"Nothing does so much turn our life upside down, as delay and procrastination in the performance of our good works. Nay, this has often caused us to lose all."

"While the tongue through shame often pours not forth all its wickedness at once, the heart having no human witness, fearlessly gives birth to whatever evils it will."

"Do not now, I warn you, seize upon the privilege of the Only Begotten. For Him is the throne of judgment reserved. Would you however be a judge? You have a court of judgment which has great profit, and bears no blame. Make consideration, as judge, to sit down upon your conscience, and bring before it all your transgressions, search out the sins of your soul, and exact with strictness the account thereof, and say, wherefore did you dare to do this and that? ... Answer for yourself, not to accuse; look to your own matters, do not those of others."

"It is not a head in a charger that the dancers of our time ask, but the souls of them that sit at the feast. For in making them slaves, and leading them to unlawful loves, and besetting them with harlots, they do not take off the head, but slay the soul... For you will not surely tell me, that when full of wine, and drunken, and looking at a woman who is dancing and uttering base words, thou dost not feel anything towards her, neither art hurried on to profligacy, overcome by your lust... For though the daughter of Herodias be not present, yet the devil, who then danced in her person, in theirs also holds his choirs now, and departs with the souls of those guests taken captive."

"Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise it when it is naked. Do not honor it in church with silk vestments while outside it is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same that said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.” Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls."

"Is it not excessively ridiculous to seek the good opinion of those whom you would never wish to be like?"

"Beloved, we need much care, much watchfulness, to be able to look into the depth of the Divine Scriptures. For it is not possible to discover their meaning in a careless way, or while we are asleep, but there needs close search, and there needs earnest prayer, that we may be enabled to see some little way into the secrets of the divine oracles."

"One who knows that he is in need, is very grateful when he obtains assistance; but one who has not a sense of his need, will never have a plain and clear sense of the benefit."

"Abstinence is the mother of pleasure as well as health, while repletion is the source and root not only of diseases, but of displeasure. For where there is satiety there desire cannot be, and where there is no desire, how can there be pleasure?"

"He that practiceth showing mercy to him that needeth, will soon cease from covetousness, he who continues in giving to the poor, will soon cease from anger, and will never even be high-minded. For as the physician continually tending wounded persons is easily sobered, beholding human nature in the calamities of others; so we, if we enter upon the work of aiding the poor, shall easily become truly wise, and shall not admire riches, nor deem present things any great matter, but despise them all, and soaring aloft to heaven, shall easily obtain the eternal blessings, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be glory for ever and ever. Amen."

"I do not think there are many among Bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish: and the reason is, that it is an affair that requires a great mind."

"Wherever impudent assurance exists, it has but one object in view, to speak at all hazards, it cares not what."

"Where an action is done for glory, all is worthless. For though a man possess all, yet if he have not the mastery over this (lust), he forfeits all claim to true philosophy, he is in bondage to the more tyrannical and shameful passion. Contempt of glory; this it is that is sufficient to teach all that is good, and to banish from the soul every pernicious passion."

"Nothing like alms: great is the virtue of this practice, when the alms is poured forth from pure stores; for it is like a fountain discharging mud, when it issues from unjust stores, but when from just gains, it is as a limpid and pure stream... This fountain is better than that in Paradise (Genesis 2:10); a fountain, not dividing into four heads, but reaching unto Heaven itself: this gives birth to that river which springs up into eternal life (John 4:14): on this let Death light, and like a spark it is extinguished by the fountain: such, wherever it drops, are the mighty blessings it causes. This quenches, even as a spark, the river of fire: this so strangles that worm, as naught else can do. (Mark 9:44) He that has this, shall not gnash his teeth... Better to possess such a fountain, than to have fountains running with gold."

"Yet of old the matter seemed even to be a law, and a certain law-giver among them bade the domestic slaves neither to use ointments when dry (i.e. except in bathing) nor to keep youths, giving the free this place of honor, or rather of shamefulness. Yet they, however, did not think the thing shameful, but as being a grand privilege, and one too great for slaves, the Athenian people, the wisest of people, and Solon who is so great among them, permitted it to the free alone. And sundry other books of the philosophers may one see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature: but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this were worse than any punishment. Yet if you say they found pleasure in it, you tell me what adds to the vengeance. For suppose I were to see a person running naked, with his body all besmeared with mire, and yet not covering himself, but exulting in it, I should not rejoice with him, but should rather bewail that he did not even perceive that he was doing shamefully."

"But lo! now they that have run into this fury have done more grievously by themselves. For it is not the same thing to change into the nature of women, as to continue a man and yet to have become a woman; or rather neither this nor that. But if you would know the enormity of the evil from other grounds, ask on what account the lawgivers punish them that make men eunuchs, and you will see that it is absolutely for no other reason than because they mutilate nature. And yet the injustice they do is nothing to this. For there have been those that were mutilated and were in many cases useful after their mutilation. But nothing can there be more worthless than a man who has pandered himself. For not the soul only, but the body also of one who has been so treated, is disgraced, and deserves to be driven out everywhere. How many hells shall be enough for such? But if you scoff at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom"

"He loved us when we hated Him, and also continues to love us... And how comes it, some will say, that one who is our Friend threatens hell, and punishment, and vengeance? It is owing to His loving us alone. For all He does and is busied with, is with a view to strike out your wickedness, and to refrain with fear, as with a kind of bridle, your inclinableness to the worse side, and by blessings and by pains recovering you from your downward course, and leading you up to Him, and keeping you from all vice, which is worse than hell."

"Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions."

"A servant, indeed, one will be able perhaps to bind down by fear; nay, not even for him, for he will soon leave you. But the partner of one's life, the mother of one's children, the foundation of one's every joy, one ought never to chain down by fear and threats, but with love and good temper. For what sort of union is that, where the wife trembles at her husband? And what sort of pleasure will the husband have if he dwells with his wife as with a slave? Yea, even though you suffer everything on her account, do not scold her; for neither did Christ do this to the Church."

"The Priest is the common father, as it were, of all the world; it is proper therefore that he should care for all, even as God, Whom he serves."

"Nothing is so apt to draw men under teaching, as to love, and be loved."

"For what advantage is it, that the world enjoys profound peace, if thou art at war with thyself? This then is the peace we should keep. If we have it, nothing from without will be able to harm us. And to this end the public peace contributes no little: whence it is said, ‘That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.’ But if any one is disturbed when there is quiet, he is a miserable creature. Seest thou that He speaks of this peace which I call the third (inner, ed.) kind? Therefore when he has said, ‘that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life,’ he does not stop there, but adds ‘in all godliness and honesty.’ But we cannot live in godliness and honesty, unless that peace be established. For when curious reasonings disturb our faith, what peace is there? or when spirits of uncleanness, what peace is there?"

"Tell me, then, whence are you rich? From whom did you receive it, and from whom he who transmitted it to you? From his father and his grandfather. But can you, ascending through many generations, show the acquisition just? It cannot be. The root and origin of it must have been injustice. Why? Because God in the beginning made not one man rich, and another poor. Nor did He afterwards take and show to one treasures of gold, and deny to the other the right of searching for it: but He left the earth free to all alike. Why then, if it is common, have you so many acres of land, while your neighbor has not a portion of it? ... Is not the earth God's, and the fullness thereof? If then our possessions belong to one common Lord, they belong also to our fellow-servants. The possessions of one Lord are all common. Do we not see this the settled rule in great houses? To all is given an equal portion of provisions, for it proceeds from the treasures of their Lord. And the house of the master is opened to all. The king's possessions are all common, as cities, market-places, and public walks. We all share them equally. ... We are all formed with the same eyes, the same body, the same soul, the same structure in all respects, all things from the earth, all men from one man, and all in the same habitation. But these are not enough to shame us. Other things then (as we have said) He has made common, as baths, cities, market-places, walks. And observe, that concerning things that are common there is no contention, but all is peaceable. But when one attempts to possess himself of anything, to make it his own, then contention is introduced, as if nature herself were indignant, that when God brings us together in every way, we are eager to divide and separate ourselves by appropriating things, and by using those cold words mine and yours."

"A bright, cheerful, gentle soul; a sensitive heart, a temperament open to emotion and impulse; and all this elevated, refined, transformed by the touch of heaven,—such was St. John Chrysostom; winning followers, riveting affections, by his sweetness, frankness, and neglect of self. In his labours, in his preaching, he thought of others only."

"His oratorical power was but the instrument, by which he readily, gracefully, adequately expressed,—expressed without effort and with felicity,—the keen feelings, the living ideas, the earnest practical lessons which he had to communicate to his hearers. He spoke, because his heart, his head, were brimful of things to speak about. His elocution corresponded to that strength and flexibility of limb, that quickness of eye, hand, and foot, by which a man excels in manly games or in mechanical skill. It would be a great mistake, in speaking of it, to ask whether it was Attic or Asiatic, terse or flowing, when its distinctive praise was that it was natural. His unrivalled charm, as that of every really eloquent man, lies in his singleness of purpose, his fixed grasp of his aim, his noble earnestness."

"The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the Devil. Their religion is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is essential that all Christians hate them."

"What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted with fair colors!"

"The hutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord, just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty."

"O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power and idle talk, but give to me, Thy servant, a spirit of soberness, humility, patience and love. O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother: for blessed art Thou to the ages of ages. Amen. O God, cleanse me, a sinner."

"Thy possessions have made thee a hollow image; they have ruined thee and left thee."

"1. Awake, O my harp, thy cords, in praise of Mary the Virgin.Lift up thy voice, and sing the generation utterly marvelous of this virgin David's daughter, whi hath brought forth life to the world."

"En una noche oscura, con ansias, en amores inflamada, ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada;"

"In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart."

"Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!"

"Upon my flowery breast Kept wholly for Himself alone There He stayed sleeping And I caressed Him And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.The breeze blew from the turret as I parted His locks. With His gentle hand He wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended."

"I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved. All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies."

"In search of my Love I will go over mountains and strands; I will gather no flowers, I will fear no wild beasts; And pass by the mighty and the frontiers. ~ 3"

"A thousand graces diffusing He passed through the groves in haste, And merely regarding them As He passed Clothed them with His beauty. ~ 5"

"Reveal Thy presence, And let the vision and Thy beauty kill me, Behold the malady Of love is incurable Except in Thy presence and before Thy face. ~ 11"

"O crystal well! Oh that on Thy silvered surface Thou wouldest mirror forth at once Those eyes desired Which are outlined in my heart! ~ 12"

"My Beloved is the mountains, The solitary wooded valleys, The strange islands, The roaring torrents, The whisper of the amorous gales; The tranquil night At the approaches of the dawn, The silent music, The murmuring solitude, The supper which revives, and enkindles love. ~ 14 & 15"

"O killing north wind, cease! Come, south wind, that awakenest love! Blow through my garden, And let its odours flow, And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers. ~ 17"

"The bride has entered The pleasant and desirable garden, And there reposes to her heart’s content; Her neck reclining On the sweet arms of the Beloved. ~ 22"

"There He taught me the science full of sweetness. And there I gave to Him Myself without reserve; There I promised to be His bride. ~ 27"

"My soul is occupied, And all my substance in His service; Now I guard no flock, Nor have I any other employment: My sole occupation is love. ~ 28"

"If, then, on the common land I am no longer seen or found, You will say that I am lost; That, being enamoured, I lost myself; and yet was found. ~ 29"

"When Thou didst regard me, Thine eyes imprinted in me Thy grace: For this didst Thou love me again, And thereby mine eyes did merit To adore what in Thee they saw. ~ 32"

"Despise me not, For if I was swarthy once Thou canst regard me now; Since Thou hast regarded me, Grace and beauty hast Thou given me. ~ 33"

"The little white dove Has returned to the ark with the bough; And now the turtle-dove Its desired mate On the green banks has found. ~ 34"

"In solitude she lived, And in solitude built her nest; And in solitude, alone Hath the Beloved guided her, In solitude also wounded with love. ~ 35"

"Let us rejoice, O my Beloved! Let us go forth to see ourselves in Thy beauty, To the mountain and the hill, Where the pure water flows: Let us enter into the heart of the thicket. ~ 36"

"We shall go at once To the deep caverns of the rock Which are all secret, There we shall enter in And taste of the new wine of the pomegranate. ~ 37"

"There thou wilt show me That which my soul desired; And there Thou wilt give at once, O Thou, my life! That which Thou gavest me the other day. ~ 38"

"The breathing of the air, The song of the sweet nightingale, The grove and its beauty In the serene night, With the flame that consumes, and gives no pains. ~ 39"

"I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love. It is the property of love to place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love. Hence the soul, because of its perfect love, is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with Him. In this equality and friendship all things are common, as the Bridegroom Himself said to His disciples: I have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you."

"My sole occupation is love. All my occupation now is the practice of the love of God, all the powers of soul and body, memory, understanding, and will, interior and exterior senses, the desires of spirit and of sense, all work in and by love. All I do is done in love; all I suffer, I suffer in the sweetness of love."

"When the soul has arrived at this state all the acts of its spiritual and sensual nature, whether active or passive, and of whatever kind they may be, always occasion an increase of love and delight in God: even the act of prayer and communion with God, which was once carried on by reflections and divers other methods, is now wholly an act of love. So much so is this the case that the soul may always say, whether occupied with temporal or spiritual things, "My sole occupation is love." Happy life! happy state! and happy the soul which has attained to it!"

"There is nothing better or more necessary than love."

"If the soul has not reached the state of unitive love, it is necessary for it to make acts of love, as well in the active as in the contemplative life. But when it has reached it, it is not requisite it should occupy itself in other and exterior duties — unless they be matters of obligation — which might hinder, were it but for a moment, the life of love in God, though they may minister greatly to His service; because an instant of pure love is more precious in the eyes of God and the soul, and more profitable to the Church, than all other good works together, though it may seem as if nothing were done."

"When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it. We should inflict a grievous wrong upon it, and upon the Church also, if we were to occupy it, were it only for a moment, in exterior or active duties, however important they might be. When God Himself adjures all not to waken it from its love, who shall venture to do so, and be blameless? In a word, it is for this love that we are all created. Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying to the Church, and more pleasing unto God — setting aside the good example they would give if they would spend at least one half their time in prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love."

"I have said this to explain the stanza that follows, in which the soul replies to those who call in question its holy tranquillity, who will have it wholly occupied with outward duties, that its light may shine before the world: these persons have no conception of the fibres and the unseen root whence the sap is drawn, and which nourish the fruit."

"Worldly people are in the habit of censuring those who give themselves up in earnest to God, regarding them as extravagant, in their withdrawal from the world, and in their manner of life. They say also of them that they are useless for all matters of importance, and lost to everything the world prizes and respects! This reproach the soul meets in the best way; boldly and courageously despising it with everything else that the world can lay to its charge. Having attained to a living love of God, it makes little account of all this; and that is not all: it confesses it itself in this stanza, and boasts that it has committed that folly, and that it is lost to the world and to itself for the Beloved."

"He who loves is not ashamed before men of what he does for God, neither does he hide it through shame though the whole world should condemn it."

"When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self."

"Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them."

"Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?"

"One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it."

"The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence."

"If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by receiving but by denying."

"Souls will be unable to reach perfection who do not strive to be content with having nothing, in such fashion that their natural and spiritual desire is satisfied with emptiness; for this is necessary in order to reach the highest tranquility and peace of spirit. Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act."

"Although you perform many works, if you do not deny your will and submit yourself, losing all solicitude about yourself and your affairs, you will not make progress."

"If you desire to discover peace and consolation for your soul and to serve God truly, do not find your satisfaction in what you have left behind, because in that which now concerns you you may be as impeded as you were before, or even more. But leave as well all these other things and attend to one thing alone that brings all these with it (namely, holy solitude, together with prayer and spiritual and divine reading), and persevere there in forgetfulness of all things."

"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved."

"Not all the faculties and senses have to be employed in things, but only those that are required; as for the others, leave them unoccupied for God."

"The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself."

"Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end."

"Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good."

"Live as though only God and yourself were in this world, so that your heart may not be detained by anything human."

"It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that the verse and prose works combined of St. John of the Cross form at once the most grandiose and the most melodious spiritual canticle to which any one man has ever given utterance. The most sublime of all the Spanish mystics, he soars aloft on the wings of Divine love to heights known to hardly any of them. . . . True to the character of his thought, his style is always forceful and energetic, even to a fault. When we study his treatises — principally that great composite work known as the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night — we have the impression of a mastermind that has scaled the heights of mystical science; and from their summit looks down upon and dominates the plain below and the paths leading upward.… Nowhere else, again, is he quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human even in his loftiest and sublimest passages, his intermingling of philosophy with mystical theology; makes him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful illustration of the theological truth that grace far from destroying nature, ennobles and dignifies it, and of the agreement always found between the natural and the supernatural — between the principles of sound reason and the sublimest manifestations of Divine grace."

"May, 1993 — Stratford... have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time … His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god... I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation. Am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views."

"St John of the Cross is like a sponge full of Christianity: you can squeeze it all out and the full mystical theory remains. Consequently, for fifteen years or so I hated St. John of the Cross and called him a Buddhist. I loved St. Theresa and read her again and again. She is first a Christian, only secondarily a mystic. Then I found that I had wasted fifteen years so far as prayer was concerned."

"If evils increase, the devotion of the People of God should also increase."

"Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes."

"It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God."

"We find sin the perversion of human freedom, and the deep cause of death, because it is separation from God, the source of life...and then, in its turn, the occasion and effect of an intervention in us and in our world of an obscure agent, the Devil. Evil is not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting. A terrible reality. Mysterious and frightening. It is contrary to the teaching of the Bible and the Church to refuse to recognize the existence of such a reality, or to regard it as a principle in itself which does not draw its origin from God like every other creature; or to explain it as a pseudoreality, a conceptual and fanciful personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes."

"it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church."

"The post is unique. It brings great solitude. I was solitary before, but now my solitariness becomes complete and awesome. Hence the dizziness, the vertigo. Like a statue on a plinth — that is how I live now. Jesus was also alone on the cross. We hear that he expressed his desolation by crying out, Eloi, Eloi. My solitude will grow. I need have no fears: I should not seek outside help to absolve me from my duty; my duty is to plan, decide, assume every responsibility for guiding others, even when it seems illogical and perhaps absurd. And to suffer alone. The consolation of confiding in others will be rare and discreet: the depths of the spirit remain within me. Me and God. The colloquy with God must be full and endless"

"The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships."

"No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law"

"The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life, involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology."

"The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church."

"Married love is also faithful and exclusive of all other, and this until death."

"With regard to man's innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man's reason and will must exert control over them."

"Was Paul VI's papacy a heroic one? In a way, I think the answer is yes. But his heroism was essentially tragic."

"I for one find it much easier to sympathise with the Arnoldian gloom of Paul looking quietly at the ruin of the Church than with the glad-handing U2 world-tour optimism of St. John Paul II,"

"I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved."

"Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful, something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy."

"I have no fear nor shrinking; I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me."

"I thank God for this ten weeks' quiet before the end... Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty... This time of rest has been a great mercy."

"They have all been very kind to me here. But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."

"It was a pity that Miss Cavell had to be executed, but it was necessary. She was judged justly. We hope it will not be necessary to have any more executions."

"My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory."

"At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone."

"Every part of all this soil is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hollowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. The very dust you now stand on responds more willingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch."

"Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds."

"We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten."

"Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless."

"Today is fair. Tomorrow may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change."

"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?"

"Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people."

"The sap which courses through the trees carries the memory of the red man."

"The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man - all belong to the same family. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors."

"If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that the ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells us events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our cannoes, feed our children. If we sell our land, you must learn, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother."

"You must teach the children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves."

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect."

"The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man."

"In this moment of spiritual triumph we can see why the film (Follow Me Home) begins with a quotation of words by Chief Seattle, when he said that after the last red man was gone the land would still be filled with their spirits: "The white man will never be alone." Is this a promise (as heard by some people of color) or a threat (as heard by some whites) or simply a truth that we should all heed?"

"Just like Chief Seattle talked about being in the web of life, in India we talk about vasudhaiva kutumbkam, which means the earth family. Indian cosmology has never separated the human from the non-human—we are a continuum."

"Do not undervalue attention. It means interest and also love. To know, to do, to discover, or to create you must give your heart to it – which means attention. All the blessings flow from it."

"Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginning-less, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. (…)."

"(…) In reality there is only consciousness. All life is conscious, all consciousness alive."

"Whenever a form is infused with life (prana), consciousness (chetana) appears by reflection of awareness in matter."

"One thing is quite clear to me; all that is, lives and moves and has its being in consciousness and I am in and beyond that consciousness. (…)"

"(…) This must be well grasped; the world hangs on the thread of consciousness, no consciousness, no world."

"God is not only true and good, he is also beautiful (satyam-shivam-sundaram). He creates beauty – for the joy of it. (…) God does not aim at beauty – whatever he does is beautiful. Would you say that a flower is trying to be beautiful? It is beautiful by its very nature. Similarly God is perfection itself, not an effort at perfection. (…) whatever is perceived blissfully is beautiful. Bliss is the essence of beauty."

"Be fully aware of your own being and you will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your mind off yourself and make it dwell on what you are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of being well. (…) True happiness is spontaneous and effortless. (..)"

"(The gnani) "(…) tastes of the pure, uncaused, undiluted bliss. He is happy and fully aware that happiness is his very nature and that he need not do anything, nor strive for anything to secure it. It follows him, more real than the body, nearer than the mind itself. (…).""

"As he (the gnani) gets older he grows more and more happy and peaceful. After all, he is going home. Like a traveller nearing his destination and collecting his luggage, he leaves the train without regret. (…) The mist of bodily existence is lifting – the burden of the body is growing less from day to day. (…) Every sensation is contemplated in perfect equanimity. There is no desire for it, nor refusal. It is as it is and he looks at it with a smile of affectionate detachment. (…) He is alone, but he is all. He is not even a being. He is the beingness of all beings. (…)."

"(…) All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself. All definitions apply to your body only and its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. (…)"

"(...) Bodies are born and bodies die, but what is it to me? Bodies come and bodies go in consciousness and consciousness itself has its roots in me. I am life and mine are mind and body."

"There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the idea ‘I am the body.’ But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake. In reality all existence, every form, is my own, within my consciousness. (…)."

"(…)The body-mind is like a room. It is there, but I need not live in it all the time."

"(…) As it is natural for the incense stick to burn out, so it is natural for the body to die. Really, it is a matter of very little importance. What matters is that I am neither the body nor the mind. I am."

"Surely you can change your world if you work at it. (…) a world of which you are the only source and ground is fully within your power to change. What is created can always be dissolved and re-created. All will happen as you want it, provided you really want it. (…)"

"When you are free of the world, you can do something about it. As long as you are a prisoner of it, you are helpless to change it. On the contrary, whatever you do will aggravate the situation."

"(…) if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen! (…) Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life – this is the quickest way to a change of your world."

"(…) Devotion to your goal makes you live a clean and orderly life, given to search for truth and to helping people, and realization makes noble virtue easy and spontaneous, by removing for good the obstacles in the shape of desires and fears and wrong ideas."

"The entire purpose of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thralldom of chaos and the burden of sorrow. (…) What is wrong with a life which is free from problems? Personality is merely a reflection of the real. (…) Once you realize that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you cease to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown."

"(…) I live on courage. Courage is my essence, which is love of life. I am free of memories and anticipations, unconcerned with what I am and what I am not. (…) I have the courage to be as nothing and to see the world as it is: nothing. It sounds simply, just try it!"

"The gnani is afraid of nothing. But he pities the man who is afraid. After all, to be born, to live and to die is natural. To be afraid is not. (…)."

"And what is death? It is the change in the living process of a particular body. Integration ends and disintegration sets in. (…) In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after death."

""(…) Can there be renewal without death? Even the darkness of sleep is refreshing and rejuvenating. Without death we would have been bogged for ever in eternal senility. (…) When life and death are seen as essential to each other, as two aspects of one being, that is immortality. (...)."

"(...) To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor not-being, neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the mind-body is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living."

"People are afraid to die, because they do not know what is death. The gnani has died before his death, he saw that there was nothing to be afraid of. The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. (…) The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description. (…)."

"I shall tell you how my Guru’s Guru died. After announcing that his end was nearing, he stopped eating, without changing the routine of his daily life. On the eleventh day, at prayer time he was singing and clapping vigorously and suddenly died! Just like that, between two movements, like a blown out candle. Everybody dies as he lives. I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life. I live a happy life and shall die a happy death. Misery is to be born, not to die. All depends how you look at it."

"Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Both make the mind restless. (...)"

"The state of craving for anything blocks all deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen to a mind which knows exactly what it wants. For nothing the mind can visualize and want is of much value."

"Want the best. The highest happiness, the greatest freedom. Desirelessness is the highest bliss. (…) Only God’s energy is infinite – because he wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires will be fulfilled. The higher your aims and vaster desires, the more energy you will have for their fulfillment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work for you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way. (...)."

"My experience is that everything is bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain. (…) for the sake of pleasure you are committing many sins. And the fruits of sin are suffering and death."

"Your mind projects a structure and you identify yourself with it. It is in the nature of desire to prompt the mind to create a world for its fulfillment. Even a small desire can start a long line of action; what about a strong desire? Desire can produce a universe; its powers are miraculous. Just as a small matchstick can set a huge forest on fire, so does a desire light the fires of manifestation. (…)"

"(…) Desire what is worth desiring and desire it well. Just like you pick your way in a crowd, passing between people, so you find your way between events, without missing your general direction. It is easy, if you are earnest."

"(…) To the Self the world is but a colourful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, yet all the time he is aware that it is but a show. Without desire or fear he enjoys it, as it happens."

"By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror-like mind, which reflects all, without being affected."

"(…) Just like a deficiency disease is cured through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment (viveka-vairagya)."

"You need both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood. (...)."

"¨Everything yields to earnestness.¨"

"To exist means to be something, a thing, a feeling, a thought, an idea. All existence is particular. Only being is universal, in the sense that every being is compatible with every other being. Existences clash, being – never. Existence means becoming, change, birth and death, and birth again, while in being there is silent peace."

"Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily."

"(...) one is always free. You are both conscious and free to be conscious. Nobody can take this away from you. (…)"

"(...) Desiring a state of freedom from desire will not set you free. Nothing can set you free, because you are free. See yourself with desireless clarity, that is all."

"(…) Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom."

"When I say I am free, I merely state a fact. If you are an adult, you are free from infancy. I am free from all description and identification. (…)."

"The essence of slavery is to imagine yourself to be a process, to have past and future, to have history. In fact, we have no history, we are not a process, we do not develop, nor decay (…)."

"God is not running the world. (…) All happens by itself. You are asking the question and you are supplying the answer. And you know the answer when you ask the question. All is play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory. (...)"

"When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God, apart from the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the world, which is God, is the tiny little spark: ‘I am,’ apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving."

"All this is temporary, while I am dealing with the eternal. Gods and their universes come and go, avatars follow each other in endless succession, and in the end we are back at the source. I talk only of the timeless source of all gods with all their universes, past, present and future."

"(...) Of what use is your arguing for or against God, when you just do not know who is God, and what are you talking about. (…)."

"(…) make your world perfect, by all means. If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one. Either see the world as a play or work at it with all your might. (...)."

"To me you are your own God. But if you think otherwise, think to the end. If there be God, then all is God’s and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and thankful heart. And love all creatures. This too will take you to your Self."

"God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am.’ Remove the ’here and now’ the ‘I am’ remains, unassailable. (…). All I can say truly is: ‘I am,’ all else is inference (…). The sense ‘I am’ is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. (…)."

"Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer teacher (Guru) is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher, that will walk with you to the goal, for he is the goal."

"That which sees all this, and the nothing too, is the inner teacher. He alone is, all else appears to be. He is your own self (swarupa), your hope and assurance of freedom, find him and cling to him and you will be saved and safe."

"(…) Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands. (…)."

"(...) Make your entire life an expression of your faith and love for your teacher – this is real dwelling with the Guru."

"(…) All those who proclaim their own greatness and uniqueness are not gnanis. (…) Proclaiming oneself to be an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipotent deity is a clear sign of ignorance."

"'I am' itself is God. The seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are neither the body nor the mind, and the love of the self in you is for the self in all. The two are one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love."

"I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says 'I am everything'. Wisdom says "I am nothing'. Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both."

"(...) In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. All there is is me, all there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all endings – I am. All has its being in me, in the “I am,” which shines in every living being. (...)."

"(…) All kind of experience may come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient, and only ‘I am’ endures."

"(...) When we are absorbed in other things, in the not-self, we forget the self. There is nothing unnatural about it. But, why forget the self through excess of attachment? Wisdom lies in never forgetting the self as the ever-present source of both the experiencer and his experience."

"To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. (…) What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels, life and light must not quarrel; behavior must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. (…)"

"(…) everything is inter-linked. And therefore everything has numberless causes. The entire universe contributes to the least thing. A thing is as it is because the world is as it is. (…)"

"If you look into living process closely, you will find cruelty everywhere, for life feeds on life. This is a fact, but it does not make you feel guilty of being alive. (…) From the animal point of view, being killed is not the worst form of dying; surely preferable to sickness and senile decay. The cruelty lies in the motive, not in the fact. Killing hurts the killer, not the killed."

"Desire for embodied existence is the root-cause of trouble. (...) Desire leads to experience. Experience leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge –liberation. And what is liberation after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream. Enquiry also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering; enquiry into happiness is better, for the mind is in harmony and peace."

"Discard all traditional standards. Leave them to the hypocrites. Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue you will have no peace. (…)"

"(…) Theories are neither right nor wrong. They are attempts at explaining the inexplicable. It is not the theory that matters, but the way it is being tested. (…) Experiment with any theory you like – if you are truly earnest and honest, the attainment of reality will be yours. (…) It is the earnestness that liberates and not the theory."

"(…) A liberated man is extremely law-abiding. But his laws are the laws of his real self, not of his society. These he observes, or breaks, according to circumstances and necessity. But he will never be fanciful and disorderly."

"Don’t rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether."

"Your weakness is due to your conviction that you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever recreated in you and by you. See everything as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being. You will find that in that light there is love and infinite energy."

"(...) To see myself in everybody and everybody in myself most certainly is love."

"When the sense of distinction and separation is absent, you may call it love."

"The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness."

"Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them, and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you. (…) By the same power that brought you so far, that prompted your heart to desire truth and your mind to seek it. It is the same power that keeps you alive. You may call it Life or the Supreme."

"(…) A weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be aware, therefore, of your mind and its projections. You cannot control what you do not know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is very simple. To control yourself – know yourself."

"There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind creates. It is self-created in the sense that at its very centre is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from other things. (...)."

"(…) The problem is not yours – it is your mind’s only. Begin by disassociating yourself from your mind. Resolutely remind yourself that you are not the mind and that its problems are not yours. (…) Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don’t look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change, there will be more clarity in your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behavior. You need not aim at these –you will witness the change all the same. For, what you are now is the result of inattention and what you become will be the fruit of attention."

"(…) Is not meanness also a form of madness? And is not madness the misuse of the mind? Humanity’s problem lies in this misuse of the mind only. All the treasures of nature and spirit are open to man who will use his mind rightly. (…) Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty."

"(…) there is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind.(…) Examine closely and you will see that the mind is seething with thoughts. It may occasionally go blank, but it does it for a time and reverts to its usual restlessness. (...)."

"(…) It is like taking food. All you can do is to bite off, chew and swallow. All else is unconscious and automatic. Listen, remember and understand – the mind is both the actor and the stage. All is of the mind and you are not the mind. (…)."

"(…) Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. (…)."

"Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless."

"(…) I am all and all is me. Being the world I am not afraid of the world. Being all, what am I to be afraid of? Water is not afraid of water, nor fire of fire. (…) It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am not attached. I am nothing, and nothing is not afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the Nothing, for when a thing touches Nothing, it becomes nothing. (…)"

"(...) To be nothing, to have nothing, to keep nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the highest generosity."

"What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realize the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. (…)."

"(…) Those who make plans will be born to carry them out. Those who make no plans need not be born."

""(…) There is something exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not have. (…) What makes the present so different? Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality."

"When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, (…) Don’t be afraid, don’t resist, don’t delay. Be what you are. There is nothing to be afraid of. Trust and try. Experiment honestly. Give your real being a chance to shape your life. You will not regret."

"(…) In the now you are both the movable and the immovable. (…). Overlook the movable and you will find yourself to be the ever-present, changeless reality, inexpressible, but solid like a rock."

"Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your vision."

"(...) To take the world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought ‘I am’ is the polishing cloth. Use it."

"That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness. All the objects of consciousness form the universe. What is beyond both, supporting both, is the supreme state, a state of utter stillness and silence. Whoever goes there, disappears. It is unreachable by words, or mind. You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the mind. It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state, beyond being and not being."

"(…) the supreme state (…) is entirely one and indivisible, a single solid block of reality. The only way of knowing it is to be it. The mind cannot reach it. To perceive it does not need the senses; to know it, does not need the mind."

"There are the two – the person and the witness, the observer. When you see them as one, and go beyond, you are in the supreme state. It is not perceivable, because it is what makes perception possible. It is beyond being and not being. It is neither the mirror nor the image in the mirror. It is what is – the timeless reality, unbelievably hard and solid."

"(…) as long as you cling to the idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you non-existing. When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace – immersed in the deep silence of reality."

"The world and the mind are states of being. The supreme is not a state. It pervades all states, but it is not a state of something else. It is entirely uncaused, independent, complete in itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter. (…) it leaves no traces. There is nothing to recognize it by. It must be seen directly, by giving up all search for signs and approaches. When all names and forms have been given up, the real is with you. You need not seek it. Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only. Reality is one."

"Everything is subjective, but the real is objective. (…) It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is. (…) It is solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh. (…) Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there."

"Reality can neither be proved nor disproved. Within the mind you cannot, beyond the mind you need not. In the real, the question ‘what is real?’ does not arise. (...)"

"Everything happens all the time, but you must be ready for it. Readiness is ripeness. You do not see the real because your mind is not ready for it."

"(...) Anything that implies a continuity, a sequence, a passing from stage to stage cannot be real. There is no progress in reality; it is final, perfect, unrelated."

"(...) All you can do is to grasp the central point, that reality is not an event and does not happen and whatever happens, whatever comes and goes, is not reality. (…)."

"In the case of a beginner the practice of Yoga is often deliberate and requires great determination. But those who are practicing sincerely for many years are intent on self-realization all the time, whether conscious of it or not. Unconscious sadhana is most effective, because it is spontaneous and steady."

"(…) Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle."

"(…) Salvation is to see things as they are. (…)"

"Those who know only scriptures know nothing. To know is to be. I know what I am talking about; it is not from reading, or hearsay."

"If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such or so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing."

"You are confused, because you believe that you are in the world, not the world in you. Who came first – you or your parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and place, that you have a father and a mother, a body and a name. This is your sin and your calamity! (...)"

"The source of consciousness cannot be the object in consciousness. To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the being. (…)"

"As you are now, the personality is only an obstacle. Self-identification with the body may be good for an infant, but true growing up depends on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one should outgrow body-based desires early in life. (…)"

"(…) You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you don’t have and you don’t have what you are not. You can only give what you are – and of that you can give limitlessly."

"(…) Just know that you are above and beyond all things and thoughts. What you want to be, you are it already. (…) desire nothing, for you lack nothing. The very seeking prevents you from finding."

"All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can the sense of unity be frustrated? (…) Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is wise, sex is blind. Once the true nature of love and sex is understood there will be no conflict or confusion."

"The talk is in your world. In mine – there is eternal silence. My silence sings, my emptiness is full. I lack nothing. You cannot know my world until you are there."

"(...) Sin and virtue refer to a person only. Without a sinful or virtuous person what is sin or virtue? At the level of the absolute there are no persons; the ocean of pure awareness is neither virtuous nor sinful. Sin and virtue are invariably relative."

"Whatever you do against your better knowledge is sin. (…) Remembering your self is virtue, forgetting your self is sin. (…)"

"(…) creation itself is rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering."

"(…) Pain and suffering are only the body and the mind screaming for attention. To go beyond the body you must be healthy; to go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order. (…)."

"(…) Suffering is a call for enquiry, all pain needs investigation. Don’t be lazy to think."

"Truth is simple and open to all. Why do you complicate? Truth is loving and lovable. It includes all, accepts all, purifies all. It is untruth that is difficult and a source of trouble. It always wants, expects, demands. Being false, it is empty, always in search of confirmation and reassurance. It is afraid of and avoids enquiry. It identifies itself with any support, however weak and momentary. Whatever it gets, it loses and asks for more. (…)."

"(...) A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies. (...)"

"Gandhi is dead, yet his mind pervades the earth. The thought of a gnani pervades humanity and works ceaselessly for good. Being anonymous, coming from within, it is more powerful and compelling. That is how the world improves-the inner aiding and blessing the outer. When gnani dies, he is no more, in the same sense in which a river is no more when it merges in the sea; the name, the shape, are no more, but the water remains and becomes one with the ocean. When a gnani joins the universal mind, all his goodness and wisdom become the heritage of humanity and uplift every human being."

"(…) After all, what is will but steadiness of heart and mind. Given such steadfastness all can be achieved."

"Whatever name you give it; will, or steady purpose, or onepointedness of the mind, you come back to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. (…) We are complex beings, at war within and without. We contradict ourselves all the time, undoing today the work of yesterday. No wonder we are stuck. A little of integrity would make a lot of difference."

"(…) Work on, and the universe will work with you. After all the very idea of doing the right thing comes to you from the unknown. Leave it to the unknown as far as the results go, just go through the necessary movements. You are merely one of the links in the long chain of causation. Fundamentally, all happens in the mind only. When you work for something whole-heartedly and steadily, it happens, for it is the function of the mind to make things happen. (...)."

"Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. Durham, NC: The Acorn Press. ."

"Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (1994). The Ultimate Medicine. Canada: Blue Dove Printing. ."

"A dog barks and stands at bay if he sees any one assault his master. I should be indeed remiss, if, seeing the truth of God thus attacked, I should remain dumb, without giving one note of warning."

"Now among the other things proper to recreate man and give him pleasure, music is either the first or one of the principal;and we must think that it is a gift of God deputed for that purpose'."

"Where there is so much division and separation as we now see, it is indeed no easy matter to still the troubled waters, and bring about composure. You will say he has a vehement disposition and ungovernable impetuosity; as if that very vehemence did not break forth with all the greater violence when all show themselves alike indulgent to him, and allow him to have his way unquestioned. If this specimen of overbearing tyranny has sprung forth already, as the early blossom in the springtide of a reviving Church, what must we expect in a short time, when affairs have fallen into a far worse condition?"

"God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church."

"I cannot think such language either right, or becoming, or suitable. ... To call the Virgin Mary the mother of God can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions."

"Nor, in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to our posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world."

"Jules Bonnet, ed., Letters of John Calvin, 4 vols., (Lenox Hill), vol.II, 1973, pp. 376–377;[http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0833740210&id=bZIcAAAAMAAJ&q=%22letters+of+john+calvin%22&dq=%22letters+of+john+calvin%22&pgis=1."

"I do not doubt that there has been some ignorance in their having reproved this mode of speech, — that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God … I cannot dissemble that it is found to be a bad practice ordinarily to adopt this title in speaking of this Virgin: and, for my part, I cannot consider such language as good , proper, or suitable… for to say, the Mother of God for the Virgin Mary, can only serve to harden the ignorant in their superstitions."

"Now let us consider how many relics of the true cross there are in the world. An account of those merely with which I am acquainted would fill a whole volume, for there is not a church, from a cathedral to the most miserable abbey or parish church, that does not contain a piece. Large splinters of it are preserved in various places, as for instance in the Holy Chapel at Paris, whilst at Rome they show a crucifix of considerable size made entirely, they say, from this wood. In short, if we were to collect all these pieces of the true cross exhibited in various parts, they would form a whole ship's cargo. The Gospel testifies that the cross could be borne by one single individual;.."

"Ainsi, ou nous arguerons l'histoire de mensonge, ou ce qu'on tient aujourd'hui de la vraie croix est une opinion vaine et frivole. Or, avisons d'autre part combien il y en a de pièces par tout le monde. Si je voulais réciter seulement ce que j'en pourrais dire, il y aurait un rôle pour remplir un livre entier. Il n'y a si petite ville où il n'y en ait, non seulement en l'église cathédrale, mais en quelques paroisses. Pareillement, il n'y a si méchante abbaye où on n'en montre. Et en quelques lieux, il y en a de bien gros éclats, comme à la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris, et à Poitiers et à Rome, où il y en a un crucifix assez grand qui en est fait, comme l'on dit. Bref, si on voulait ramasser tout ce qui s'en est trouvé, il y en aurait la charge d'un bon grand bateau. L'Évangile testifie que la croix pouvait être portée d'un homme."

"Primo meretur eorum perdita obstinatio et indomabilis, ut immensa miseriarum congerie sine fine et modo oppressi omnes exhilarent suis malis, nemo autem eorum misereatur. (Their [the Jews] depraved and indomitable obstinacy merits that none of them be pitied, as they all delight in their evils while being oppressed by a great mass of miseries without end or measure.)"

"All things being at God’s disposal, and the decision of salvation or death belonging to him, he orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction."

"But, as sculpture and painting are gifts of God, what I insist on is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully, that gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon us, for His glory and our good, shall not be preposterously abused, nay, shall not be perverted to our destruction."

"For just as soon as a visible form has been fashioned for God, his power is also bound to it. Men are so stupid that they fasten God wherever they fashion him; and hence they cannot but adore. And there is no difference whether they simply worship an idol, or God in the idol. It is always idolatry when divine honors are bestowed on an idol, under whatever pretext this is done. And because it does not please God to be worshiped superstitiously, whatever is conferred upon the idol is snatched from him."

"Just as a maistre Fifi mocks those who hold their noses [in his presence]. because he has handled filth for so long that he can no longer smell his own foulness; so likewise do idolaters make light of those who are offended by a stench they cannot themselves recognize. Hardened by habit, they sit in their own excrement, and yet believe they are surrounded by roses."

"We may also fitly remember that Satan has his miracles, which, though they are deceitful tricks rather than true powers, are such a sort as to mislead the simple-minded and untutored [2 Thes, 2:9-10] ... Idolatry has been nourished by wonderful miracles, yet these are not sufficient to sanction the superstition either of magicians or of idolators."

"The papists abuse this text, not only to the end they may commend feigned miracles, which they say are done at the graves of martyrs, but also that they may try and sell us their relics. Why, say thy, shall not the grave, or garment, or the touching of the bones of Peter have as much power to heal, as his shadow had?"

"No religion is genuine unless it be joined with truth."

"We condemn those who affirm that a man once justified cannot sin. ... As to the special privilege of the Virgin Mary, when they produce the celestial diploma we shall believe what they say."

"It is no small honour that God for our sake has so magnificently adorned the world, in order that we may not only be spectators of this beauteous theatre, but also enjoy the multiplied abundance and variety of good things which are presented to us in it."

"Que donc les nonnains demeurent en leurs convents et en leurs cloistres, et en leurs bourdeaux de Satan: ie di mesmes encores qu’elles ne fussent point putains comme elles sont, comme il y a encores pis de ces abominations de Sodome, faisans des choses si enormes et si abominables que c’est une horreur: encores, di-ie, que toutes ces vilenies-là n'y fussent point, si est-ce que toute la chasteté qu'elles pretendent, n'est rien envers Dieu, au prix de ce qu'il a ordonné, c'est asçavoir que combien que ce soyent choses contemptibles, et qui semblent estre de nulle valeur, qu'une femme ait peine d'adresser son mesnage, de nettoyer les ordures de ses enfans, de tuer les poux et autres choses semblables, que tout cela sera mesprisé, qu’on ne le daignera pas mesmes regarder, ce sont toutesfois sacrifices que Dieu reçoit et qu'il accepte, comme si c'estoyent choses precieuses et honorables."

"We must know and be out of all doubt, that the Pope hath but a devilish Synagogue, and that all his Clergy is but filth & stench, all these varlets that have cast aside the Church of God, are but vermin. Although the Pope, who is Antichrist, be set in God’s sanctuary, (as we have seen before [2 Thes. 2.4]) yet notwithstanding, he is not worthy to be taken and accounted for a minister of the Church, nor all his mates."

"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."

"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ."

"We take nothing from the womb but pure filth [meras sordes]. The seething spring of sin is so deep and abundant that vices are always bubbling up form it to bespatter and stain what is otherwise pure.... We should remember that we are not guilty of one offense only but are buried in innumerable impurities.... all human works, if judged according to their own worth, are nothing but filth and defilement.... they are always spattered and befouled with many stains.... it is certain that there is no one who is not covered with infinite filth."

"Et ne soyons pas semblables à ces fantastiques, qui ont un esprit d'amertume et de contradiction, pour trouver à redire par tout, et pour pervertir l'ordre de nature. Nous en verrons d'aucuns si frénétiques, non pas seulement en la religion, mais pour monstrer par tout qu'ils ont une nature monstrueuse, qu'ils diront que le soleil ne se bouge, et que c'est la terre qui se remue et qu'elle tourne. Quand nous voyons de tels esprits, il faut bien dire que le diable les ait possédez, et que Dieu nous les propose comme des miroirs, pour nous faire demeurer en sa crainte."

"For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him?"

"The proper course, therefore, is, in the first instance, to ascertain and examine the doctrine which is said by the Evangelist to precede; then after it has been proved, but not till then, it may receive confirmation from miracles. But the mark of sound doctrine given by our Saviour himself is its tendency to promote the glory not of men, but of God (John 7:18; 8:50). Our Saviour having declared this to be test of doctrine, we are in error if we regard as miraculous, works which are used for any other purpose than to magnify the name of God."

"All the Fathers with one heart execrated, and with one mouth protested against, contaminating the word of God with the subtleties of sophists, and involving it in the brawls of dialecticians. Do they keep within these limits when the sole occupation of their lives is to entwine and entangle the simplicity of Scripture with endless disputes, and worse than sophistical jargon? So much so, that were the Fathers to rise from their graves, and listen to the brawling art which bears the name of speculative theology, there is nothing they would suppose it less to be than a discussion of a religious nature."

"To make everything yield to custom would be to do the greatest injustice. Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error."

"We must not only resist, but boldly attack prevailing evils."

"Be it so that public error must have a place in human society, still, in the kingdom of God, we must look and listen only to his eternal truth, against which no series of years, no custom, no conspiracy, can plead prescription. Thus Isaiah formerly taught the people of God, “Say ye not, A confederacy, to all to whom this people shall say, A confederacy;” i.e. do not unite with the people in an impious consent."

"Depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd."

"The hinges on which the controversy turns are these: first, in their contending that the form of the Church is always visible and apparent; and, secondly, in their placing this form in the see of the Church of Rome and its hierarchy. We, on the contrary, maintain, both that the Church may exist without any apparent form, and, moreover, that the form is not ascertained by that external splendour which they foolishly admire, but by a very different mark, namely, by the pure preaching of the word of God, and the due administration of the sacraments."

"Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God. Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other."

"Our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us ... that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him."

"Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself."

"If all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being."

"It is easy to see how superstition, with its false glosses, mocks God, while it tries to please him."

"Those whose inclinations are at variance with the justice of God, knowing that his tribunal has been erected for the punishment of transgression, earnestly wish that that tribunal were overthrown. Under the influence of this feeling they are actually warring against God."

"For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly."

"It is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it."

"We expect salvation from him—not because he stands aloof from us, but because ingrafting us into his body he not only makes us partakers of all his benefits, but also of himself. ... Since Christ has been communicated to you with all his benefits, so that all which is his is made yours, you become a member of him, and hence one with him. His righteousness covers your sins—his salvation extinguishes your condemnation; he interposes with his worthiness, and so prevents your unworthiness from coming into the view of God. Thus it truly is. It will never do to separate Christ from us, nor us from him; but we must, with both hands, keep firm hold of that alliance by which he has riveted us to himself."

"Man doubtless has been made subject to vanity—man here been reduced to nothing—man is nothing. And yet how is he whom God exalts utterly nothing? How is he nothing to whom a divine heart has been given? Let us breathe again, brethren. Although we are nothing in our hearts, perhaps something of us may lurk in the heart of God."

"All nations before thee are as nothing. Observe, before thee; not within thee. Such are they in the judgment of thy truth, but not such in regard to thy affection."

"The wicked do not fear God from any unwillingness to offend him, provided they could do so with impunity. ... But believers, as has been said, dread the offense even more than the punishment."

"Becoming more callous and hardened when God thunders verbally from heaven, they obstinately persist in their rebellion. It is only when actually smitten by his hand that they are forced, whether they will or not, to fear. This fear the sacred writers term servile, and oppose to the free and voluntary fear which becomes sons."

"Faith has no less need of the word than the fruit of a tree has of a living root; because, as David testifies, none can hope in God but those who know his name [Psalm 9:10]."

"The large benefits which the divine liberality is constantly bestowing on the wicked are preparing them for heavier judgment. As they neither think that these proceed from the hand of the Lord, nor acknowledge them as his, or if they do so acknowledge them, never regard them as proofs of his favor, they are in no respect more instructed thereby in his mercy than brute beasts, which, according to their condition, enjoy the same liberality, and yet never look beyond it."

"It is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to practice repentance."

"He who is off the course, the more swiftly he runs is the more distant from the goal and, therefore, the more unhappy. It is better to limp in the way than run out of the way."

"Some one will say, Does he not know without a monitor both what our difficulties are, and what is meet for our interest, so that it seems in some measure superfluous to solicit him by our prayers, as if he were winking, or even sleeping, until aroused by the sound of our voice? Those who argue thus attend not to the end for which the Lord taught us to pray. It was not so much for his sake as for ours. ... It is very much for our interest to be constantly supplicating him; first, that our heart may always be inflamed with a serious and ardent desire of seeking, loving and serving him, while we accustom ourselves to have recourse to him as a sacred anchor in every necessity; secondly, that no desires, no longing whatever, of which we are ashamed to make him the witness, may enter our minds, while we learn to place all our wishes in his sight, and thus pour out our heart before him; and, lastly, that we may be prepared to receive all his benefits with true gratitude and thanksgiving, while our prayers remind us that they proceed from his hand."

"Let the first rule of right prayer then be, to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God. This we shall accomplish in regard to the mind, if, laying aside carnal thoughts and cares which might interfere with the direct and pure contemplation of God, it not only be wholly intent on prayer, but also, as far as possible, be borne and raised above itself. ... When I say it must be raised above itself, I mean that it must not bring into the presence of God any of those things which our blind and stupid reason is wont to devise, nor keep itself confined within the little measure of its own vanity, but rise to a purity worthy of God."

"The ceremony of lifting up our hands in prayer is designed to remind us that we are far removed from God, unless our thoughts rise upward."

"Can we suppose anything more hateful or even more execrable to God than this fiction of asking the pardon of sins, while he who asks at the very time either thinks that he is not a sinner, or, at least, is not thinking that he is a sinner; in other words, a fiction by which God is plainly held in derision?"

"He who comes into the presence of God to pray must divest himself of all vainglorious thoughts, lay aside all idea of worth; in short, discard all self- confidence, humbly giving God the whole glory, lest by arrogating any thing, however little, to himself, vain pride cause him to turn away his face."

"Moreover, in order that we may be aroused and exhorted all the more to carry this out, Scripture makes known that there are not one, not two, nor a few foes, but great armies, which wage war against us. For Mary Magdalene is said to have been freed from seven demons by which she was possessed [Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2], and Christ bears witness that usually after a demon has once been cast out, if you make room for him again, he will take with him seven spirits more wicked than he and return to his empty possession [Matt. 12:43-45]. Indeed, a whole legion is said to have assailed one man [Luke 8:30]. We are therefore taught by these examples that we have to wage war against an infinite number of enemies, lest, despising their fewness, we should be too remiss to give battle, or, thinking that we are sometimes afforded some respite, we should yield to idleness. But the frequent mention of Satan or the devil in the singular denotes the empire of wickness opposed to the Kingdom of Righteousness. For as the church and fellowship of the saints has Christ as Head, so the faction of the impious and impiety itself are depicted for us together with their prince who holds supreme sway over them. For this reason, it was said: "Depart, ...you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41]."

"It having been said above that God bends all the reprobate, and even Satan himself, at his will, three objections are started. First, that this happens by the permission, not by the will of God. To this objection there is a twofold reply, the one, that angels and men, good and bad, do nothing but what is appointed by God; the second, that all movements are secretly directed to their end by the hidden inspiration of God..."

"If we are minded to affirm Christ's Kingdom as we ought, we must wage irreconcilable war with him who is plotting its ruin."

"Lastly, let each of us consider how far he is bound in duty to others, and in good faith pay what we owe. In the same way, let the people pay all due honour to their rulers, submit patiently to their authority, obey their laws and orders, and decline nothing which they can bear without sacrificing the favour of God. Let rulers, again, take due charge of their people, preserve the public peace, protect the good, curb the bad, and conduct themselves throughout as those who must render an account of their office to God, the Judge of all… Let the aged also, by their prudence and their experience, (in which they are far superior,) guide the feebleness of youth, not assailing them with harsh and clamorous invectives but tempering strictness with ease and affability. Let servants show themselves diligent and respectful in obeying their masters, and this not with eye-service, but from the heart, as the servants of God. Let masters also not be stern and disobliging to their servants, nor harass them with excessive asperity, nor treat them with insult, but rather let them acknowledge them as brethren and fellow-servants of our heavenly Master, whom, therefore, they are bound to treat with mutual love and kindness. Let every one, I say, thus consider what in his own place and order he owes to his neighbours, and pay what he owes. Moreover, we must always have a reference to the Lawgiver, and so remember that the law requiring us to promote and defend the interest and convenience of our fellow-men, applies equally to our minds and our hands."

"The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law."

"We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts."

"The worship of images is intimately connected with that of the saints. They were rejected by the primitive Christians; but St Irenæus, who lived in the second century, relates that there was a sect of heretics, the Carpocratians, who worshipped, in the manner of Pagans, different images representing Jesus Christ, St Paul, and others. The Gnostics had also images; but the church rejected their use in a positive manner, and a Christian writer of the third century, Minutius Felix, says that “the Pagans reproached the Christians for having neither temples nor simulachres;” and I could quote many other evidences that the primitive Christians entertained a great horror against every kind of images, considering them as the work of demons. It appears, however, that the use of pictures was creeping into the church already in the third century, because the council of Elvira in Spain, held in 305, especially forbids to have any picture in the Christian churches. These pictures were generally representations of some events, either of the New 5 In his Treatise given below. 11 or of the Old Testament, and their object was to instruct the common and illiterate people in sacred history, whilst others were emblems, representing some ideas connected with the doctrines [008] of Christianity. It was certainly a powerful means of producing an impression upon the senses and the imagination of the vulgar, who believe without reasoning, and admit without reflection; it was also the most easy way of converting rude and ignorant nations, because, looking constantly on the representations of some fact, people usually end by believing it. This iconographic teaching was, therefore, recommended by the rulers of the church, as being useful to the ignorant, who had only the understanding of eyes, and could not read writings.6 Such a practice was, however, fraught with the greatest danger, as experience has but too much proved. It was replacing intellect by sight.7 Instead of elevating man towards God, it was bringing down the Deity to the level of his finite intellect, and it could not but powerfully contribute to the rapid spread of a pagan anthropomorphism in the church."

"The aversion of the first Christians to the images, inspired by the Pagan simulachres, made room, during the centuries which followed the period of the persecutions, to a feeling of an entirely different kind, and the images gradually gained their favour. Reappearing at the end of the fourth and during the course of the fifth centuries, simply as emblems, they soon became images, in the true acceptation of this word; and the respect which was entertained by the Christians for the persons and ideas represented by those images, was afterwards converted into a real worship. Representations of the sufferings which the Christians had endured for the sake of their religion, were at first exhibited to the people in order to stimulate by such a sight the faith of the masses, always lukewarm and indifferent. With regard to the images of divine persons of entirely immaterial beings, it must be remarked, that they did not originate from the most spiritualised and pure doctrines of the Christian society, but were rejected by the severe orthodoxy of the primitive church. These simulachres appear to have been spread at first by the Gnostics,—i.e., by those Christian sects which adopted the most of the beliefs of Persia and India. Thus it was a Christianity which was not purified by its contact with the school of Plato,—a Christianity which entirely rejected the Mosaic tradition, in order to attach itself to the most strange and attractive myths of Persia and India,—that gave birth to the images."

"I have already spoken of the effects which the solitary and ascetic life of the early monks produced upon their imagination. The same thing took place amongst the recluses of the convents, but particularly nunneries. “The imaginations of women,” says a celebrated author whom I have already quoted, “as their feelings are more keen and exquisite, are more susceptible and ungovernable than those of men; more obnoxious to the injurious influence of solitude; more easily won upon by the arts of delusion, and inflamed by the contagion of the passions.” Hence we may account for the rapidity with which in orphan houses, cloisters, and other institutions, where numbers of the sex are [122] intimately connected with each other, the sickness, humour, habits, of one, if conspicuous and distinguished, become those of all. I remember to have read in a medical writer of considerable merit, that in a French convent of nuns, of more than common magnitude, one of the sisters was seized with a strange impulse to mew like a cat, in which singular propensity she was shortly imitated by several other sisters, and finally, without a solitary exception, by the whole convent, who all joined at regular periods in a general mew that lasted several hours"

"“The practice of employing images as ornaments and memorials to decorate the temple of the Lord is in a most especial manner approved by the Word of God himself. Moses was commanded to place two cherubim upon the ark, and to set up a brazen figure of the fiery serpent, that those of the murmuring Israelites who had been bitten might recover from the poison of their wounds by looking on the image. In the description of Solomon's temple, we read of that prince, not only that he made in the oracle two cherubim of olive tree, of ten 83 Vide supra, p. 17. 101 cubits in height, but that ‘all the walls of the temple round about he carved with divers figures and carvings.’ “In the first book of Paralipomenon (Chronicles) we observe that when David imposed his injunction upon Solomon to realise his intention of building a house to the Lord, he delivered to him a description of the porch and temple, and concluded by thus assuring him: ‘All these things came to me written by the hand of the Lord, that I may understand the works of the pattern.’ “The isolated fact that images were not only directed by the Almighty God to be placed in the Mosaic tabernacle, and in the more sumptuous temple of Jerusalem, but that [132] he himself exhibited the pattern of them, will be alone sufficient to authorise the practice of the Catholic Church in regard to a similar observance.”—(Hierurgia, p. 371.) All this may be briefly answered. There was no representation of the Jewish patriarchs or saints either in the tabernacle or in the temple of Solomon, as is the case with the Christian saints in the Roman Catholic and Græco-Russian Churches; and the brazen serpent, to which the author alludes, was broken into pieces by order of King Hezekiah as soon as the Israelites began to worship it."

"The belief that the body of the Virgin was not interred on earth, but was taken to heaven, has deprived them of all pretext for manufacturing any relics of her remains, which otherwise might have been sufficiently abundant to fill a whole churchyard; yet in order to have at least something belonging to her, they sought to indemnify themselves for the absence of other relics with the possession of her hair and her milk. The hair is shown in several churches in Rome, and at Salvatierra in Spain, at Macon, St Flour, Cluny, Nevers, and in many other towns. With regard to the milk, there is not perhaps a town, a convent, or nunnery, where it is now shown in large or small quantites. Indeed, had the Virgin been a wet-nurse her whole life, or a dairy, she could not have produced more than is shown as hers in various parts."

"When we hear any mention of our mystical union with Christ, we should remember that holiness is the channel to do it."

"Holiness is not a merit by which we can attain communion with God, but a gift of Christ, which enables us to cling to him, and to follow him."

"Unless we ardently and prayerfully devote ourselves to Christ’s righteousness we do not only faithlessly revolt from our Creator, but we also abjure him as our Savior."

"Since God has revealed himself as a Father, we would be guilty of the basest ingratitude if we did not behave as his children."

"The apostle denies that anyone actually knows Christ, who has not learned to put off the old man, corrupt with deceitful lusts, and to put on Christ."

"We should not insist on absolute perfection of the gospel in our fellow Christians, however we may strive for it ourselves."

"It is not lawful for you to make a compromise with God: to try to fulfill part of your duties and to omit others at your own pleasure."

"No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority [of Christians] are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances."

"Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments. Though we fall short, our labour is not lost if this day surpasses the preceding one."

"The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble. Let us keep our end in view, let us press forward to our goal. Let us not indulge in pride, nor give in to our sinful passions. Let us steadily exert ourselves to reach a higher degree of holiness till we shall finally arrive at a perfection of goodness which we seek and pursue as long as we live, but which we shall attain then only, when, freed from all earthly infirmity, we shall be admitted by God into his full communion."

"It is a very important consideration that we are consecrated and dedicated to God; it means that we may think, speak, meditate, or do anything only with a view to his glory."

"Pagan philosophers set up reason as the sole guide of life, of wisdom and conduct; but Christian philosophy demands of us that we surrender our reason to the Holy Spirit; and this means that we no longer live for ourselves, but that Christ lives and reigns within us (Rom 12:1; Eph 4:23; Gal 2:20)."

"A Christian ought to be disposed and prepared to keep in mind that he has to reckon with God every moment of his life."

"The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart."

"There is deliverance in store only for the man who gives up his selfishness, and whose sole aim is to please the Lord and to do what is right in his sight."

"If God has bestowed on us any excellent gift, we imagine it to be our own achievement; and we swell and even burst with pride."

"The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues."

"Hatred grows into insolence when we desire to excel the rest of mankind and imagine we do not belong to the common lot; we even severely and haughtily despise others as our inferiors."

"The poor yield to the rich, the common people to the upper ten, the servants to their masters, the ignorant to the scholars; but there is nobody who does not imagine that he is really better than others."

"Everyone flatters himself and carries a kingdom in his breast."

"We should never insult others on account of their faults, for it is our duty to show charity and respect to everyone."

"Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church."

"You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others."

"Let this be our rule for goodwill and helpfulness, that whenever we are able to assist others we should behave as stewards who must someday give an account of ourselves."

"The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits. But scripture here helps us out with an excellent argument when it teaches us that we must not think of man’s real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love."

"If he has deserved no kindness, but just the opposite, because he has maddened you with his injuries and insults, even this is no reason why you should not surround him with your affection and show him all sorts of favors."

"We should forever keep in mind that we must not brood on the wickedness of man, but realize that he is God’s image bearer."

"If we cover and obliterate man’s faults and consider the beauty and dignity of God’s image in him, then we shall be induced to love and embrace him (Heb 12:16; Gal 6:10; Isa 58:7; Matt 5:44; Luke 17:3-4)"

"There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence."

"First of all, Scripture draws our attention to this, that if we want ease and tranquility in our lives, we should resign ourselves and all that we have to the will of God, and at the same time we should surrender our affections to him as our Conqueror and Overlord."

"To crave wealth and honor, to demand power, to pile up riches, to gather all those vanities which seem to make for pomp and empty display, that is our furious passion and our unbounded desire. On the other hand, we fear and abhor poverty, obscurity, and humility, and we seek to avoid them by all possible means."

"It must be plain also that we should not anxiously strive for riches and honors by relying on our own diligence or cleverness or by depending on the favor of men or by trusting in the notion of good luck, but that we should always expect the Lord to direct us to the lot he has provided for us."

"Moreover, a true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it."

"No one has rightly denied himself unless he has wholly resigned himself to the Lord and is willing to leave every detail to his good pleasure. If we put ourselves in such a frame of mind, then, whatever may happen to us, we shall never feel miserable or accuse God falsely because of our lot."

"But a faithful believer will in all circumstances mediate on the mercy and fatherly goodness of God."

"In short, knowing that whatever may happen is ordained by the Lord, he will receive it with a peaceful and thankful heart, that he may not be guilty of proudly resisting the rule of him to whom he has once committed himself and all his belongings."

"For all whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of his saints ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult, laborious, and full of countless griefs. It is the will of their heavenly Father to try them in this manner that he may test them."

"For though Christ was his most beloved Son, in whom the Father was always well pleased, yet we see that he was not treated with indulgence and tenderness, so that it may be truly said that he was not only continuously afflicted, but that his whole life was a perpetual cross."

"Being humbled, we learn to call upon his strength which alone makes us stand up under such a load of afflictions."

"For he [David] confesses that prosperity had so stupefied and benumbed his senses that he disregarded the grace of God on which he should have depended, relied on himself instead, and imagined that he could not fall."

"Warned by such evidences of their spiritual illness, believers profit by their humiliations. Robbed of their foolish confidence in the flesh, they take refuge in the grace of God. And when they have done so, they experience the nearness of the divine protection which is to them a strong fortress (Ps 30:6-7)."

"If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God."

"For we are not all equally afflicted with the same disease or all in need of the same severe cure. This is the reason why we see different persons disciplined with different crosses. The heavenly Physician takes care of the well-being of all his patients; he gives some a milder medicine and purifies others by more shocking treatments, but he omits no one; for the whole world, without exception, is ill (Deut 32:15)."

"When we recognize the rod of a father, should we not show ourselves docile children rather than rebelliously desperate men who have been hardened in their evil doings?"

"Scripture points out this difference between believers and unbelievers; the latter, as old slaves of their incurable perversity, cannot endure the rod; but the former, like children of noble birth, profit by repentance and correction."

"The more we are oppressed by the cross, the fuller will be our spiritual joy."

"That they may not become too complacent or delighted in married life, he makes them distressed by the shortcomings of their partners, or humbles them through willful offspring, or afflicts them with the want or loss of children. But, if in all these matters he is more merciful to them, he shows them by diseases and dangers how unstable and passing all mortal blessings are, that they may not be puffed up with vain glory."

"But it must be admitted that our heart is never seriously inclined to wish for and to mediate on the future life unless it has first thoroughly learned to forsake the vanities of the present world."

"There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love."

"Nevertheless, our constant efforts to lower our estimate of the present world should not lead us to hate life or to be ungrateful toward God. For this life, though it is full of countless miseries, deserves to be reckoned among the divine blessings which should not be despised. Therefore, if we discover nothing of God’s goodness in it, we are already guilty of no small ingratitude toward him."

"When we come to a comparison of heaven and earth, then we may indeed not only forget all about the present life, but even despise and scorn it."

"But the present life should never be hated, except insofar as it subjects us to sin, although even that hatred should not properly be applied to life itself."

"But this we may positively state, that nobody has made any progress in the school of Christ unless he cheerfully looks forward to the day of his death and to the day of the final resurrection."

"Even if this earth is only a vestibule, we ought undoubtedly to make such a use of its blessing that we are assisted rather than delayed in our journey."

"For there have been some people, otherwise good and holy, who saw that intemperance and luxury time and again drive man to throw off all restraints unless he is curbed by the utmost severity. And in their desire to correct such a pernicious evil they have adopted the only method which they saw fit, namely to permit earthly blessings only insofar as they were an absolute necessity. This advice showed the best of intentions but was far too rigid. For they committed the very dangerous error of imposing on the consequence of others stricter rules than those laid down in the Word of the Lord. By restricting people within the demands of necessity, they meant abstinence from everything possible. On the other hand, there are many nowadays who seek a pretext to excuse intemperance in the use of the external things, and who desire to indulge the lusts of the flesh. Such people take for granted that liberty should not be restricted by any limitations at all; but to this we can never agree. We must grant, indeed, that it is not right or possible to bind the consciences of others with hard and fast rules."

"Where is our acknowledgement of God if our thoughts are fixed on the glamour of our garments?"

"There is also an old proverb, that they who pay much attention to the body generally neglect the soul."

"If we follow our divine calling, we shall receive this unique consolation that there is no work so mean and so sordid that does not look truly respectable and highly important in the sight of God (Coram Deo!) (Gen 1:28; Col 1:1ff)"

"In the mind perfect intelligence flourished and reigned, uprightness attended as its companion, and all the senses were prepared and moulded for due obedience to reason; and in the body there was a suitable correspondence with this internal order. But now, although some obscure lineaments of that image are found remaining in us; yet are they so vitiated and maimed, that they may truly be said to be destroyed. For besides the deformity which everywhere appears unsightly, this evil also is added, that no part is free from the infection of sin."

"For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God."

"The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring."

"The supreme and only Judge of the universe stands before the tribunal of an earthly judge."

"And at this day, the blessedness brought to us by Christ cannot be the subject of our praise, without reminding us, at the same time, of the distinguished honor which God was pleased to bestow on Mary, in making her the mother of his Only Begotten Son."

""[Elizabeth] calls Mary the mother of her Lord. This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who was begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time, the eternal God.... This name Lord strictly belongs to the Son of God 'manifested in the flesh,' (1 Timothy 3:16,) who has received from the Father all power, and has been appointed the highest ruler of heaven and earth, that by his agency God may govern all things."

"Elisabeth, again, while she praises her, is so far from hiding the Divine glory, that she ascribes everything to God. And yet, though she acknowledges the superiority of Mary to herself and to others, she does not envy her the higher distinction, but modestly declares that she had obtained more than she deserved."

"If there had been any unbelief in Mary, that could not prevent God from accomplishing his work in any other way which he might choose. But she is called blessed, because she received by faith the blessing offered to her, and opened up the way to God for its accomplishment."

"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."

"For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theatre, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world."

"Some think that He does not call her 'mother' but only 'woman' so as not to inflict a deeper wound of sorrow on her heart. I do not reject this; but another conjecture is no less probable, that Christ wanted to show that now that He has completed the course of human life, He puts off the condition in which He has lived and enters into the heavenly kingdom where He will rule over angels and men. For we know that Christ's custom always was to recall believers from looking at the flesh. This was especially necessary at His death."

"Each church is free to establish whatever form of organisation is suitable and useful itself, for God has prescribed nothing specific about this."

"The name of Christ is used here instead of the Church, because the similitude was intended to apply—not to God's only-begotten Son, but to us. It is a passage that is full of choice consolation, inasmuch as he calls the Church Christ; for Christ confers upon us this honour —that he is willing to be esteemed and recognised, not in himself merely, but also in his members. Hence the same Apostle says elsewhere, (Eph. i. 23,) that the Church is his completion, as though he would, if separated from his members, be incomplete."

"There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice."

"This is the highest honour of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with him, does he possess all his parts, or wish to be regarded as complete! Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body, he includes under the single name of Christ the whole Church."

"Then let every one of us, being warned by this sentence of the angel, acknowledge that he as yet cleaves to first principles, or, at least, does not comprehend all those things which are necessary to be known; and that therefore progress is to be made to the very end of life: for this is our wisdom, to be learners to the end."

"Where many of you only have an understanding of the eyes. What you see is division and separation, it is indeed troubling that God would share his power with Lucifer and allow him to fight against him, and bring about discontent. You will say that Lucifer must have a vehement disposition and ungovernable impetuosity; as if that was enough to break the power of God. Now with this understanding it is impossible to accept Lucifer as independent from God without falling into the Paganism of Persia and Indiana. This paganism has infiltrated the hearts of Christians and has caused them to forget the power of God, saying he does not have control over all. Now from this we can conclude that Lucifer, who you incorrectly call a Devil, is a loyal servant of God."

"John Calvin whose peculiar fad It was to call God murderous, Which further led that feverish cad To burn alive the Servetus."

"It is true that Calvin and his fellow pastors in Geneva were involved in the death of Servetus.However, it would be difficult to find any church leader in the 16th century who advocated a more gentle approach. Luther called for attacks on German peasants and wrote an angry tract against the Jews, called ‘On the Jews and their Lies'. Zwingli, the Reformer of Zurich, supported the execution by drowning of the Anabaptist leader, Felix Manz. Sir Thomas More, England's Catholic Lord Chancellor, presided over the execution of those he viewed as “heretics” in England during the reign of Henry the VIII. Each country of Europe in the sixteenth century felt that defending its religious views involved taking strong measures against those who disagreed. Toleration and acceptance of doctrinal differences were simply not sixteenth ­century concepts."

"For Calvin, religion and piety are one and the same thing."

"It is remarkable, how much of Roman Catholic tradition and theory survived in Calvin's theology."

"[T]he man who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense."

"But seeing the source from which this book came forth, the majesty of the matter surpasses all human eloquence, being privileged and having such force within it that a single sentence has power to ravish, inspire, and give knowledge to the most stupid and ignorant beings alive in what way God wishes to be known, seen, and heard."

"Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the poor laws did not suffice to drive men into the workshops of the early capitalistic era. The new spirit helped to supplement external pressures."

"Whatever Calvin was or was not, he was a man to whom religion was the very breath of life. His piety was as profound as it was constant. All that was best, noblest and most influential in him (Rénan calls him the most Christian man of his generation) is traceable to its true source in a heart that was wholly given to God. Never has a more genuinely consecrated life been lived than his."

"Piety was the keynote of his character. He was a God-possessed soul. Theology was no concern to him as a study in itself; he devoted himself to it as a framework for the support of all that religion meant to him."

"He was wonderfully patient for those days and for one in his position with all kinds of creedal vagaries around him. It was only when these threatened (in his view) the foundations of morality and orderly government and therefore of society that he became severe. But (excepting in the case of Servetus) his severity limited itself to expulsion of the offender from Geneva as a disturber of the public peace, as a discordant element in the community whose continuance there might be fraught with insidious and perilous potencies of evil. Calvin in this respect accepted and applied the principle of the Justinian code, Cujus regio, ejus religio, though from a different motive, the motive not of the right of the powers-that-be to command the belief of subjects, but that of expediency in the interests of the public welfare, based as it was in his view on what he jealously regarded as the true religion."

"Calvin states that Muhammad is “the companion of the Pope who has done his very best to seduce those poor people who were enraged and saturated and poisoned by his false doctrine”. Calvin condemns Muhammad and the Pope as the two horns of the Antichrist described in Daniel’s prophetic seventh chapter. For Calvin, both the Pope and Muhammad seduced potential Protestant Christians away from the true path through false teachings and idolatrous practices."

"After witnessing Suleiman reach Vienna in 1529, both Luther and Calvin came to fear the influence of Islam and denigrated Muhammad as a consequence of that fear. Calvin in particular condemned Islam for its veneration of Muhammad as a prophet and claimed that Muslims set Mohammed apart from other men as an idol. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), Calvin condemns the treatment of Muhammad as that of an idol. “The Turks in the present day”, he states, proclaim “with full throat that the Creator of heaven and earth is their God”, yet they reject the sovereignty of Christ and “substitute an idol in His place”. The replacing of Jesus with Muhammad is a grievous action for Calvin. He proclaims in a sermon, “[the Turks] set their Mahomet in the place of God’s Son”, for which he questions, “ought such a one be put to death, without forbearing?”"

"Calvin took the position that Islam was not merely a threat to European Christendom, but to potential Christians all over the world. Slomp finds Calvin believed that Muslims were former Christians “deceived by Muhammad”. In this way, Calvin placed the blame for Islam as a false religion that sentenced souls to damnation solely on one man, Muhammad. In Calvin’s Opera, Sermon 26 on Daniel 9, he explains that “Muhammad had corrupted the greater part of the world, setting an example for other sects which always want to say and invent something new. All sects that exist today ... have come out of this mud puddle. ”Thus, Muhammad is not merely responsible for Islam as a false religion, but all other sects that have developed since then that mislead the people who, in Calvin’s mind, rightfully belong to Christ. Calvin blames Muhammad for the damned state of all Muslims, citing Muhammad’s “deceitfulness” that has “bewitched” Muslims to idolize him instead of worshipping Christ."

"Apart from a few poets we see these followers of Calvin contributing very little to the arts and letters. They lacked painters, musicians, architects of originality; hilarity was for them suspect and their humor was limited. In their political activities they displayed strange and disquieting tendencies; in North America they brought the Indians, with the help of bullets, whisky, and infected blankets, almost to a vanishing point. In England they led the first great attack against the institution of monarchy in Christian history, in Ireland they displayed their homicidal talents in the most brutal type of warfare, in South Africa they established republics in which the institution of slavery survived till the threshold of the twentieth century, in Hungary they allied themselves with the pagan Turks and in Japan with the Shintoists against the Catholics."

"Calvin rejected the individualism of Luther and followed in the footsteps of older thinkers like Duns Scotus. The monarchical principle was everywhere gaining ground in Europe. He had a lawyer's love of law, and law reposed in the absolute will of the prince. Hebraize this fact, erect a cosmology upon it, and we have the vital principle of . From this cosmic absolutism, that conceived of God as the stable Will sustaining the universe, binding together what otherwise would fly asunder, two important corollaries were derived: the universality of the moral law, and the necessity of . From the former flowed that curious association of God's will with natural causes which induced Cotton Mather, when suffering from toothache, to inquire what sin he had committed with his teeth, and which left no free spaces or non-moral impulses in the lives of men. From the latter flowed the doctrine of ."

"Vernon Louis Parrington, (1st part of quote 2nd part of quote last part of quote; text at archive.org)"

"Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles."

"From a reading of The Institutes of Christian Religion, The Tracts, and much of the Correspondence of Calvin, I am impressed with the fact that Calvin allowed very little place in his life for purely aesthetic enjoyment of art. His whole attention was directed to theological matters and the precise, and to him the inevitable, relation which these theological matters bore to human conduct. His was a keen, penetrating mind, sharpened by legalistic training, which had never gone through the torment of doubt that so affected Luther. Calvin based every thought on the scriptures. He did not speak for himself, but was only the interpreter of the Scriptures. On the one hand this made him very humble, but on the other since he was admittedly the most astute theologian of his day, he could not conceive of anyone doubting the truth and the authority of his interpretations. Little did he realize that he was attempting to set up a new form of religious tyranny, and in many respect succeeding. Calvin was completely ignorant of any approach to truth except by the way of logic and cold reason. There was nothing of the mystic about him as there was in Luther. He was lacking in imagination and in a sensitiveness to visual and aural beauty. In vain may one search for a single reference in his works to the beauty of Lake Geneva or of the Alps. Any man who would set out looking for a wife with a blue print of the desired qualities of his future mate in his hand, asking his friends for candidates, lacks qualities which we expect to find in a normal human being. But Calvin was not a normal human being. He was an organizing genius, wholly concerned with the matters of theology and conduct. His condemnation of Servetus has usually been cited as an example of his hardness of heart. Calvin's love for the classic poets, and the clear concise style of his own writing stand in welcome contrast to his lack of artistic sensitivity toward the other art media. I would not consider his encouragement of the congregational singing of the Psalms as showing a love of music as such, but only a realization of the power of music to help in bringing the word to the hearts of the people."

"Virginia Presbyterian dissenters firmly followed the Reformation teachings of John Calvin and John Knox, as these had been interpreted and adopted by a mid-1600s British Parliament which had been briefly dominated by the Puritans (whose very name indicated their zealous aspirations and earnest commitments to purify these established Church of England. In 1647 this so-called "Long Parliament" passed a series of Calvinist faith statements which were collectively known as The Westminster Standards. These consisted of a formal Confession of Faith and two instructional documents called the Larger and Shorter Catechisms."

"While Calvin in his preaching did not follow a lectionary of prescribed scripture readings for each Sunday of the year, his preaching did usually follow a previously publicized order of scripture selections, e.g.', a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, or on the Beatitudes, or even on a sequential selection of Psalms. In that sense Calvin used a prescribed lectionary (of sorts) which at least some of his hearers might have studied in preparation for listening to his sermons. On the other hand, the 17th century English Puritan Presbyterian and Congregational preachers (who were the principal models for the 18th century Virginia traveling preachers) just "took (any) text and preached from it.""

"With Calvin the decretum horribile is derived not, as with Luther, from religious experience, but from the logical necessity of his thought; – therefore its importance increases with every increase in the logical consistency of that religious thought. The interest of it is solely in God, not in man; God does not exist for men, but men for the sake of God. All creation, including of course the fact, as it undoubtedly was for Calvin, that only a small proportion of men are chosen for eternal grace, can have any meaning only as means to the glory and majesty of God."

"The question, Am I one of the elect? must sooner or later have arisen for every believer and have forced all other interests into the background. And how can I be sure of this state of grace? For Calvin himself this was not a problem. He felt himself to be a chosen agent of the Lord, and was certain of his own salvation. Accordingly, to the question of how the individual can be certain of his own election, he has at bottom only the answer that we should be content with the knowledge that God has chosen and depend further only on that implicit trust in Christ which is the result of true faith. He rejects in principle the assumption that one can learn from the conduct of others whether they are chosen or damned. It is an unjustifiable attempt to force God’s secrets."

"The religious believer can make himself sure of his state of grace either in that he feels himself to be the vessel of the Holy Spirit or the tool of the divine will. In the former case his religious life tends to mysticism and emotionalism, in the latter to ascetic action; Luther stood close to the former type, Calvinism belonged definitely to the latter. The Calvinist also wanted to be saved sola fide. But since Calvin viewed all pure feelings and emotions, no matter how exalted they might seem to be, with suspicion, faith had to be proved by its objective results in order to provide a firm foundation for the certitudo salutis. It must be a fides efficax, the call to salvation an effectual calling (expression used in Savoy Declaration)."

"The ascetic, when he wishes to act within the world ... must become afflicted with a sort of happy closure of the mind regarding any question about the meaning of the world, for he must not worry about such questions. Hence, it is no accident that inner-worldly asceticism reached its most consistent development on the foundation of the Calvinist god's absolute inexplicability, utter remoteness from every human criterion, and unsearchableness as to his motives. Thus, the inner-worldly ascetic is the recognized "man of a vocation," who neither inquires about nor finds it necessary to inquire about the meaning of his actual practice of a vocation within the whole world, the total framework of which is not his responsibility but his god's."

"Now the Spirit of Love has this Original. God, as considered in himself in his Holy Being, before any thing is brought forth by him or out of him, is only an eternal Will to all Goodness. This is the one eternal immutable God, that from Eternity to Eternity changeth not, that can be neither more nor less nor any thing else but an eternal Will to all the Goodness that is in himself, and can come from him. The Creation of ever so many Worlds or Systems of Creatures adds nothing to, nor takes any thing from this immutable God. He always was and always will be the same immutable Will to all Goodness. So that as certainly as he is the Creator, so certainly is he the Blesser of every created Thing, and can give nothing but Blessing, Goodness, and Happiness from himself because he has in himself nothing else to give. It is much more possible for the Sun to give forth Darkness, than for God to do, or be, or give forth anything but Blessing and Goodness. Now this is the Ground and Original of the Spirit of Love in the Creature; it is and must be a Will to all Goodness, and you have not the Spirit of Love till you have this Will to all Goodness at all Times and on all Occasions. You may indeed do many Works of Love and delight in them, especially at such Times as they are not inconvenient to you, or contradictory to your State or Temper or Occurrences in Life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the Spirit of your Life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it. For every Spirit acts with Freedom and Universality according to what it is. It needs no command to live its own Life, or be what it is, no more than you need bid Wrath be wrathful. And therefore when Love is the Spirit of your Life, it will have the Freedom and Universality of a Spirit; it will always live and work in Love, not because of This or That, Here or There, but because the Spirit of Love can only love, wherever it is or goes or whatever is done to it. As the Sparks know no Motion but that of flying upwards, whether it be in the Darkness of the Night or in the Light of the Day, so the Spirit of Love is always in the same Course; it knows no Difference of Time, Place, or Persons, but whether it gives or forgives, bears or forbears, it is equally doing its own delightful Work, equally blessed from itself. For the Spirit of Love, wherever it is, is its own Blessing and Happiness because it is the Truth and Reality of God in the Soul, and therefore is in the same Joy of Life and is the same Good to itself, everywhere and on every Occasion."

"If Reason seems to have any Power against Religion, it is only where Religion is become a dead Form, has lost its true State, and is dwindled into Opinion; and when this is the Case, that Religion stands only as a well-grounded Opinion, then indeed it is always liable to be shaken; either by having its own Credibility lessened, or that of a contrary Opinion increased. But when Religion is that which it should be, not a Notion or Opinion, but a real Life growing up in God, then Reason has just as much power to stop its Course, as the barking Dog to stop the Course of the Moon. For true and genuine Religion is Nature, is Life, and the Working of Life; and therefore, wherever it is, Reason has no more Power over it, than over the Roots that grow secretly in the Earth, or the Life that is working in the highest Heavens. If therefore you are afraid of Reason hurting your Religion, it is a Sign, that your Religion is not yet as it should be, is not a self-evident Growth of Nature and Life within you, but has much of mere Opinion in it ."

"Man needs to be Saved from his own Wisdom as much as from his own Righteousness, for they produce one and the same corruption. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but that which delivers him from his own wisdom."

"We have no spiritual need except for a restoration of the divine nature in us. And if this be true, then nothing can be our salvation except that which brings us into a right relationship with God, making us partakers of the divine nature in such a manner and degree as we need. But to reason about life cannot communicate it to the soul, nor can a religion of rational notions and opinions logically deduced from Scripture words bring the reality of the gospel into our lives. Do we not see sinners of all sorts, and men under the power of every corrupt passion, equally zealous for such a religion? How is it then that Christian leaders spend so much time reasoning about Scripture doctrines, and yet remain so blind to the obvious fact that filling the head with right notions of Christ can never give to the heart the reality of His Spirit and life? For logical reasoning about Scripture words and doctrines will do no more to remove pride, hypocrisy, envy, or malice from the soul of man, than logical reasoning about geometry. The one leaves man as empty of the life of God in Christ as the other. Yet the church is filled with professing Christians whose faith has never gone beyond a conviction that the words of Scripture are true. They believe in the Christ of the Bible, but do not know Him personally. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is sound doctrine to their minds, but their lives are empty of His manifest power either to overcome the power of sin within, or to convert others to Christ. Though many are zealous to preach the gospel, yet instead of bringing men to Christ, they seek to reason them into a trust in their own learned opinions about Scripture doctrines. In contrast to Paul, their gospel is in word only, without the demonstration and power of the Spirit. Nor can they see their need of the Holy Spirit to fill them with Christ, and then to overflow through them in rivers of living water to others, because reason tells them that they are sound in the letter of doctrine."

"Men are not in hell because God is angry with them. They are in wrath and darkness because they have done to the light, which infinitely flows forth from God, as that man does to the light who puts out his own eyes."

"If contempt of the world and heavenly affection is a necessary temper of christians, it is necessary that this temper appear in the whole course of their lives, in their manner of using the world, because it can have no place anywhere else."

"So that Christianity is so far from leaving us to live in the common ways of life, conforming to the folly of customs, and gratifying the passions and tempers which the spirit of the world delights in, it is so far from indulging us in any of these things, that all its virtues which it makes necessary to salvation are only so many ways of living above and contrary to the world, in all the common actions of our life. If our common life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians."

"Now if you will stop here and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it."

"He that is endeavouring to subdue, and root out of his mind,all those passions of pride,envy and ambition,which religion opposes, is doing more to make himself happy, even in this life than he that is contriving means to indulge them."

"You can have no greater sign of confirmed pride than when you think you are humble enough."

"The Deists, and unbelievers, have a great share of my compassionate affections, and I never can think, or write of the infinite blessings of the Christian redemption, without feeling in my heart, an impatient longing to see them the happy partakers of them. And as one naturally believes, what one strongly wishes; so I cannot help hoping, that both Christians and Deists will here find truths of such a nature, as must in some degree touch their hearts, if not read with prejudice and aversion. OF THE Nature and Necessity OF R E G E N E R A T I O N, OR, THE N E W - B I R T H."

"The reason why we know so little of Jesus Christ, as our savior, atonement, and justification, why we are so destitute of that faith in him, which alone can change, rectify, and redeem our souls, why we live starving in the coldness and deadness of a formal, historical, hearsay-religion, is this; we are strangers to our own inward misery and wants, we know not that we lie in the jaws of death and hell; we keep all things quiet within us, partly by outward forms, and modes of religion and morality, and partly by the comforts, cares and delights of this world. Hence it is that we consent to receive a savior, as we consent to admit of the four gospels, because only four are received by the church. We believe in a savior, not because we feel an absolute want of one, but because we have been told there is one, and that it would be a rebellion against God to reject him. We believe in Christ as our atonement, just as we believe, that he cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, and so are no more helped, delivered, and justified by believing that he is our atonement, than by believing that he cured Mary Magdalene."

"Some People have an Idea, or Notion of the Christian Religion, as if God was thereby declared so full of Wrath against fallen Man, that nothing but the Blood of his only begotten Son could satisfy his Vengeance. Nay, some have gone such Lengths of Wickedness, as to assert that God had by immutable Decrees reprobated, and rejected a great Part of the Race of Adam, to an inevitable Damnation, to show forth and magnify the Glory of his Justice. But these are miserable Mistakers of the Divine Nature, and miserable Reproachers of his great Love, and Goodness in the Christian Dispensation. For God is Love, yea, all Love, and so all Love, that nothing but Love can come from him; and the Christian Religion is nothing else but an open, full Manifestation of the universal Love towards all Mankind. As the Light of the Sun has only one common Nature towards all Objects that can receive it, so God has only one common Nature of Goodness towards all created Nature, breaking forth in infinite Flames of Love, upon every Part of the Creation, and calling everything to the highest Happiness it is capable of."

"As man lives, and moves, and has his Being in the Divine Nature, and is supported by it, whether his Nature be good or bad; so the Wrath of Man, which was awakened in the dark Fire of his fallen Nature, may, in a certain Sense, be called the Wrath of God, as Hell itself may be said to be in God, because nothing can be out of his Immensity; yet this Hell, is not God, but the dark Habitation of the Devil. And this Wrath which may be called the Wrath of God, is not God, but the fiery Wrath of the fallen Soul. And it was solely to quench this Wrath, awakened in the human Soul, that the Blood of the Son of God was necessary, because nothing but a Life and a Birth, derived from him into the human Soul, could change this darkened Root of a self-tormenting Fire, into an amiable Image of the holy Trinity, as it was at first created. This was the Wrath, Vengeance, and vindictive Justice that wanted to be satisfied, in order to our Salvation; it was the Wrath and Fire of Nature and Creature kindled only in itself, by its departing from true Resignation, and Obedience to God."

"God therefore is all Love, and nothing but Love and Goodness can come from him. He is as far from Anger in himself, as from Pain and Darkness. But when the fallen Soul of Man, had awakened in itself, a wrathful, self-tormenting Fire, which could never be put out by itself, which could never be relieved by the natural Power of any Creature whatsoever, then the Son of God, by a Love, greater than that which created the World, became Man, and gave his own Blood, and Life into the fallen Soul, that it might through his Life in it, be raised, quickened, and born again into its first State of inward Peace and Delight, Glory and Perfection, never to be lost any more. O inestimable Truths! precious Mysteries, of the Love of God, enough to split the hardest Rock of the most obdurate Heart, that is but able to receive one Glimpse of them! Can the World resist such Love as this? Or can any Man doubt, whether he should open all that is within him, to receive such a Salvation? O unhappy Unbelievers, this Mystery of Love compels me in Love, to call upon you, to beseech and entreat you, to look upon the Christian Redemption in this amiable Light. All the Ideas that your own Minds can form of Love and Goodness, must sink into nothing, as soon as compared with God's Love and Goodness in the Redemption of Mankind."

"All possible goodness that either can be named, or is nameless, was in God from all eternity, and must to all eternity be inseparable from him; it can be nowhere but where God is. As therefore before God created anything, it was certainly true that there was but one that was good, so it is just the same truth, after God has created innumerable hosts of blessed and holy and heavenly beings, that there is but one that is good, and that is God. All that can be called goodness, holiness, divine tempers, heavenly affections, in the creatures, are no more their own, or the growth of their created powers, than they were their own before they were created. But all that is called divine goodness and virtue in the creature is nothing else, but the one goodness of God manifesting a birth and discovery of itself in the creature, according as its created nature is fitted to receive it. This is the unalterable state between God and the creature. Goodness for ever and ever can only belong to God, as essential to him and inseparable from him, as his own unity."

"God could not make the creature to be great and glorious in itself; this is as impossible, as for God to create beings into a state of independence on himself. "The heavens," saith David, "declare the glory of God"; and no creature, any more than the heavens, can declare any other glory but that of God. And as well might it be said, that the firmament shows forth its own handiwork, as that a holy divine or heavenly creature shows forth its own natural power. But now, if all that is divine, great, glorious, and happy, in the spirits, tempers, operations, and enjoyments of the creature, is only so much of the greatness, glory, majesty, and blessedness of God, dwelling in it, and giving forth various births of his own triune life, light, and love, in and through the manifold forms and capacities of the creature to receive them, then we may infallibly see the true ground and nature of all true religion, and when and how we may be said to fulfill all our religious duty to God. For the creature's true religion, is its rendering to God all that is God's, it is its true continual acknowledging all that which it is, and has, and enjoys, in and from God. This is the one true religion of all intelligent creatures, whether in heaven, or on earth; for as they all have but one and the same relation to God, so though ever so different in their several births, states or offices, they all have but one and the same true religion, or right behavior towards God. Now the one relation, which is the ground of all true religion, and is one and the same between God and all intelligent creatures, is this, it is a total unalterable dependence upon God, an immediate continual receiving of every kind, and degree of goodness, blessing and happiness, that ever was, or can be found in them, from God alone. The highest angel has nothing of its own that it can offer unto God, no more light, love, purity, perfection, and glorious hallelujahs, that spring from itself, or its own powers, than the poorest creature upon earth. Could the angel see a spark of wisdom, goodness, or excellence, as coming from, or belonging to itself, its place in heaven would be lost, as sure as Lucifer lost his. But they are ever abiding flames of pure love, always ascending up to and uniting with God, for this reason, because the wisdom, the power, the glory, the majesty, the love, and goodness of God alone, is all that they see, and feel, and know, either within or without themselves. Songs of praise to their heavenly Father are their ravishing delight, because they see, and know, and feel, that it is the breath and Spirit of their heavenly Father that sings and rejoices in them. Their adoration in spirit and in truth never ceases, because they never cease to acknowledge the ALL of God; the ALL of God in the whole creation. This is the one religion of heaven, and nothing else is the truth of religion on earth."

""Except a man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore the new birth from above, or of the Spirit, is that alone which gives true knowledge and perception of that which is the kingdom of God. The history may relate truths enough about it; but the kingdom of God, being nothing else but the power and presence of God, dwelling and ruling in our souls, this can only manifest itself, and can manifest itself to nothing in man but to the new birth. For everything else in man is deaf and dumb and blind to the kingdom of God; but when that which died in Adam is made alive again by the quickening Spirit from above, this being the birth which came at first from God, and a partaker of the divine nature, this knows, and enjoys the kingdom of God. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," says Christ: this record of scripture is true; but what a delusion, for a man to think that he knows and finds this to be true, and that Christ is all this benefit and blessing to him, because he assents, consents, and contends, it may be, for the truth of those words. This is impossible. The new birth is here again the only power of entrance; everything else knocks at the door in vain: I know you not says Christ to everything, but the new birth. "I am the way, the truth and the life"; this tells us neither more nor less, than if Christ had said, I am the kingdom of God, into which nothing can enter, but that which is born of the Spirit."

"What is the difference between man's own righteousness and man's own light in religion? They are strictly the same thing, do one and the same work, namely, keep up and strengthen every evil, vanity, and corruption of fallen nature. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but that which saves and delivers him from his own light. The Jew that was most of all set against the gospel, and unable to receive it was he that trusted in his own righteousness; this was the rich man, to whom it was as hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But the Christian, that trusts in his own light, is the very Jew that trusted in his own righteousness; and all that he gets by the gospel, is only that which the Pharisee got by the Law, namely, to be further from entering into the kingdom of God than publicans and harlots. … Nothing but God in man can be a godly life in man. Hence is that of the apostle, "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." But you will say, can this be true of the spiritual divine letter of the gospel? Can it kill, or give death? Yes, it kills, when it is rested in; when it is taken for divine power, and supposed to have goodness in itself; for then it kills the Spirit of God in man, quenches his holy fire within us, and is set up instead of it. It gives death, when it is built into systems of strife and contention about words, notions, and opinions, and makes the kingdom of God to consist, not in power, but in words. When it is thus used, then of necessity it kills, because it keeps from that which alone is life and can give life. … All the Law, the prophets, and the gospel are fulfilled, when there is in Christ a new creature, having life in and from him, as really as the branch has its life in and from the vine. And when all scripture is thus understood, and all that either Christ says of himself, or his apostles say of him, are all heard, or read, only as one and the same call to come to Christ, in hunger and thirst to be filled and blessed with his divine nature made living within us; then, and then only, the letter kills not, but as a sure guide leads directly to life. But grammar, logic, and criticism knowing nothing of scripture but its words, bring forth nothing but their own wisdom of words, and a religion of wrangle, hatred, and contention, about the meaning of them. But lamentable as this is, the letter of scripture has been so long the usurped province of school-critics, and learned reasoners making their markets of it, that the difference between literal, notional, and living divine knowledge, is almost quite lost in the Christian world. So that if any awakened souls are here or there found among Christians, who think that more must be known of God, of Christ, and the powers of the world to come, than every scholar can know by reading the letter of scripture, immediately the cry of enthusiasm, whether they be priests, or people, is sent after them. A procedure, which could only have some excuse, if these critics could first prove, that the apostle's text ought to be thus read, "The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life.""

"That which the learned Jews did with the outward letter of their Law, that same do learned Christians with the outward letter of their gospel. Why did the Jewish church so furiously and obstinately cry out against Christ, Let him be crucified? It was because their letter-learned ears, their worldly spirit and temple-orthodoxy, would not bear to hear of an inward savior, not bear to hear of being born again of his Spirit, of eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, of his dwelling in them, and they in him. To have their Law of ordinances, their temple-pomp sunk into such a fulfilling savior as this, was such enthusiastic jargon to their ears, as forced their sober, rational theology, to call Christ, Beelzebub, his doctrine, blasphemy, and all for the sake of Moses and rabbinic orthodoxy. Need it now be asked, whether the true Christ of the gospel be less blasphemed, less crucified, by that Christian theology which rejects an inward Christ, a savior living and working in the soul, as its inward light and life, generating his own nature and Spirit in it, as its only redemption, whether that which rejects all this as mystic madness be not that very same old Jewish wisdom sprung up in Christian theology, which said of Christ when teaching these very things, "He is mad, why hear ye him?" Our blessed Lord in a parable sets forth the blind Jews, as saying of himself, "We will not have this man to reign OVER us." The sober-minded Christian scholar has none of this Jewish blindness, he only says of Christ, we will not have this man to REIGN IN US, and so keeps clear of such mystic absurdity as St. Paul fell into, when he enthusiastically said, "Yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me.""

"Christian doctors reproach the old learned rabbis, for their vain faith, and carnal desire of a glorious, temporal, outward Christ, who should set up their temple-worship all over the world. Vanity indeed, and learned blindness enough? But nevertheless, in these condemners of rabbinic blindness, St. Paul's words are remarkably verified, viz., "Wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest dost the same thing." For, take away all that from Christ which Christian doctors call enthusiasm, suppose him not to be an inward birth, a new life and Spirit within us, but only an outward, separate, distant heavenly prince, no more really in us, than our high cathedrals are in the third heavens, but only by an invisible hand from his throne on high, some way or other raising and helping great scholars, or great temporal powers, to make a rock in every nation for his church to stand upon; suppose all this (which is the very marrow of modern divinity) and then you have that very outward Christ, and that very outward kingdom, which the carnal Jew dreamed of, and for the sake of which the spiritual Christ was then nailed to the cross, and is still crucified by the new risen Jew in the Christian church."

"Show me a man whose heart has no desire, or prayer in it, but to love God with his whole soul and spirit, and his neighbor as himself, and then you have shown me the man who knows Christ, and is known of him; the best and wisest man in the world, in whom the first paradisaical wisdom and goodness are come to life. Not a single precept in the gospel, but is the precept of his own heart, and the joy of that new-born heavenly love which is the life and light of his soul. In this man, all that came from the old serpent is trod under his feet, not a spark of self, of pride, of wrath, of envy, of covetousness, or worldly wisdom, can have the least abode in him, because that love, which fulfilleth the whole Law and the prophets, that love which is God and Christ, both in angels and men, is the love that gives birth, and life, and growth to everything that is either thought, or word, or action in him. And if he has no share or part with foolish errors, cannot be tossed about with every wind of doctrine, it is because, to be always governed by this love, is the same thing as to be always taught of God. On the other hand, show me a scholar as full of learning, as the Vatican is of books, and he will be just as likely to give all that he has for the gospel-pearl, as he would be, if he was as rich as Croesus. Let no one here imagine, that I am writing against all human literature, arts and sciences, or that I wish the world to be without them. I am no more an enemy to them, than to the common useful labors of life. It is literal learning, verbal contention, and critical strife about the things of God, that I charge with folly and mischief to religion. And in this, I have all learned Christendom, both popish and Protestant on my side. For they both agree in charging each other with a bad and false gospel-state, because of that which their learning, logic, and criticism do for them. Say not then, that it is only the illiterate enthusiast that condemns human learning in the gospel kingdom of God. For when he condemns the blindness and mischief of popish logic and criticism, he has all the learned Protestant world with him; and when he lays the same charge to Protestant learning, he has a much larger kingdom of popish great scholars, logically and learnedly affirming the same thing. So that the private person, charging human learning with so much mischief to the church, is so far from being led by enthusiasm, that he is led by all the church-learning that is in the world."

"The eternal Son of God came into the world, only for the sake of this new birth, to give God the glory of restoring it to all the dead sons of fallen Adam. All the mysteries of this incarnate, suffering, dying Son of God, all the price that he paid for our redemption, all the washings that we have from his all-cleansing blood poured out for us, all the life that we receive from eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, have their infinite value, their high glory, and amazing greatness in this, because nothing less than these supernatural mysteries of a God-man, could raise that new creature out of Adam's death, which could be again a living temple, and deified habitation of the Spirit of God. That this new birth of the Spirit, or the divine life in man, was the truth, the substance, and sole end of his miraculous mysteries, is plainly told us by Christ himself, who at the end of all his process on earth, tells his disciples, what was to be the blessed, and full effect of it, namely, that the Holy Spirit, the comforter (being now fully purchased for them) should after his ascension, come in the stead of a Christ in the flesh. "If I go not away," says he, "the comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send him unto you, and he shall guide you into all truth." Therefore all that Christ was, did, suffered, dying in the flesh, and ascending into heaven, was for this sole end, to purchase for all his followers a new birth, new life, and new light, in and by the Spirit of God restored to them, and living in them, as their support, comforter, and guide into all truth. And this was his, "LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD."

"When the Son of God comes to rescue us and bring us back to God, He does not find in us the ability to believe."

"All are making haste towards hell, until by conviction, Christ brings them to a halt, and then, by conversion, turns their hearts and lives sincerely to himself."

"Special mercy arouses more gratitude than universal mercy."

"In hell, sinners shall forever lay all the blame on their own wills. Hell is a rational torment by conscience."

"Sinners, hear and consider, if you wilfully condemn your souls to bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery."

"Christ leads me through no darker rooms Than He went through before."

"Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradictions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them?"

"If I were but sure that I should live to see the coming of the Lord, it would be the joyfulest tidings in the world. O that I might see His kingdom come! It is the characteristic of His saints to love His appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus.""

"And therefore you must know that you can forfeit the grace and help of God by your willful sinning or negligence, though you cannot, without grace, turn to God. If you will not do what you can, it is just with God to deny you that grace by which you might do more."

"It pleased the great Creator of the world to make three sorts of living creatures. Angels he made pure spirits, without flesh, and therefore he made them only for heaven and not to dwell on earth. Beasts were made flesh, without immortal souls, and therefore they were made only for the earth and not for heaven: Man is of a middle nature between both, as partaking of both flesh and spirit, so is he made for earth, but as his passage or way to heaven, and not that this should be his home or happiness. The blessed state that man was made for was to behold the glorious majesty of the Lord and to praise him among his holy angels; and to love him, and to be filled with his love forever."

"As the fire doth mount upwards, and the needle that is touched with the loadstone still turneth to the north, so the converted soul is inclined to God. Nothing else can satisfy him, nor can he find any content and rest but in his love. In a word, all that are converted do esteem and love God better than all the world; and the heavenly felicity is dearer to them than their fleshly prosperity."

"Actually, it doesn't matter – Krishna or Christ – the name is the same. The main point is to follow the injunctions of the Vedic scriptures that recommend chanting the name of God in this age."

"The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got equal rights? It is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient cloth, not more than that. Then they will be satisfied."

"Shudras does not require any training. Shudra means no training. Ordinary worker class. Otherwise other three, especially two, namely the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, they require very magnificent training."

"Sometimes he becomes a great hero -- just Hiranyakashipu and Kamsa or, in the modern age, Napoleon or Hitler. The activities of such men are certainly very great, but as soon as their bodies are finished, everything else is finished."

"Therefore Hitler killed these Jews. They were financing against Germany. Otherwise he had no enmity with the Jews... And they were supplying. They want interest money -- "Never mind against our country." Therefore Hitler decided, "Kill all the Jews.""

"Generally when a woman is attacked by a man -- whether her husband or some other man -- she enjoys the attack, being too lusty."

"It is very simple. Hare means, “O energy of the Lord," and Krsna means, ‘‘O Lord Krsna."' Just as there are males and females in the material world, similarly, God is the original male (purusa), and His energy (prakrti) is the original female. So, when we chant Hare Krsna, we are saying, “O Lord Krsna, O energy of Krsna, kindly engage me in Your service.”"

"The purpose of this Krsna consciousness movement is to awaken man’s original consciousness. At the present moment our consciousness is designated. Someone is thinking, “I am an Englishman,” and another is thinking, “I am an American.” Actually, we do not belong to any of these designations. We are all part and parcel of God; that is our real identity. If everyone simply comes to that consciousness, all the problems of the world will be solved. Then we shall come to - know that we are one—the same quality of spirit soul. The same quality of spirit soul is within everyone, although it may be in a different dress. This is the explanation given in the Bhagavad-gita. Krsna consciousness is actually a purificatory process... Its purpose is to make people free from all designations... Eventually, we reach the ideal perfection of human life. Krsna consciousness is also a very simple process. It is not necessary to become a great philosopher, scientist, or whatever. We need only chant the holy name of the Lord, understanding that His personality, His name, and His qualities are all absolute."

"Materialistic people are sometimes called sudras, or descendants of monkeys, due to their monkey like intelligence. They do not care to know how the evolutionary process is taking place, nor are they eager to know what will happen after they finish their small human life span. This is the attitude of sudras. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission, this Krishna consciousness movement, is trying to elevate sudras to the brahmana platform so that they will know the real goal of life. Unfortunately, being overly attached to sense gratification, materialists are not serious in helping this movement. Instead, some of them try to suppress it. Thus it is the business of monkeys to disturb the activities of the brahmanas."

"Following in the footsteps of Maharaja Pariksit, it is the duty of all executive heads of states to see that the principles of religion, namely austerity, cleanliness, mercy and truthfulness, are established in the state, and that the principles of irreligion, namely pride, illicit female association or prostitution, intoxication and falsity, are checked by all means."

"Gambling of all description, even speculative business enterprise, is considered to be degrading, and when gambling is encouraged in the state, there is a complete disappearance of truthfulness."

"If the state is regulated by the above process, naturally there will be God consciousness everywhere."

"Basically we have not got hatred for anyone, but when one is demoniac or atheistic, we should try to avoid their company. A preacher’s business is to love God, to make friendship with devotees, to enlighten the innocent, and to avoid the demons. This principle we shall follow."

"The topmost devotee sees everything in Krishna, and Krishna in everything."

"Think of Krishna always and try to work sincerely, and everything will come automatically."

"For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy."

"One can attain salvation simply by chanting the holy name of the Lord."

"Love of God is not an ordinary commodity. Caitanya Mahāprabhu was worshiped by Rūpa Gosvāmī because He distributed love of God, kṛṣṇa-premā, to everyone. Rūpa Gosvāmī praised Him as mahā-vadānya, a greatly munificent personality, because He was freely distributing to everyone love of Godhead, which is achieved by wise men only after many, many births. Kṛṣṇa-premā, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is the highest gift which can be bestowed on anyone whom we presume to love."

"When one's relationship with the Supreme Lord is established, the next program is to act in that relationship. This is called abhidheya, or activity in relationship with the Lord. After executing such prescribed duties, when one attains the highest goal of life, love of Godhead, he achieves prayojana-siddhi, or the fulfillment of his human mission."

"Although there is no difference between a devotee in śānta-rasa or dāsya-rasa, vātsalya-rasa or mādhurya-rasa, one can still make a comparative study of the intensity of love in these different transcendental positions. For example, it may be said that dāsya-rasa is better than śānta-rasa, yet transcendental love of God is there in both of them."

"Among all the luminaries shining in the sky, the sun is the chief, and in the Brahma-samhita the sun is accepted as the glowing eye of the Supreme Lord. There are fifty varieties of wind blowing in space, and of these winds the controlling deity, Marici, represents Krishna. Among the stars, the Moon is the most prominent at night, and thus the Moon represents Krishna. It appears from this verse that the Moon is one of the stars; therefore the stars that twinkle in the sky also reflect the light of the sun. The theory that there are many suns within the universe is not accepted by Vedic literature. The sun is one, and as by the reflection of the sun the Moon illuminates, so also do the stars. Since Bhagavad-gita indicates herein that the Moon is one of the stars, the twinkling stars are not suns but are similar to the Moon."

"The Moon is also on the level with the heavenly planets, and only persons who have performed virtues only — performing sacrifices, giving charity and undergoing severe austerities — can be allowed to enter into the heavenly planets after the duration of life of the body. Arjuna was allowed to enter into the heavenly planets in the selfsame body simply by the grace of the Lord, otherwise it is not possible to do so. The present attempts to enter into the heavenly planets by the modern scientists will certainly prove futile because such scientists are not on the level of Arjuna. They are ordinary human beings, without any assets of sacrifice, charity or austerities."

"The gross materialists do not believe in the existence of God or the demigods. Nor do they believe that different planets are dominated by different demigods. They are creating a great commotion about reaching the closest celestial body, Candraloka, or the Moon, but even after much mechanical research they have only very scanty information of this Moon, and in spite of much false advertisement for selling land on the Moon, the puffed-up scientists or gross materialists cannot live there, and what to speak of reaching the other planets, which they are unable even to count."

"The floating of the planets in the weightless air is due to the inner constitution of the globes, and the modernized drilling of the earth to exploit oil from within is a sort of disturbance by the modern demons and can result in a greatly harmful reaction to the floating condition of the earth."

"Modern scientists and astronomers try to explain the cosmic situation and the vastness of space, and some of them believe that all the glittering stars are different suns. From Bhagavad-gita, however, we understand that all these stars (naksatras) are like the Moon, in that they reflect the sunshine [BG 15.12]. They are not independent luminaries."

"How the Ganges water reaches the various planets from the top of the universe is explained herein. Celestial airplanes carry the water from the planets of the sages to other planets. So-called advanced scientists of the modern age are trying to go to the higher planets, but at the same time they are experiencing a power shortage on earth. If they were actually capable scientists, they could personally go by airplane to other planets, but this they are unable to do. Having now given up their Moon excursions, they are attempting to go to other planets, but without success."

"According to the description of this verse, the hundreds and thousands of stars and the great planets such as the sun, the Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are not clustered together because of the law of gravity or any similar idea of the modern scientists. These planets and stars are all servants of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda or Krishna, and according to His order they sit in their chariots and travel in their respective orbits."

"Although Rahu attempts to attack both the sun and the Moon, they are protected by Lord Visnu. Being very afraid of Lord Visnu’s cakra, Rahu cannot stay in front of the sun or Moon for more than a muhurta (forty-eight minutes). The phenomenon that occurs when Rahu blocks the light of the sun or Moon is called an eclipse. The attempt of the scientists of this earth to go to the Moon is as demoniac as Rahu’s attack. Of course, their attempts will be failures because no one can enter the Moon or sun so easily. Like the attack of Rahu, such attempts will certainly be failures."

"It is understood from this verse that the predominating deity of the Moon is the maintainer of all the trees and plants throughout the universe. It is due to the moonshine that trees and plants grow very luxuriantly. Therefore how can we accept the so-called scientists whose Moon expeditions have informed us that there are no trees or vegetation on the Moon? Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says, somo vrksadhisthata sa eva vrksanam raja: Soma, the predominating deity of the Moon, is the king of all vegetation. How can we believe that the maintainer of vegetation has no vegetation on his own planet?"

"The word garuda in this verse indicates that there are planets of great birds like Garuda. Similarly, the word uraga indicates that there are planets of enormous serpents. Such a description of the various planets of the universe may challenge modern scientists who think that all planets but this earth are vacant. These scientists claim to have launched excursions to the Moon, where they have found no living entities but only big craters full of dust and stone, although in fact the Moon is so brilliant that it acts like the sun in illuminating the entire universe. Of course, it is not possible to convince modern scientists of the Vedic information about the universe. Nonetheless, we are not very much impressed by the words of scientists who say that all other planets are vacant and that only the earth is full of living entities."

"Modern scientists attempt excursions to other planets, but they have no information of how many different types of oceans and seas there are within the universe. According to their experience, the Moon is full of dust, but this does not explain how it gives us soothing rays from a distance of millions of miles. As far as we are concerned, we follow the authority of Vyasadeva and Sukadeva Gosvami, who have described the universal situation according to the Vedic literature. These authorities differ from modern scientists who conclude from their imperfect sensual experience that only this planet is inhabited by living beings whereas the other planets are all vacant or full of dust."

"Modern scientists and so-called scholars think that there are no living entities on planets other than this one. Recently they have said that they have gone to the Moon but did not find any living entities there. But Srimad-Bhagavatam and the other Vedic literatures do not agree with this foolish conception."

"Following in the footsteps of Maharaja Pariksit, it is the duty of all executive heads of states to see that the principles of religion, namely austerity, cleanliness, mercy and truthfulness, are established in the state, and that the principles of irreligion, namely pride, illicit female association or prostitution, intoxication and falsity, are checked by all means. And to make the best use of a bad bargain, the personality of Kali may be transferred to places of gambling, drinking, prostitution and slaughterhouses, if there are any places like that. Those who are addicted to these irreligious habits may be regulated by the injunctions of the scripture. In no circumstances should they be encouraged by any state. In other words, the state should categorically stop all sorts of gambling, drinking, prostitution and falsity. The state which wants to eradicate corruption by majority may introduce the principles of religion in the following manner: Two compulsory fasting days in a month, if not more (austerity). Even from the economic point of view, such two fasting days in a month in the state will save tons of food, and the system will also act very favorably on the general health of the citizens."

"The citizens of the state must give in charity up to fifty percent of their income for the purpose of creating a spiritual atmosphere in the state or in human society, both individually and collectively. They should preach the principles of Bhagavatam by (a) karma-yoga, or doing everything for the satisfaction of the Lord, (b) regular hearing of the Srimad-Bhagavatam from authorized persons or realized souls, (c) chanting of the glories of the Lord congregationally at home or at places of worship, (d) rendering all kinds of service to bhagavatas engaged in preaching srimad-Bhagavatam and (e) residing in a place where the atmosphere is saturated with God consciousness. If the state is regulated by the above process, naturally there will be God consciousness everywhere... Gambling of all description, even speculative business enterprise, is considered to be degrading, and when gambling is encouraged in the state, there is a complete disappearance of truthfulness... licensing animal slaughterhouses of all description should be at once prohibited. The flesh-eaters may be allowed to take flesh as mentioned in the scriptures, and not otherwise. Intoxication of all description-even smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco or the drinking of tea-must be prohibited."

"The moon was eclipsed at the time of His birth, and the people of Nadia were then engaged, as is usual on such occasions, in bathing in the Bhagirathi with loud cheers of Haribol... Mahaprabhu was a beautiful child and the ladies of the town came to see Him with presents. His mother's father, Pundit Nilambar Chakravarti, a renowned astrologer, foretold that the child would be a great personage in time... The ladies of the neighborhood styled Him Gour Hari on account of His golden complexion, and His mother called Him Nimai on account of the nimba tree near which He was born. Beautiful as the lad was, everyone heartily loved to see Him every day."

"It is said that when He was an infant in His mother's arms, He wept continually, and when the neighboring ladies and His mother cried Haribol! He used to stop. Thus there was a continuation of the utterance of Haribol in the house, foreshowing the future mission of the hero."

"It is said that a brahmin on pilgrimage became a guest in His house, and cooked his food and read his grace with meditation on Krishna. In the meantime, the lad came and ate up the cooked rice. The brahmin, astonished at the lad's act, cooked again at the request of Jagannatha Misra. The lad again ate up the cooked rice while the brahmin was offering the rice to Krishna in meditation. The brahmin was persuaded to cook for a third time. This time all the inmates of the house had fallen asleep, and the lad showed Himself as Krishna to the traveler, and blessed him. The brahmin was then lost in ecstasy at the appearance of the object of His worship."

"While the Lord was going, chanting and dancing, thousands of people were following Him and some of them were crying, some were laughing, some were dancing, and some singing. Some of them were falling on the ground, offering obeisances to the Lord. And all of them were roaring with the holy name of Krishna, Krishna.... The Lord was dancing, raising His two hands, and roaring with the words, “Haribol! Haribol!”"

"We are not teaching some ritualistic process, that "You become Hindu. You become Christian. You become Muhammadan." We are simply teaching, "You try to love God. You have forgotten God. You have declared, 'God is dead.' These are all nonsense. God is there. You are here. You are suffering because you have forgotten God. You try to love God. Your normal life will come back. You will be happy." This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement."

"The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is completely scientific... When I was registering this association in New York, some friend suggested that "Why you are giving this name 'Kṛṣṇa'? Why not put the name 'God,' 'God consciousness'?" Then "Yes, I can give the name 'God consciousness.' Then it will be confused." Because we want to preach Bhagavad-gītā as it is. That is Kṛṣṇa's speaking. And we are trying to place this Kṛṣṇa's teachings to the world. And not only that, Bhagavān, God, means Kṛṣṇa. And if I give the name of "God" instead of "Kṛṣṇa," they will bring forth so many competition of Kṛṣṇa. That is not our purpose. Kṛṣṇa means God. If God has any perfect name, that is "Kṛṣṇa." Because "Kṛṣṇa" means all-attractive. God cannot be attractive for certain person. God cannot be Christian God or a Hindu God or Muslim God. God is equally attractive for Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddha. That is real God. And if Hindu has manufactured some God, Christian has manufactured some God, that may be God partially, but not the Supreme God. The Supreme God is Kṛṣṇa. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ [Bs. 5.1]. Parama means supreme. God... You are also god, I am also god, and every one of us, god. Why? God means controller. So controller, every one of us is a controller to certain extent, not the complete controller. But Kṛṣṇa means the complete controller."

"Serving means developing love. So unless you develop your love for God you cannot serve Him. Anywhere. Whenever you give some service, it is based on love. Just like mother giving service to the helpless child. Why? Love. So similarly, our life will be perfect when our love is perfect with the perfect Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then it is all right."

"That is taught by Caitanya Mahāprabhu, that "Whatever You do . . . "Either You trample Me under Your feet or You embrace Me . . . whatever You like. You make Me brokenhearted by not seeing You—that doesn't matter. Still You are My worshipable Lord." That is love. "From God's side, He may do whatever He likes. I don't want anything in exchange." That is love. That sort of love Kṛṣṇa wants. Therefore He was so much fond of the gopīs. In the gopīs' love there was no question of business propaganda—"Give me this, then I love You." (chuckles) No. That is pure love. That is unalloyed love. Ahaituky apratihatā. Apratihatā means without being checked. No impediment. If you want to love God, there is nothing throughout the whole world which can check you. Simply you have to develop your eagerness: "Kṛṣṇa, I want You." That's all. Then there is no question of checking. In any condition, you'll increase your love, increase your love."

"Just like Lord Jesus Christ. He never advised to, for economic development, for industrial development, or this and that. So many things. He sacrificed everything for God. That is one test, that "Here is a lover of God." He was punished that "You, you stop this preaching," but he did not. So that is love of God. He sacrificed everything. That is love of God. So the ideal is Lord Jesus Christ, and the follower must be, at least to some extent, to that point. That is test. So we say that you follow any religious path. That doesn't matter. We want to see whether you are lover of God. That is our propaganda. And if one is serious about loving God, it doesn't matter in which way he'll develop that dormant love."

"Those who are yogis, bhakta-yogis, because they are in love with God, Kṛṣṇa, they are seeing every moment within their heart the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Anyone you love, you see always within your heart. Similarly, if you have love for God, Kṛṣṇa, then you can see Kṛṣṇa always. That is called yoga system."

"Now, this research work about the science of God has to be prosecuted for several births after births... God realization, it is very easy, but at the same time, it is very difficult. Easy for them who accept it as truth, and those who are trying to understand by dint of his knowledge, advancement of knowledge, he has to create his faith after he finishes his research work. Then that takes many, many births."

"Just like from a distant place, if you see one mountain, you'll see just like something cloudy. If you advance more, the same mountain you'll see something green. And if you enter into that mountain, you'll find so many varieties, so many trees, so many animals. So objective is the same. But under different angles of vision, from distance, different people have got different conception of the Absolute Truth."

"You can enter into the sun planet provided you have got the qualification. So in the sunshine, or in the sun disc or in the sun planet, they are in the sun, but there are degrees. One who is in the sunshine, he cannot claim that "I am in the sun planet." He cannot claim that. So one who is in the sun planet, he is better situated than one who is in the sunshine."

"We understand in the sun planet also there are varieties of living entities, but their bodies are made of fire. As our body is made of earth, similarly, their bodies are made of fire. There are five elements in the material nature: earth, water, fire, air, and ether. So in different planets, there are different atmospheres and different bodies also. Don't think that each and every planet of the same quality. No. Same quality in the sense because these five elements are present there. Without these five elements, no material thing exists. So somewhere the fire is prominent. Somewhere the air is prominent. Somewhere water is prominent. Somewhere earth is prominent. So in this planet, or in some other earthly planet, earth is predominant. Similarly, there are other planets also. So don't think that other planets are vacant. No."

"Just like modern scientists. They are calculating that the Moon is full of dust, but according to Vedic literature Moon is not full of dust. There are also higher living entities. And from…, from your practical reason also, you can just understand that a lump of dust cannot be so brilliant so that it is illuminating the whole earth. It is not possible. Anyway, let the scientists go on with their own research work. So far we have got information from Vedic literature, all the planets — sun planet, Moon planet, Venus — they are all full of living entities, and they have got different types of body."

"Over 50 years ago, Bengali spiritual leader Swami Prabhupada founded the Krishna Consciousness society. Adapting Vaishnava Hindu traditions, the late guru focused his teachings on one supreme god, Krishna, and one ultimate goal, reaching the infinite bliss of Golok, Krishna's paradise."

"Visakha has compiled an arsenal of passages and quotes over the years from Prabhupada’s writings and lectures, which includes his now infamous response to an inquiry about female gurus in 1976: “She can become guru.”"

"But for every quote that Visakha offers, her critics have a counteracting one, either from Vedic scripture or Prabhupada himself. Prabhupada repeatedly emphasized the importance of gender roles, and the notion that young women needed to be protected in ways that young men didn’t."

"In 1972, Prabhupada wrote to a female disciple: “You are married and your husband is striving to become a devotee of KRSNA, so you become his devotee, that is the position of husband and wife … the wife will take benefit and advance in spiritual life by serving her husband.”"

"Early in Visakha’s book she quotes Prabhupada, one of the first times she encountered him. He says: “Simply by arguing and reasoning you cannot make spiritual advancement … you cannot understand the absolute truth by argument, by material dealings.”"

"Krishna devotee Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada founded ISKCON in New York in 1966, leading to waves of westerners clad in saffron and with shaved heads chanting and marching down streets of cities in Europe, North America and Australia. George Harrison recorded the popular song My Sweet Lord about Krishna, and helped spread Krishna’s appeal."

"The foundation of Akshaya Patra based on spiritual leader Swami Prabhupada's principle of no child going hungry has taken upon itself the responsibility of providing food to children in schools across different regions of the country."

"The man who spearheaded the Hare Krishna empire, Prabhupada, espoused some very controversial views that would likely upset, and even outrage, those who are otherwise sympathetic to spiritual endeavors and theology...Even if some of his comments were taken out of context (as his defenders and apologists sometimes assert), the sheer volume and magnitude of his immense bigotry cannot be ignored nor sugar-coated. Part of Prabhupada's hatred of blacks stemmed from his deep-seated Hindu beliefs that dark-skinned peoples represent the very bottom of the hierarchy of the human race -- a direct reflection of India's ancient color-based caste system."

"Prabhupada also had some choice words about the Jews. During another conversation with Ramesvara, Prabhupada alleged that Hitler killed the Jews in Germany because banks in the United States and Western Europe (allegedly controlled by Jews) were helping to finance Vladimir Lenin and the Communist revolution in Russia and elsewhere."

"But Steve Goldsmith was shaking his head. Prabhupada looked at him, smiling: "There is still a problem?" "It's just that... well, it's been proved dangerous to repress the sex drive. There's a theory that we have wars because . . ." "People are eating meat," Prabhupada interrupted. "As long as people eat meat, there will be war. And if a man eats meat, he will be sure to have illicit sex also.""

"Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor."

"Amicum qui diu quaeritur, vix invenitur, difficile servatur."

"Caritas non potest conparari; dilectio pretium non habet."

"Amicitia quae desinere potest vera numquam fuit."

"Facilius enim neglegentia emendari potest quam amor nasci."

"Libet, sarcina corporis abiecta, ad purum aetheris evolare fulgorem. Paupertatem times? sed beatos Christus pauperes appellat. Labore terreris? at nemo athleta sine sudore coronatur. De cibo cogitas? sed fides famem non timet. Super nudam metuis humum exesa ieiuniis membra collidere? sed Dominus tecum iacet. Squalidi capitis horret inculta caesaries? sed caput tuum Christus est. Infinita eremi vastitas te terret? sed tu paradisum mente deambula. Quotiescumque illuc cogitatione conscenderis, toties in eremo non eris."

"Si rivus tenuiter fluit, non est alvei culpa, sed fontis."

"Cum subito raptus in spiritu...."

"Asino quippe lyra superflue canit."

"Nisi quod in se habet mordacis aliquid veritatis."

"Ita se natura habet, ut amara sit veritas, blanda vitia existimentur."

"Et sicut viri fortes in controversiis solent facere, culpam praemio redimerem."

"Non confundant opera tua sermonem tuum: ne cum in Ecclesia loqueris, tacitus quilibet respondeat, cur ergo haec quae dicis, ipse non facis?"

"Nemo invito auditori libenter refert. Sagitta in lapidem nunquam figitur, interdum resiliens percutit dirigentem."

"Facile contemnitur clericus, qui saepe vocatus ad prandium, ire non recusat."

"Negotiatorem clericum, et ex inope divitem, ex ignobili gloriosum quasi quandam pestem fuge."

"Ne hoc quidem scire quod nescias."

"Bruta quoque animalia et vagae aves, in easdem pedicas retiaque non incidunt."

"Interdum animus dominarum ex ancillarum habitu iudicatur."

"Speculum mentis est facies, et taciti oculi cordis fatentur arcana."

"Alius vulnus, nostra sit cautio."

"Plenus venter facile de ieiuniis disputat."

"Grandes materias ingenia parva non sufferunt."

"O mors quae fratres dividis, et amore societos, crudelis ac dura dissocias."

"Quotidie morimur, quotidie commutamur, et tamen aternos nos esse credimus."

"Difficulter eraditur, quod rudes animi praebiberunt. Lanarum conchylia quis in pristinum colorem revocet?"

"Proclivis est enim malorum aemulatio, et quorum virtutes assequi nequeas, cito imitaris vitia."

"Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life."

"The tired ox treads with a firmer step."

"Athletes as a rule are stronger than their backers; yet the weaker presses the stronger to put forth all his efforts."

"Audio religiosam habere te matrem, multorum annorum viduam, quae aluit, quae erudivit infantem et post studia Galliarum, quae vel florentissima sunt, misit Romam non parcens sumptibus et absentiam filii spe sustinens futurorum, ut ubertatem Gallici nitoremque sermonis gravitas Romana condiret nec calcaribus in te sed frenis uteretur, quod et in disertissimis viris Graeciae legimus, qui Asianum tumorem Attico siccabat sale et luxuriantes flagellis vineas falcibus reprimebant, ut eloquentiae toreularia non verborum pampinis, sed sensuum quasi uvarum expressionibus redundarent."

"It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin."

"The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves."

"Neither Britain, a province fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland, knew Moses and the prophets."

"A dreadful rumor reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold, and that when they had been thus despoiled they were again beleaguered, so as to lose not only their substance but their lives. ...The speaker's voice failed and sobs interrupted his utterance. The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell by the sword, and there were but few to be found to be made prisoner."

"Privilegia paucorum non faciunt legem."

"Ignoratio Scripturarum, ignoratio Christi est."

"De mysterio Trinitatis, cujus recta confessio est ignoratio scientiae"

"They fill their houses through the plunder and losses of others, so that the saying of the philosophers may be fulfilled, 'Every rich man is unjust or the heir of an unjust one.' (Omnis dives aut iniquis aut iniqui haeres.)"

"Non digne Graeca in Latinum transfero: aut Graecos lege (si ejusdem linguae habes scientiam); aut si tantum Latinus es, noli de gratuito munere judicare, et, ut vulgare proverbium est: equi dentes inspicere donati."

"Before Arius arose in Alexandria as a demon of the south, things were said incautiously [regarding the Trinity] which cannot be defended against a malevolent criticism."

"Innocence would be dead long ago if wickedness were always allied to power, and calumny could prevail in all that it seeks to accomplish."

"To die is the lot of all, to commit homicide only of the weak man."

"Pardon me for having praised Origen's zeal for Scriptural learning in my youthful days before I fully knew his heresies; and I will grant you (Rufinus) forgiveness for having written an Apology for his works when your head was grey."

"In the case of Tertullian we praise his great talent, but we condemn his heresy. In that of Origen we admire his knowledge of the Scriptures, but nevertheless we do not accept his false doctrine. As to Didymus, however, we extol both his powers of memory, and the purity of his faith in the Trinity, while on the other point in which he erred in trusting to Origen we withdraw from him. The vices of our teachers are not to be imitated, their virtues are."

"To sin is human, to lay snares is diabolical."

"When you have said what you like, you shall bear what you do not like."

"To be deceived is the common lot of both layman and bishop."

"The truth is, men are elected to the episcopate who come from the bosom of Plato and Aristophanes. How many can you find among them who are not fully instructed in these writers? All, whoever they may be, that are ordained at the present day from among the literate class make it their study not how to seek out the marrow of Scripture, but how to tickle the ears of the people with the flowers of rhetoric."

"“According to your faith, be it done unto you,” says God. (Matt 9:29) I do not, indeed, like the sound of those words. For if it be done unto me according to my faith, I shall perish. And yet I certainly believe in God the Father, I believe in God the Son, and I believe in God the Holy Ghost. I believe in one God; nevertheless, I would not have it done unto me according to my faith. For the enemy often comes, and sows tares in the Lord's harvest. I do not mean to imply that anything is greater than the purity of heart which believes that mystery; but undoubted faith towards God it is hard indeed to find."

"I could not pray, if I did not believe; but if I really believed, I should cleanse that heart of mine with which God is seen, I should beat my hands upon my breast, the tears would stream down my cheeks, my body would shudder, my face grow pale, I should lie at my Lord's feet, weep over them, and wipe them with my hair, I should cling to the cross and not let go my hold until I obtained mercy. But, as it is, frequently in my prayers I am either walking in the arcades, or calculating my interest, or am carried away by base thoughts, so as to be occupied with things the mere mention of which makes me blush."

"It is not the sheep only who abide in the Church."

"No one can take to himself the prerogative of Christ, no one before the day of judgment can pass judgment upon men. If the Church is already cleansed, what shall we reserve for the Lord?"

"Let them not flatter themselves if they think they have Scripture authority for their assertions, since the devil himself quoted Scripture, and the essence of the Scriptures is not the letter, but the meaning. Otherwise, if we follow the letter, we too can concoct a new dogma and assert that such persons as wear shoes and have two coats must not be received into the Church. (Matt 10:10)"

"A quo et affixus cruci, martyrio coronatus est, capite ad terram verso, et in sublime pedibus elevatis: asserens se indignum qui sic crucifigeretur ut Dominus suus."

"Hic ergo quarto decimo Neronis anno, eodem die quo Petrus Romae, pro Christo capite truncatur, sepultusque est in via Ostiensi, anno post passionem Domini tricesimo septimo."

"Just as divorce according to the Saviour's word was not permitted from the beginning, but on account of the hardness of our heart was a concession of Moses to the human race, so too the eating of flesh was unknown until the deluge. But after the deluge, like the quails given in the desert to the murmuring people, the poison of flesh-meat was offered to our teeth. … At the beginning of the human race we neither ate flesh, nor gave bills of divorce, nor suffered circumcision for a sign. Thus we reached the deluge. But after the deluge, together with the giving of the law which no one could fulfil, flesh was given for food, and divorce was allowed to hard-hearted men, and the knife of circumcision was applied, as though the hand of God had fashioned us with something superfluous. But once Christ has come in the end of time, and Omega passed into Alpha and turned the end into the beginning, we are no longer allowed divorce, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh."

"Diogenes maintains that tyrants do not bring about revolutions in cities, and foment wars civil or foreign for the sake of a simple diet of vegetables and fruits, but for costly meats and the delicacies of the table. And, strange to say, Epicurus, the defender of pleasure, in all his books speaks of nothing but vegetables and fruits; and he says that we ought to live on cheap food because the preparation of sumptuous banquets of flesh involves great care and suffering, and greater pains attend the search for such delicacies than pleasures the consumption of them. … Persons who feed on flesh want also gratifications not found in flesh. But they who adopt a simple diet do not look for flesh. … The soul greatly exults when you are content with little: you have the world beneath your feet, and can exchange all its power, its feasts, and its lusts, the objects for which men rake money together, for common food, and make up for them all with a sack-cloth shirt."

"Dicæarchus in his book of Antiquities, describing Greece, relates that under Saturn, that is in the Golden Age, when the ground brought forth all things abundantly, no one ate flesh, but every one lived on field produce and fruits which the earth bore of itself."

"Xenocrates the philosopher writes that at Athens out of all the laws of Triptolemus only three precepts remain in the temple of Ceres: respect to parents, reverence for the gods, and abstinence from flesh. Orpheus in his song utterly denounces the eating of flesh. I might speak of the frugality of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Antisthenes to our confusion: but it would be tedious, and would require a work to itself. At all events this is the Antisthenes who, after teaching rhetoric with renown, on hearing Socrates, is related to have said to his disciples, «Go, and seek a master, for I have now found one.» He immediately, sold what he had, divided the proceeds among the people, and kept nothing for himself but a small cloak. … His most famous follower was the great Diogenes, who was mightier than King Alexander in that he conquered human nature."

"Intend to live in continual mortification, and never to expect or desire any worldly ease or pleasure."

"There is, therefore, no difficulty in answering such questions as these. What cause was there why the Universe was placed in such a part of Space? and, Why was the Universe created at such a Time? for, if there be no Space beyond the Universe, it was impossible that it should be created in another place; and if there was no Time before, it was impossible it should be created at another time."

"They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on him— that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight for ever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her."

"When I am giving the relation of a thing, remember to abstain from altering either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that, if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false."

"To mark all that I say in conversation, merely to beget in others, a good opinion of myself, and examine it."

"The beauty of the world consists wholly of sweet mutual consents, either within itself or with the supreme being."

"Almost all men, and those that seem to be very miserable, love life, because they cannot bear to lose sight of such a beautiful and lovely world. The ideas, that every moment whilst we live have a beauty that we take not distinct notice of, brings a pleasure that, when we come to the trial, we had rather live in much pain and misery than lose."

"A little, wretched, despicable creature; a worm, a mere nothing, and less than nothing; a vile insect that has risen up in contempt against the majesty of Heaven and earth."

"I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm; and used to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God. While thus engaged, it always seemed natural for me to sing, or chant forth my meditations; or to speak my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice."

"The soul of a true christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun’s glory; rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun."

"Now shall the promises made to Christ by God the Father before the foundation of the world, the promises of the covenant of redemption, be fully accomplished. Christ shall now have perfectly obtained the joy set before Him, for which He undertook those great sufferings in His state of humiliation. Now shall all the hopes and expectations of the saints be fulfilled. The state of the church before was progressive and preparatory; but now she is arrived at her most perfect state of glory. All the glory of the church on earth is but a faint shadow of this her consummate glory in heaven."

"There are two sorts of hypocrites: one that are deceived with their outward morality and external religion; many of which are professed Arminians, in the doctrine of justification: and the other, are those that are deceived with false discoveries and elevations; which often cry down works, and men's own righteousness, and talk much of free grace; but at the same time make a righteousness of their discoveries, and of their humiliation, and exalt themselves to heaven with them. These two kinds of hypocrites, Mr. Shepard, in his Exposition of the Parable of the Ten Virgins, distinguishes by the names of legal and evangelical hypocrites; and often speaks of the latter as the worst. And it is evident that the latter are commonly by far the most confident in their hope, and with the most difficulty brought off from it: I have scarcely known the instance of such a one, in my life, that has been undeceived."

"I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause."

"This dictate of common sense."

"Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility."

"In the text we have an account how this future glorious advancement of the church of God should be introduced; viz. By great multitudes in different towns and countries taking up a joint resolution, and coming into an express and visible agreement, that they will, by united and extraordinary prayer, seek to God, that he would come and manifest himself, and grant the tokens and fruits of his gracious presence."

"It is evident from the Scripture, that there is yet remaining a great advancement of the interest of religion and the kingdom of Christ in this world, by an abundant outpouring of the Spirit of God, far greater and more extensive than ever yet has been. It is certain, that many things, which are spoken concerning a glorious time of the church’s enlargement and prosperity in the latter days, have never yet been fulfilled."

"Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad's of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever."

"Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can."

"Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live."

"Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life."

"Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge."

"Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good."

"Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept."

"Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better."

"Resolved, to confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help."

"Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it."

"A person is said to be justified, when he is approved of God as free from the guilt of sin and its deserved punishment, and as having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the reward of life. That we should take the word in such a sense, and understand it as the judge’s accepting a person as having both a negative and positive righteousness belonging to him, and looking on him therefore as not only free from any obligation to punishment, but also as just and righteous, and so entitled to a positive reward, is not only most agreeable to the etymology and natural import of the word, which signifies to pass one for righteousness in judgment, but also manifestly agreeable to the force of the word as used in Scripture."

"The apostle Paul is abundant in teaching, that 'we are justified by faith alone, without the works of the law!' There is no one doctrine that he insists so much upon, and that he handles with so much distinctness, explaining, giving reasons, and answering objections."

"Some that oppose this doctrine indeed say, that the apostle sometimes means that it is by faith, i.e. a hearty embracing the gospel in its first act only, or without any preceding holy life, that persons are admitted into a justified state; but, say they, it is by a persevering obedience that they are continued in a justified state, and it is by this that they are finally justified. But this is the same thing as to say, that a man on his first embracing the gospel is conditionally justified and pardoned. To pardon sin, is to free the sinner from the punishment of it, or from that eternal misery that is due to it; and therefore if a person is pardoned, or freed from this misery, on his first embracing the gospel, and yet not finally freed, but his actual freedom still depends on some condition yet to be performed, it is inconceivable how he can be pardoned otherwise than conditionally; that is, he is not properly actually pardoned, and freed from punishment, but only he has God’s promise that he shall be pardoned on future conditions. God promises him, that now, if he perseveres in obedience, he shall be finally pardoned, or actually freed from hell; which is to make just nothing at all of the apostle’s great doctrine of justification by faith alone. Such a conditional pardon is no pardon or justification at all, any more than all mankind have, whether they embrace the gospel or no; for they all have a promise of final justification on conditions of future sincere obedience, as much as he that embraces the gospel."

""But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." -Romans iv. 5. The following things may be noted in this verse:...That justification respects a man as ungodly. This is evident by these words,—that justifieth the ungodly; which cannot imply less, than that God, in the act of justification, has no regard to any thing in the person justified, as godliness, or any goodness in him; but that immediately before this act, God beholds him only as an ungodly creature..."

"If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified: and certainly his justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative; he would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the reward of it. So Christ, our second surety, (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified,) was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials; and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 1 Pet. iii. 18. then he that was manifest in the flesh was justified in the spirit, 1 Tim. iii. 16.; but God, when he justified him in raising him from the dead, did not only release him from his humiliation for sin, and acquit him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done. And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers; for as Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety; so when after this suffering he was raised from the dead, he was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all that should believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle, Rom. iv. 25. “Who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.” And therefore it is that the apostle says, as he does in Rom. viii. 34. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again."

"When it is said, that we are not justified by any righteousness or goodness of our own, what is meant is, that it is not out of respect to the excellency or goodness of any qualifications or acts in us whatsoever, that God judges it meet that this benefit of Christ should be ours; and it is not, in any wise, on account of any excellency or value that there is in faith, that it appears in the sight of God a meet thing, that he who believes should have this benefit of Christ assigned to him, but purely from the relation faith has to the person in whom this benefit is to be had, or as it unites to that mediator, in and by whom we are justified."

"Eph. i.6. "Who hath made us accepted in the beloved.” Our being in him is the ground or our being accepted. So it is in those unions to which the Holy Ghost has thought fit to compare this. The union of the members of the body with the head, is the ground of their partaking of the life of the head; it is the union of the branches to the stock, which is the ground of their partaking of the sap and life of the stock; it is the relation of the wife to the husband, that is the ground of her joint interest in his estate; they are looked upon, in several respects, as one in law. So there is a legal union between Christ and true Christians; so that (as all except Socinians allow) one, in some respects, is accepted for the other by the Supreme Judge.(Edwards writes later in the sermon... "What is real in the union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal; that is, it is something really in them, and between them, uniting them, that is the ground of the suitableness of their being accounted as one by the Judge.")"

"As there is nobody but what will allow that there is a peculiar relation between Christ and his true disciples, by which they are in some sense in Scripture said to be one so I suppose there is nobody but what will allow, that there may be something that the true Christian does on his part, whereby he is active in coming into this relation or union; some uniting act, or that which is done towards this union or relation (or whatever any please to call it) on the Christian’s part. Now faith I suppose to be this act."

"I do not now pretend to define justifying faith, or to determine precisely how much is contained in it, but only to determine thus much concerning it, viz. That it is that by which the soul, which before was separate and alienated from Christ, unites itself to him, or ceases to be any longer in that state of alienation, and comes into that forementioned union or relation to him; or to use the scripture phrase, it is that by which the soul comes to Christ, and receives him; and this is evident by the Scriptures using these very expressions to signify faith. John vi. 35-39. 'He that cometh to me, shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me, shall never thirst...'""

"The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow."

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."

"Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and switfly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a fallen rock."

"You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell."

"All the virtues which appeared in Christ shone brightest in the close of His life, under the trials He then met. Eminent virtue always shows brightest in the fire. Pure gold shows its purity chiefly in the furnace. It was chiefly under those trials which Christ endured in the close of His life, that His love to God, His honor of God's majesty, His regard to the honor of His law, His spirit of obedience, His humility, contempt of the world, His patience, meekness, and spirit of forgiveness towards men, appeared. Indeed, every thing that Christ did to work out redemption for us appears mainly in the close of His life. Here mainly is His satisfaction for sin, and here chiefly is His merit of eternal life for sinners, and here chiefly appears the brightness of His example which He has set us for imitation."

"A greater absurdity cannot be thought of than a morose, hard-hearted, covetous, proud, malicious Christian."

"All the graces of Christianity always go together. They so go together that where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting. Where there is faith, there are love, and hope, and humility; and where there is love, there is also trust; and where there is a holy trust in God, there is love to God; and where there is a gracious hope, there also is a holy fear of God."

"What tranquillity will there be in heaven! Who can express the fullness and blessedness of this peace! What a calm is this! How sweet and holy and joyous! What a haven of rest to enter, after having passed through the storms and tempests of this world, in which pride and selfishness and envy and malice and scorn and contempt and contention and vice are as waves of a restless ocean, always rolling, and often dashed about in violence and fury! What a Canaan of rest to come to, after going through this waste and howling wilderness, full of snares and pitfalls and poisonous serpents, where no rest could be found."

"Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven."

"Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before God. Distrust yourself. Rely only upon God. Renounce all glory except from Him. Yield yourself heartily to His will and service. Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant, scornful, stubborn, willful, levelling, self-justifying behavior; and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ manifested while He was here upon earth."

"Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love.""

"Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life."

"By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended, His satisfaction, and His merit. All is done by the price that Christ lays down, which does two things: it pays our debt, and so it satisfies; by its intrinsic value, and by the agreement between the Father and the Son it procures our title, and so it merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery, and the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us."

"Whatever in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, was by virtue of His suffering or humiliation; whatever had the nature of merit, was by virtue of His obedience or righteousness."

"As God carries on the work of converting the souls of fallen men through all ages, so He goes on to justify them, to blot out all their sins, and to accept them as righteous in His sight through the righteousness of Christ. He goes on to adopt and receive them from being the children of Satan to be His own children, to carry on the work of His grace which He has begun in them, to comfort them with the consolations of His Spirit, and to bestow upon them, when their bodies die, that eternal glory which is the fruit of Christ's purchase."

"How great is your sin in rejecting Jesus Christ! You slight the glorious Person for whose coming God made such great preparation in such a series of wonderful providences from the beginning of the world, bringing to pass a thing before unknown, the union of the Divine nature with the human in one person. You have been guilty of slighting that great Saviour, who, after such preparation, actually accomplished the purchase of redemption, and who, after He had spent three or four and thirty years in poverty, labor, and contempt, in purchasing redemption, at last finished the purchase by closing His life under such extreme sufferings; and so by His death, and continuing for a time under the power of death, completed the whole. This is the Saviour you reject and despise. You make light of all the glory of His person, and of all the love of God the Father in sending Him into the world, and all His wonderful love appearing in the whole of His work."

"Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men."

"Holy practice is the most decisive evidence of the reality of our repentance. "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.""

"If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt."

"If there be ground for you to trust, as you do, in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did from the fall of man to prepare the way for it, is in vain. Consider what greater folly could you have devised to charge upon God than this, that all those things were done so needlessly; when, instead of all this, He might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily."

"What self-righteous persons take to themselves, is the same work that Christ was engaged in when He was in His agony and bloody sweat, and when He died on the cross, which was the greatest thing that ever the eyes of angels beheld. Christ could accomplish other parts of this work without cost; but this part cost Him His life, as well as innumerable pains and labors. Yet this is the part which self-righteous persons go about to accomplish for themselves."

"You trust in your own doings to appease God for your sins, and to incline the heart of God to you. Though you are poor, worthless, vile, and polluted, yet you arrogantly take upon you that very work for which the Son of God became man; and in order to which God employed four thousand years in all the great dispensations of His providence, aiming chiefly to make way for Christ's coming to do this work. This is the work that you foolishly think yourselves sufficient for; as though your prayers and performances were excellent enough for this purpose. Consider how vain is the thought which you entertain of yourself. How must such arrogance appear in the sight of Christ, whom it cost so much? It was not to be obtained even by Him, so great and glorious a person, at a cheaper rate than His wading through a sea of blood, and passing through the midst of the furnace of God's wrath."

"You that trust in your own righteousness, arrogate to yourselves the honor of the greatest thing that even God Himself ever did. You seem not only sufficient to perform Divine works, but such is your pride and vanity, that you are not content without taking upon you to do the very greatest work that ever God Himself wrought. God's works of providence are greater than those of creation. To take on yourself to work out redemption, is a greater thing than if you had taken it upon you to create a world."

"Christian practice is that evidence which confirms every other indication of true godliness."

"Suppose Jonathan Edwards had been born a woman; suppose William James, for that matter, had been born a woman? (The invalid seclusion of his sister Alice is suggestive.) Even from men, New England took its psychic toll; many of its geniuses seemed peculiar in one way or another, particularly along the lines of social intercourse...Emily Dickinson-viewed by her bemused contemporary Thomas Higginson as "partially cracked," by the twentieth century as fey or pathological-has increasingly struck me as a practical woman, exercising her gift as she had to, making choices."

"Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ."

"As I do understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway. He who has God's grace in his heart cannot go astray."

"I conceive there lies a clear rule in Titus, that the elder women should instruct the younger and then I must have a time wherein I must do it."

"Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women and why do you call me to teach the court?"

"I shall I not equivocate, there is a meeting of men and women and there is a meeting only for women."

"One may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than another, so I said. . . But when they preach a covenant of works for salvation, that is not truth."

"If you please to give me leave I shall give you the ground of what I know to be true. Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the church of England, I had like to have turned separatist; whereupon I kept a day of solemn humiliation and pondering of the thing; this scripture was brought unto me — he that denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh is antichrist — This I considered of and in considering found that the papists did not deny him to be come in the flesh nor we did not deny him — who then was antichrist? . . . The Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me. . . . I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong. Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath let me to distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John Baptist and the voice of antichrist, for all those voices are spoken of in scripture. Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord."

"I will give you another scripture, Jer. 46. 27, 28 — out of which the Lord shewed me what he would do for me and the rest of his servants. — But after he was pleased to reveal himself to me . . . Ever since that time I have been confident of what he hath revealed unto me. . . Therefore I desire you to look to it, for you see this scripture fulfilled this day and therefore I desire you that as you tender the Lord and the church and commonwealth to consider and look what you do. You have power over my body but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul, and assure yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go on in this course you begin you will I bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. . ."

"You have spoken divers things as we have been informed very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex..."

"She was a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, a nimble wit and active spirit, a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man."

"Courageous Exponent of Civil Liberty and Religious Toleration"

"A venial sin of your own is a greater obstacle to your experiencing the love of Jesus Christ than the sin of anyone else, however great it may be. It is clear, then, that you must harden your heart against yourself, humbling and detesting yourself more strongly for all the sins that hold you back from the vision of God than you detest the sins of others. For if your own heart is free from sin, the sins of others will not hurt you. Therefore, if you wish to find peace, both in this life and in heaven, follow the advice of one of the holy fathers, and say each day: "What am I?" and do not judge others."

"Regard yourself all the more as a sinner because you cannot feel yourself to be what you are."

"The purpose of prayer is not to inform our Lord what you desire, for He knows all your needs. It is to render you able and ready to receive the grace which our Lord will freely give you. This grace cannot be experienced until you have been refined and purified by the fire of desire in devout prayer. For although prayer is not the cause for which our Lord gives grace, it is nevertheless the means by which grace, freely given, comes to the soul."

"They must not fear, nor regard as sin, or take to heart any evil impulses to sin or to blasphemy, or doubts about the Sacrament, or any other such ugly temptations; for to experience these temptations defiles the soul no more than the bark of a dog or the bite of a flea. They trouble the soul but do not harm it provided a man puts them aside and ignores them. It does no good to struggle against them, or to try and master them by force, for the more a person struggles against them, the more persistent they become."

"We therefore need to know the gifts given us by God, so that we may use them, for by these we shall be saved."

"Some people understand the charity of our Lord and are saved by it; others, relying on this mercy and kindness, continue in their sins, thinking that it may be theirs whenever they wish. But this is not so, for then they are too late and are taken in their sins before they expect it, and so damn themselves."

"There are many who are hypocrites although they think they are not, and there are many who are afraid of being hypocrites although they certainly are not. Which is the one and which is the other God knows, and none but He."

"What is humility but truthfulness? There is no real difference."

"I desire the love of God not because I am worthy, but because I am unworthy."

"Others, who have the common amount of charity and have not yet grown in grace to this extent, but are guided by their own reason, struggle and strive all day against their sins in order to acquire virtues. Like wrestlers, they are sometimes on top, and sometimes underneath. Such people are doing well. They acquire virtues through their own reason and will, but not because they love and delight in virtue, for they have to exert all of their energy to overcome their natural instincts in order to possess them. Consequently they never enjoy true peace or final victory. They will receive a great reward, but they are not yet sufficiently humble. They have not yet put themselves wholly into God's hands, because they do not yet see Him."

"One who loves God retains this humility at all times, not with weariness and struggle, but with pleasure and gladness."

"What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic."

"How, then, shall a Christian bear fruit? By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation, and on dangers? No, there must be a full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to him; a constant looking to him for grace. Christians in whom these dispositions are once firmly fixed, go on calmly as the sleeping infant borne in the arms of its mother. Christ reminds them of every duty in its time and place—reproves them for every error—counsels them in every difficulty, excites them to every needful activity. In spiritual, as in temporal matters, they take no thought for the morrow—for they know that Christ will be as accessible tomorrow as to-day, and that time imposes no barrier on his love. Their hope and trust rest solely on what he is willing and able to do for them; on nothing that they suppose themselves able and willing to do for him."

"I wrote what I did because as a woman, as a mother I was oppressed and broken-hearted, with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity — because as a lover of my country I trembled at the coming day of wrath. It is no merit in the sorrowful that they weep, or to the oppressed and smothering that they gasp and struggle, not to me, that I must speak for the oppressed — who cannot speak for themselves."

"The greater the interest involved in a truth the more careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry. I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place, because, such as it is, it is better than nothing."

"A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; while we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell. We live a while in Boston, and then a while in New York, and then, perhaps, turn up at Cincinnati. Scarcely any body with us is living where they expect to live and die. The man that dies in the house he was born in is a wonder. There is something pleasant in the permanence and repose of the English family estate, which we, in America, know very little of."

"He was called a good fellow, — only a little lumpish, — and as he was brave and faithful, he rose in time to be a shipmaster. But when came the business of making money, the aptitude for accumulating, George found himself distanced by many a one with not half his general powers. What shall a man do with a sublime tier of moral faculties, when the most profitable business out of his port is the slave-trade? So it was in Newport in those days. George's first voyage was on a slaver, and he wished himself dead many a time before it was over, — and ever after would talk like a man beside himself, if the subject was named. He declared that the gold made in it was distilled from human blood, from mothers' tears, from the agonies and dying groans of gasping, suffocating men and women, and that it would sear and blister the soul of him that touched it; in short, he talked as whole-souled, unpractical fellows are apt to talk about what respectable people sometimes do. Nobody had ever instructed him that a slaveship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely. packed heathens are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel. So, though George was acknowledged to be a good fellow, and honest as the noon-mark on the kitchen floor, he let slip so many chances of making money as seriously to compromise his reputation among thriving folks. He was wastefully generous — insisted on treating every poor dog that came in his way, in any foreign port, as a brother — absolutely refused to be party in cheating or deceiving the heathen on any shore, or in skin of any color — and also took pains, as far as in him lay, to spoil any bargains which any of his subordinates founded on the ignorance or weakness of his fellow-men. So he made voyage after voyage, and gained only his wages and the reputation among his employers of an incorruptibly honest fellow."

"Most mothers are instinctive philosophers."

"Not only was he ignorant, but he had not even those conditions within himself which made knowledge possible. All that there was developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy, self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life, and adventure; his life was in the outward and present, not in the inward and reflective; he was a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and most animal perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves, her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and dreams, her power of love, and yearning for self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps, have seen. But if ever two children, or two grown people, thus organized, are thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very laws of their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not to give."

"That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future, which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to."

"In the old times, women did not get their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better worth writing than the men's."

"The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end."

"One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me."

"Everyone confesses in the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do."

"The burning of rebellious thoughts in the little breast, of internal hatred and opposition, could not long go on without slight whiffs of external smoke, such as mark the course of subterranean fire."

""Well, mother, people have different names for different things. I hear a great deal about Ellery Davenport's tact and knowledge of the world, and all that; but he does a great deal of what I call lying, — so there! Now there are some folks who lie blunderingly, and unskilfully, but I 'll say for Ellery Davenport that he can lie as innocently and sweetly and prettily as a French woman, and I can't say any more. And if a woman does n't want to believe him, she just must n't listen to him, that 's all. I always believe him when he is around, but when he 's away and I think him over, I know just what he is, and see just what an old fool he has made of me." These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new."

"People have wondered where the seat of original sin is; I think it 's in the stomach. A man eats too much and neglects exercise, and the Devil has him all his own way, and the little imps, with their long black fingers, play on his nerves like a piano. Never overwork either body or mind, boys. All the work that a man can do that can be rested by one night's sleep is good for him, but fatigue that goes into the next day is always bad."

"When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you could n't hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that 's just the place and time that the tide 'll turn. Never trust to prayer without using every means in your power, and never use the means without trusting in prayer. Get your evidences of grace by pressing forward to the mark, and not by groping with a lantern after the boundary-lines, — and so, boys, go, and God bless you!""

"When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean And billows wild contend with angry roar, 'T is said, far down beneath the wild commotion That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. Far, far beneath, the noise of tempests dieth And silver waves chime ever peacefully, And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flyeth Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea."

"Women are the real architects of society."

"I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation."

""Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain't like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right. Now, they say," said Haley, assuming a candid and confidential air, "that this kind o' trade is hardening to the feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. I've seen 'em as would pull a woman's child out of her arms, and set him up to sell, and she screechin' like mad all the time; — very bad policy — damages the article — makes 'em quite unfit for service sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort o' handling. The fellow that was trading for her didn't want her baby; and she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of 't; and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management, — there's where 't is. It's always best to do the humane thing, sir; that's been my experience." And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arm, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second Wilberforce."

"It don't look well, now, for a feller to be praisin' himself; but I say it jest because it's the truth. I believe I'm reckoned to bring in about the finest droves of niggers that is brought in, — at least, I've been told so; if I have once, I reckon I have a hundred times, — all in good case, — fat and likely, and I lose as few as any man in the business. And I lays it all to my management, sir; and humanity, sir, I may say, is the great pillar of my management."

""Now, I've been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I've been talked to. They an't pop'lar, and they an't common; but I stuck to 'em, sir; I've stuck to 'em, and realized well on 'em; yes, sir, they have paid their passage, I may say," and the trader laughed at his joke. There was something so piquant and original in these elucidations of humanity, that Mr. Shelby could not help laughing in company. Perhaps you laugh too, dear reader; but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do."

"Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow — the shadow of law. So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master — so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil — so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery."

"Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty."

"Well, good-by, Uncle Tom; keep a stiff upper lip."

"So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?"

"The horrid cruelties and outrages that once and a while find their way into the papers — such cases as Prue's, for example — what do they come from? In many cases, it is a gradual hardening process on both sides — the owner growing more and more cruel, as the servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline."

"Life passes, with us all, a day at a time; so it passed with our friend Tom, till two years were gone. Though parted from all his soul held dear, and though often yearning for what lay beyond, still was he never positively and consciously miserable; for, so well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable."

"Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good."

"Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm."

"We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances. The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something, — has acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. The law regards him, in every respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of merchandise. The only possible acknowledgment of any of the longings and wants of a human and immortal creature, which are given to him, comes to him through the sovereign and irresponsible will of his master; and when that master is stricken down, nothing remains. The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power humanely and generously is small. Everybody knows this, and the slave knows it best of all; so that he feels that there are ten chances of his finding an abusive and tyrannical master, to one of his finding a considerate and kind one. Therefore is it that the wail over a kind master is loud and long, as well it may be."

"O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, "Behold! thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!" There is no speech nor language where this voice is not heard; but the bold, bad man heard it not. He woke with an oath and a curse. What to him was the gold and purple, the daily miracle of morning!"

"Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live? The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest. But to live, — to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered, — this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour, — this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman."

"By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?"

"No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man."

"Legree had had the slumbering moral elements in him roused by his encounters with Tom, — roused, only to be resisted by the determinate force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion of the dark, inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in superstitious dread."

"The longest day must have its close — the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day."

"That the tragical fate of Tom, also, has too many times had its parallel, there are living witnesses, all over our land, to testify. Let it be remembered that in all southern states it is a principle of jurisprudence that no person of colored lineage can testify in a suit against a white, and it will be easy to see that such a case may occur, wherever there is a man whose passions outweigh his interests, and a slave who has manhood or principle enough to resist his will. There is, actually, nothing to protect the slave's life, but the character of the master. Facts too shocking to be contemplated occasionally force their way to the public ear, and the comment that one often hears made on them is more shocking than the thing itself. It is said, "Very likely such cases may now and then occur, but they are no sample of general practice." If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master could now and then torture an apprentice to death, would it be received with equal composure? Would it be said, "These cases are rare, and no samples of general practice"? This injustice is an inherent one in the slave system, — it cannot exist without it."

"The author hopes she has done justice to that nobility, generosity, and humanity, which in many cases characterize individuals at the South. Such instances save us from utter despair of our kind. But, she asks any person, who knows the world, are such characters common, anywhere? For many years of her life, the author avoided all reading upon or allusion to the subject of slavery, considering it as too painful to be inquired into, and one which advancing light and civilization would certainly live down. But, since the legislative act of 1850, when she heard, with perfect surprise and consternation, Christian and humane people actually recommending the remanding escaped fugitives into slavery, as a duty binding on good citizens, — when she heard, on all hands, from kind, compassionate and estimable people, in the free states of the North, deliberations and discussions as to what Christian duty could be on this head, — she could only think, These men and Christians cannot know what slavery is; if they did, such a question could never be open for discussion. And from this arose a desire to exhibit it in a living dramatic reality. She has endeavored to show it fairly, in its best and its worst phases. In its best aspect, she has, perhaps, been successful; but, oh! who shall say what yet remains untold in that valley and shadow of death, that lies the other side?"

"Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? And does not the slave system, by denying the slave all legal right of testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot? Can anybody fall to make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest? Are the honorable, the just, the high-minded and compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world?"

"Do you say that the people of the free state have nothing to do with it, and can do nothing? Would to God this were true! But it is not true. The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South, in that they have not the apology of education or custom. If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should, in times past, the sons of the free states would not have been the holders, and, proverbially, the hardest masters of slaves; the sons of the free states would not have connived at the extension of slavery, in our national body; the sons of the free states would not, as they do, trade the souls and bodies of men as an equivalent to money, in their mercantile dealings. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South? Northern men, northern mothers, northern Christians, have something more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look to the evil among themselves."

"What can any individual do? Of that, every individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do, — they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?"

"To fill up Liberia with an ignorant, inexperienced, half-barbarized race, just escaped from the chains of slavery, would be only to prolong, for ages, the period of struggle and conflict which attends the inception of new enterprises."

"A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian church has a heavy account to answer. Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved, — but by repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God!"

"Human nature is above all things — lazy."

"To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably."

"In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subject into, not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea — by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not. I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned."

"All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order."

"True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love's sake have in them a poetry that is immortal."

"Care and labor are as much correlated to human existence as shadow is to light..."

"Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture and refinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere servile toils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings."

"A woman's health is her capital."

"Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much debris of cast-off and everyday clothing."

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."

"I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred — that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt.... If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend."

"The obstinancy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinancy of folly and inanity."

"A little reflection will enable any person to detect in himself that setness in trifles which is the result of the unwatched instinct of self-will and to establish over himself a jealous guardianship."

"Now, if the principle of toleration were once admitted into classical education — if it were admitted that the great object is to read and enjoy a language, and the stress of the teaching were placed on the few things absolutely essential to this result, if the tortoise were allowed time to creep, and the bird permitted to fly, and the fish to swim, towards the enchanted and divine sources of Helicon — all might in their own way arrive there, and rejoice in its flowers, its beauty, and its coolness."

"Harriet lived in Connecticut and influenced antislavery in her book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Harriet was a optimist who expressed her feelings by writing. Harriet was listed as one of the people who started the civil war. She started it from one of her books (It was the most influencial book in all of American History) However, Harriet was a very successful person and never stood down."

"Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in Thee. This is true"

"Between the mysteries of death and life Thou standest, loving, guiding,— not explaining; We ask, and Thou art silent,— yet we gaze, And our charmed hearts forget their drear complaining; No crushing fate, no stony destiny! Thou Lamb that hast been slain, we rest in Thee."

"Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee; Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight, Dawns the sweet consciousness, — I am with Thee."

"I feel that woman should in the very Capitol of the nation, lift her voice against that abominable measure. It is not enough that H. B. Stowe should write."

"The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851 was a crucial event in the history of antislavery. In a long essay on the life and work of Stowe, the Black civil-rights leader of post-Reconstruction times, Mary Church Terrell, wrote: "In estimating the value of Uncle Tom's Cabin it is not too much to say that the work of no writer of modern times has excited more general and more profound interest than did this masterpiece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. In recounting the incidents and in stating the reasons which led to the emancipation of the slave, it would be difficult to exaggerate the role played by this remarkable book.""

"Abolitionist writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson said of its author: "To have written at once the most powerful and contemporaneous fiction, and the most efficient antislavery tract is a double triumph in literature and philosophy to which this country has heretofore seen no parallel.""

"Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very bad novel, having, in its self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality, much in common with Little Women. Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty. Uncle Tom's Cabin-like its multitudinous, hard-boiled descendants-is a catalogue of violence. This is explained by the nature of Mrs. Stowe's subject matter, her laudable determination to flinch from nothing in presenting the complete picture; an explanation which falters only if we pause to ask whether or not her picture is indeed complete; and what constriction or failure of perception forced her to so depend on the description of brutality-unmotivated, senseless-and to leave unanswered and unnoticed the only important question: what it was, after all, that moved her people to such deeds. But this, let us say, was beyond Mrs. Stowe's powers; she was not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer; her book was not intended to do anything more than prove that slavery was wrong; was, in fact, perfectly horrible. This makes material for a pamphlet but it is hardly enough for a novel; and the only question left to ask is why we are bound still within the same constriction. How is it that we are so loath to make a further journey than that made by Mrs. Stowe, to discover and reveal something a little closer to the truth?...Bigger (from Native Son by Richard Wright) is Uncle Tom's descendant, flesh of his flesh, so exactly opposite a portrait that, when the books are placed together, it seems that the contemporary Negro novelist and the dead New England woman are locked together in a deadly, timeless battle; the one uttering merciless exhortations, the other shouting curses."

"Harriet Beecher, whose glowing pen/Corroded the chains of fettered men."

"Biographies of eminent women designed to appeal to literate women readers became a popular genre in the 19th century in England and in other European countries.In the United States this genre is represented by a two-volume History of Women by Lydia Maria Child...Another example of the genre is a selection of biographies by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Woman in Sacred History: A Series of Sketches Drawn from Scriptural, Historical and Legendary Sources which uses the Old and the New Testament as its source."

"So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"

"Why is it that Harriet Beecher Stowe has had such success throughout the wide world? Because her work reaches the sense of right in the universal human heart."

"As our President said, we have in our army such minds as Spencer, and Mill, and I would add Buckle, and many others; and they are diffusing light, intelligence and civilization, and advocating the right. We have women also. We have Frances P. Cobbe; whose name I speak with pride and rejoicing; and in the literary world we have Charlotte Bronte, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and many others, who are consecrating their talents to the great cause of womanhood, and freedom, and right."

"The pure and worthy Mrs. Stowe is one we all are proud to know As mother, wife, and authoress— Thank God, I am content with less!"

""Uncle Tom's Cabin" came from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist."

"Anyone can see that to write Uncle Tom's Cabin on the knee in the kitchen, with constant calls to cooking and other details of housework to punctuate the paragraphs, was a more difficult achievement than to write it at leisure in a quiet room."

"The realm of fiction yet remains undisturbed by the Afro-Americans as a positive factor in a permanent way. This is much to be regretted, because he occupies so large a position, as a negative force. With slavery for a subject, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe gave America its strongest work of fiction, but the Afro-American there represented, though true in its delineation to the life it represented, does not represent the Afro-American of to-day. Our best literary friends have failed to do it, so ineradicable is prejudice; it is not in their power to understand that the Afro-American is a man with all the attributes of manhood. They have viewed us with a white man’s glasses so long, seeing only the ignorant and humble side, there seems no other perspective for them. Thus it is that to the world at large the conviction is widespread that we are a menial, servile, happy-go-lucky race, given to petty thievery or humble, forgiving and submissive, as was “Uncle Tom.” The literature of the day has so portrayed us. The greatest [claim] to literary merit of the new corps of Southern writers is their skill in portraying the plantation and servant side of race character by the aid of negro dialect."

"The novel has enormous power. Uncle Tom's Cabin may be a tearjerker, but it succeeds. Many readers find their eyes filling up as Eliza climbs up the Ohio riverbank, or George Shelby pledges to do "what one man can" to fight slavery. Stowe wanted to convince people that slavery was wrong, to engage their emotions. Her overheated style accomplishes that, perhaps better than more controlled writing would have been able to."

"I had perceived by experience, how that it was impossible to stablish the lay people in any truth, except the scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue, that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the text."

"This word church has diverse significations."

"Take heed, therefore, wicked prelates, blind leaders of the blind; indurate and obstinate hypocrites, take heed …. Ye will be the chiefest in Christ's flock, and yet will not keep one jot of the right way of his doctrine …ye keep thereof almost naught at all, but whatsoever soundeth to make of your bellies, to maintain your honour, whether in the Scripture, or in your own traditions, or in the pope's law, that ye compel the lay-people to observe; violently threatening them with your excommunications and curses, that they shall be damned, body and soul, if they keep them not. And if that help you not, then ye murder them mercilessly with the sword of the temporal powers, whom ye have made so blind that they be ready to slay whom ye command, and will not hear his cause examined, nor give him room to answer for himself."

"I defie the Pope and all his lawes. If God spare my life, ere many yeares I wyl cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture, than he doust."

"I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience, nor would do this day, if all that is in earth, whether it be honor, pleasure, or riches, might be given me."

"Lord ope the King of England's eies."

"Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man's heart glad and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy."

"He threatened me grievously, and reviled me."

"Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!"

"Christ is with us until the world’s end. Let his little flock be bold therefore. For if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes, or whatsoever names they will?"

"Mark this also, if God send thee to the sea, and promise to go with thee, and to bring thee safe to land, he will raise up a tempest against thee, to prove whether thou wilt abide by his word, and that thou mayest feel thy faith, and perceive his goodness. For if it were always fair weather, and thou never brought into such jeopardy, whence his mercy only delivered thee, thy faith should be but a presumption, and thou shouldest be ever unthankful to God and merciless unto thy neighbor."

"If God promise riches, the way thereto is poverty. Whom he loveth, him he chasteneth: whom he exalteth, he casteth, down: whom he saveth, he damneth first. He bringeth no man to heaven, except he send him to hell first. If he promise life, he slayeth first: when he buildeth, he casteth all down first. He is no patcher; he cannot build on another man’s foundation. He will not work until all be past remedy, and brought unto such a case, that men may see, how that his hand, his power, his mercy, his goodness and truth, hath wrought altogether. He will let no man be partaker with him of his praise and glory. His works are wonderful, and contrary unto man’s works."

"The preaching of God’s word is hateful and contrary unto them. Why? For it is impossible to preach Christ, except thou preach against antichrist; that is to say, them which with their false doctrine and violence of sword enforce to quench the true doctrine of Christ. And as thou canst heal no disease, except thou begin at the root; even so canst thou preach against no mischief, except thou begin at the bishops."

"As Christ compareth the understanding of scripture to a key, so compareth he it to a net, and unto leaven, and unto many other things for certain properties. I marvel, therefore, that they boast not themselves of their net and leaven, as well as of their keys; for they are all one thing. But as Christ biddeth us beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, so beware of their counterfeited keys, and of their false net; which are their traditions and ceremonies, their hypocrisy and false doctrine, wherewith they catch, not souls unto Christ, but authority and riches unto themselves."

"Let Christian kings therefore keep their faith and truth, and all lawful promises and bonds, not one with another only, but even with the Turk or whatsoever infidel it be. For so it is right before God; as the scriptures and ensamples of the bible testify."

"Christ forbiddeth his disciples and that oft... not only to climb above lords, kings, and emperors in worldly rule, but also to exalt themselves one above another in the kingdom of God: but in vain; for the pope would not hear it, though he had commanded it ten thousand times."

"Understand therefore, that one thing in the scripture representeth divers things. A serpent figureth Christ in one place, and the devil in another; and a lion doth likewise. Christ by leaven signifieth God’s word in one place; and in another signifieth thereby the traditions of the Pharisees, which soured and altered God’s word for their advantage."

"Though that at the beginning miracles were shewed through such ceremonies, to move the infidels to believe the word of God, as thou readest how the apostles anointed the sick with oil, and healed them; and Paul sent his pertelet or jerkin to the sick, and healed them also; yet was it not the ceremony that did the miracle, but faith of the preacher and the truth of God, which had promised to confirm and stablish his gospel with such miracles."

"Where no promise of God is, there can be no faith, nor justifying, nor forgiveness of sins: for it is more than madness to look for any thing of God, save that he hath promised. How far he hath promised, so far is he bound to them that believe; and further not. To have a faith, therefore, or a trust in any thing, where God hath not promised, is plain idolatry, and a worshipping of thine own imagination instead of God. Let us see the pith of a ceremony or two, to judge the rest by. In conjuring of holy water, they pray that whosoever be sprinkled therewith may receive health as well of body as of soul: and likewise in making holy bread, and so forth in the conjurations of other ceremonies. Now we see by daily experience, that half their prayer is unheard. For no man receiveth health of body thereby. No more, of likelihood, do they of soul. Yea, we see also by experience, that no man receiveth health of soul thereby. For no man by sprinkling himself with holy water, and with eating holy bread, is more merciful than before, or forgiveth wrong, or becometh at one with his enemy, or is more patient, and less covetous, and so forth; which are the sure tokens of the soul-health."

"By grace I understand the favor of God, and also the gifts and working of his Spirit in us; as love, kindness, patience, obedience, mercifulness, despising of worldly things, peace, concord, and such like. If after thou hast heard so many masses, matins, and evensongs, and after thou hast received holy bread, holy water, and the bishop’s blessing, or a cardinal’s or the pope’s, if thou wilt be more kind to thy neighbor, and love him better than before; if thou be more obedient unto thy superiors; more merciful, more ready to forgive wrong; done unto thee, more despisest the world, and more athirst after spiritual things; if after that a priest hath taken orders he be less covetous than before; if a wife, after so many and oft pilgrimages, be more chaste, more obedient unto her husband, more kind to her maids and other servants; if gentlemen, knights, lords, and kings and emperors, after they have said so often daily service with their chaplains, know more of Christ than before, and can better skill to rule their tenants, subjects, and realms christianly than before, and be content with their duties; then do such things increase grace. If not, it is a lie. Whether it be so or no, I report me to experience. If they have any other interpretations of justifying or grace, I pray them to teach it me; for I would gladly learn it."

"In the beginning God created heaven and earth."

"Let there be light."

"Am I my brother’s keeper?"

"The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be merciful unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

"Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted."

"Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."

"The signs of the times."

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

"He went out . . . and wept bitterly."

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God..."

"In him we live, move and have our being."

"A law unto themselves."

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and yet had no love I were even as the sounding brass or as a tinkling cymbal."

"Fight the good fight."

"Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."

"Except for Geoffrey Chaucer I would think someone who comes closest to being authentically of Shakespeare's greatness, that is William Tyndale...who is the principal translator of [the King James Bible] ... I am not quite sure that I would agree that even Shakespeare could write more powerfully than William Tyndale in Tyndale's Bible, in his version of the story of Joseph. Unfortunately it vanishes in King James even though they use so much of Tyndale. There is a wonderful sentence, "And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a lucky fellow", which is superb and worthy of Shakespeare."

"Tyndale founded English Puritanism as the theological, religious, and moral system that univocally regarded scripture as God's law for everyman, binding everyman and God together in a contract that enjoined and rewarded strict morality."

"Tyndale, coming out of the remote Forest of Dean, hard by the Welsh border, somehow or other (and it remains a mystery to me how he did it, but it was an achievement comparable to Martin Luther's, in his German Bible) fashioned, in the pages of his New Testament, the English which we still speak and write; an English employing a vocabulary which if not at first universally understood and assimilated soon was; an English partly derived from the word order and sentence structure of the Greek and especially of the Hebrew biblical texts in which Tyndale, a remarkable and precocious classical philologist, was thoroughly proficient. Tyndale had an intuitive and strong sense of the affinity of English with these ancient tongues, an affinity which he believed was not to be found in the Latin language and in the Latin Bible."

"[N]ow everyone learned what those specialists had always known: that for those parts of the Bible which Tyndale translated, the whole of the New Testament and much of the Old Testament, more than eighty per cent of the words in what we call the Authorised Version of 1611 are his. Such altogether memorable passages as the account of the Nativity in Matthew ('shepherds abiding in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night'), and the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke ('father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son') are wholly his. It was Tyndale who gave us 'the burden and heat of the day', 'filthy lucre', 'God forbid', 'the salt of the earth', 'the powers that be', 'eat, drink and be merry'. The list is endless. What is extraordinary is that Tyndale's English is actually a more English English, more demotic in its language and tone, than the version of 1611 of three generations later, where a committee has smoothed over many rough edges and produced something more stately, more ecclesiastical, safer."

"Tyndall (who assuredlie sheweth himself in myn opynyon rather to be replete with venymous envye rancour and malice then with any good lerning vertue knowlage or discression)."

"William Tyndale gave us our English Bible. The sages assembled by King James to prepare the Authorised Version of 1611...took over Tyndale's work. Nine-tenths of the Authorised Version's New Testament is Tyndale's. The same is true of the first half of the Old Testament... William Tyndale was a most remarkable scholar and linguist, whose eight languages included skill in Greek and Hebrew far above the ordinary for an Englishman of the time... His unsurpassed ability was to work as a translator with the sounds and rhythms as well as the senses of English, to create unforgettable words, phrases, paragraphs and chapters, and to do so in a way that, again unusually for the time, is still, even today, direct and living: newspaper headlines still quote Tyndale, though unknowingly, and he has reached more people than even Shakespeare."

"These opening chapters of Genesis are the first translations — not just the first printed, but the first translations — from Hebrew into English. This needs to be emphasized. Not only was the Hebrew language only known in England in 1529 and 1530 by, at the most, a tiny handful of scholars in Oxford and Cambridge, and quite possibly by none; that there was a language called Hebrew at all, or that it had any connection whatsoever with the Bible, would have been news to most of the ordinary population."

"Tyndale was more than a mildly theological thinker. He is at last being understood as, theologically as well as linguistically, well ahead of his time. For him, as several decades later for Calvin... and in the 20th century Karl Barth) the overriding message of the New Testament is the sovereignty of God. Everything is contained in that. It must never, as he wrote, be lost from sight... Tyndale, we are now being shown, was original and new — except that he was also old, demonstrating the understanding of God as revealed in the whole New Testament. For Tyndale, God is, above all, sovereign, active in the individual and in history. He is the one as he put it, in whom alone is found salvation and flourishing."

"Most important was Tyndale's Bible translation...which gave currency to Erasmian and Lutheran revisions of such crucial established concepts as ecclesia (church or congregation?) and presbyter (priest or elder?), and which was accompanied by powerfully reformist prefaces and prologues. Tunstall's attempt to stamp out this dangerous New Testament had greatly amused the reformers who financed further operations out of the money the bishop paid over in buying up the offending edition. In 1528 Tyndale also entered the lists as a theorist of politics when in his Obedience of a Christian Man he elaborated Luther's teaching on the subject's duty of submission to his secular ruler in ways highly satisfactory to Henry who read the book with pleasure; next year, however, Tyndale cast himself into outer darkness again by violently attacking the Divorce in a work, The Practice of Prelates, mainly concerned to blast Wolsey and the English hierarchy in general."

"For this book is for me and all kings to read."

"[H]is writing is the bedrock of English language and literature... Tyndale's best memorial is that whenever anyone writes or speaks well in English, she or he echoes the simple but majestic rhythms that Tyndale introduced. He showed that plain English was a mighty tongue. His voice is the forgotten ghost in the language... Tyndale had the revolutionary idea that the English of ordinary folk could be the finest literary language in the world. He was a passionate populist and democrat, as well as a rich scholar... [H]is words are blood and bone of the English language."

"By sanctifying cruelty, early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematic torture in Christian Europe. If you understand the expressions to burn at the stake, to hold his feet to the fire, to break a butterfly on the wheel, to be racked with pain, to be drawn and quartered, to disembowel, to flay, to press, the thumbscrew, the garrote, a slow burn, and the iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of a heavy-metal rock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways that heretics were brutalized during the Middle Ages and early modern period. During the Spanish Inquisition, church officials concluded that the conversions of thousands of former Jews didn’t take. To compel the conversos to confess their hidden apostasy, the inquisitors tied their arms behind their backs, hoisted them by their wrists, and dropped them in a series of violent jerks, rupturing their tendons and pulling their arms out of their sockets. Many others were burned alive, a fate that also befell Michael Servetus for questioning the trinity, Giordano Bruno for believing (among other things) that the earth went around the sun, and William Tyndale for translating the Bible into English. Galileo, perhaps the most famous victim of the Inquisition, got off easy: he was only shown the instruments of torture (in particular, the rack) and was given the opportunity to recant for “having held and believed that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves.”"

"lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil"

"knock and it shall be opened unto you"

"twinkling of an eye"

"a moment in time"

"fashion not yourselves to the world"

"seek and you shall find"

"eat, drink and be merry"

"ask and it shall be given you"

"judge not that you not be judged"

"the word of God which liveth and lasteth forever"

"let there be light"

"the powers that be"

"my brother's keeper"

"the salt of the earth"

"filthy lucre"

"it came to pass"

"gave up the ghost"

"the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (which is like Luther's translation of Mathew 26,41: der Geist ist willig, aber das Fleisch ist schwach; Wyclif for example translated it with: for the spirit is ready, but the flesh is sick.)"

"live and move and have our being"

"fight the good fight"

"I believe that in the end the truth will conquer."

"This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People."

"Crown and cloth maken no priest, nor emperor's bishop with his words, but power that crist giveth; and thus by life have been priests known."

"There was good reason for the silence of the Holy Spirit as to how, when, in what form Christ ordained the apostles, the reason being to show the indifferency of all forms of words."

"I acknowledge that the sacrament of the altar is very God's body in form of bread, but it is in another manner God's body than it is in heaven."

"Already a third and more of England is in the hands of the Pope. There cannot be two temporal sovereigns in one country; either Edward is King or Urban is king. We make our choice. We accept Edward of England and refute Urban of Rome."

"John Wycliffe, Englishman, the greatest theologian of his time, held alone for many years the magisterial chair (as it is called) in teaching and disputing at Oxford. Apart from the truly apostolic life which he led, he far excelled all his fellows in England by his ability, eloquence, and erudition. ... He was roused by the spirit of the eternal father to stand for His truth in the midst of the darkness of impious locusts, as the magnanimous warrior of Jesus Christ, and he became the most invincible organ of his day against Antichrists. He was indeed the most strong Elias of his times to reform all distortions. He was one and the first after the loosing of Satan to bring the light of truth in that age of darkness, and who dared before the whole synagogue of the devil to confess Christ, and to reveal the abominable turpitude of the great Antichrist. For he shone like the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and remained for many days as the faithful witness in the church. As the radiant sun he shone in the temple of God, and like incense burning in the fire. He was always of the most irreproachable faith, and most absolute attachment to the truth."

"Scholastic in form, Wyclif's writings are modern in spirit. His De Officio Regis is the absolute assertion of the Divine Right of the king to disendow the Church."

"[T]his is out of all doubt, that at what time all the world was in most desperate and vile estate, and the lamentable ignorance and darkness of God's truth had overshadowed the whole earth, this man stepped forth like a valiant champion, unto whom that may justly be applied which is spoken in the book called Ecclesiasticus, of one Simon, the son of Onias: "Even as the morning star being in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon being full in her course, and as the bright beams of the sun; so doth he shine and glister in the temple and Church of God.""

"I intend neither to deny, dissemble, defend, or excuse any of his faults. ... Yea; should I be over-officious to retain myself, to plead for Wicliffs faults, that glorious Saint would sooner chide then thank me, unwilling that in favour of him, truth should suffer prejudice. He was a man, and so subject to errour, living in a dark Age, more obnoxious to stumble vex'd with opposition, which makes men reel into violence, and therefore it is unreasonable, that the constitution and temper of his positive opinions, should be guessed by his Polemical Heat, when he was chafed in disputation. But besides all these, envy hath falsly fathered many foul aspertions upon him."

"Better to be always in a minority of one with God — branded as madman, incendiary, fanatic, heretic, infidel — frowned upon by "the powers that be," and mobbed by the populace — or consigned ignominiously to the gallows, like him whose "soul is marching on," though his "body lies mouldering in the grave," or burnt to ashes at the stake like Wickliffe, or nailed to the cross like him who "gave himself for the world," — in defence of the RIGHT, than like Herod, having the shouts of a multitude crying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!""

"John Wicliff; whom we hesitate not to admire as one of the greatest ornaments of his country; and as one of those prodigies, whom providence raises up, and directs as its instruments to enlighten man kind. His amazing penetration; his rational manner of thinking; and the noble freedom of his spirit, are equally the objects of our admiration. Wicliff was in religion, what Bacon was afterwards in science; the great detecter of those arts and glosses, which the barbarism of ages had drawn together to obscure the mind of man. To this intuitive genius Christendom was unquestionably more obliged than to any name in the list of reformers. He explored the regions of darkness, and let in not a feeble and glimmering ray; but such an effulgence of light, as was never afterwards obscured. He not only loosened prejudices; but advanced such clear incontestable truths, as, having once obtained footing, still kept their ground, and even in an age of reformation wanted little amendment."

"[T]here is none that hath behaved himselfe more religiously, valiantlie, learnedlie, and constantlie, then this stout Champion, reverend Doctor, & worthie preacher of Gods word Iohn Wickliffe."

"By that which hath beene spoken...concerning the visibilitie of the Church, like Dagon before the Arke, fals downe to the ground, and Wickliffe remaines in this point, as in al the former, a resolved true, Cathotholike, English Protestant."

"In the nineteenth century, Wyclif was honoured not only in the vanguard of the reformers, but also as a pioneer of English literature. ... Today the great majority of those who are in a position to judge believes that Wyclif had no more personal hand in the Wyclif bible than King James had in the King James bible. Equally, those who have studied most closely the surviving Wycliffite tracts hesitate to attribute any of them to the reformer himself. Indeed, they doubt whether anything in English survives from his hand save a few fragments."

"Why else was this Nation chos'n before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclam'd and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europ. And had it not bin the obstinat perversnes of our Prelats against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef, to suppresse him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerom no nor the name of Luther, or of Calvin had bin ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had bin compleatly ours."

"[T]he famous John Wickliffe, the Morning-Star of the Reformation."

"Dicunt quia die quadam cum, advenientibus nuper mercatoribus, multa venalia in forum fuissent conlata, multi ad emendum confluxissent, et ipsum Gregorium inter alios advenisse, ac vidisse inter alia pueros venales positos candidi corporis ac venusti vultus, capillorum quoque forma egregia. Quos cum adspiceret interrogavit, ut aiunt, de qua regione vel terra essent adlati. Dictumque est quia de Britannia insula, cuius incolae talis essent aspectus."

"Rursus ergo interrogavit quod esset vocabulum gentis illius. Responsum est quod Angli vocarentur. At ille: "Bene", inquit, "nam et angelicam habent faciem et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse cohaeredes. Quod habet nomen ipsa provincia, de qua isti sunt adlati?" Responsum est quod Deiri vocarentur idem provinciales. At ille: "Bene", inquit, "Deiri; de ira eruti, et ad misericordiam Christi vocati. Rex provinciae illius quomodo apellatur?" Responsum est quod Aelli diceretur. At ille adludens ad nomen ait: "Alleluia, laudem Dei creatoris illis in partibus oportet cantari.""

"Talis ... mihi uidetur, rex, vita hominum praesens in terris, ad conparationem eius, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te residente ad caenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali, accenso quidem foco in medio, et calido effecto caenaculo, furentibus autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium, adveniens unus passeium domum citissime pervolaverit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore, quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidue praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit, merito esse sequenda videtur."

"Tanta eo tempore pax in Britannia fuisse perhibetur, ut, sicut usque hodie in proverbio dicitur, etiamsi mulier una cum recens nato parvulo vellet totam perambulare insulam a mari ad mare, nullo se laedente valeret."

"Fore there neidfaerae • naenig uuiurthit thoncsnotturra • than him tharf sie to ymbhycggannae • aer his hiniongae huaet his gastae • godaes aeththa yflaes aefter deothdaege • doemid uueorthae."

"For þam nedfere • næni wyrþeþ þances snotera, • þonne him þearf sy to gehicgenne • ær his heonengange hwæt his gaste • godes oþþe yfeles æfter deaþe heonon • demed weorþe."

"Before the dread journey which needs must be taken No man is more mindful than meet is and right To ponder, ere hence he departs, what his spirit Shall, after the death-day, receive as its portion Of good or of evil, by mandate of doom."

"Nū scylun herᵹan • hefaenrīcaes Uard, metudæs maecti • end his mōdᵹidanc, uerc Uuldurfadur, • suē hē uundra ᵹihwaes, ēci dryctin • ōr āstelidæ hē ǣrist scōp • aelda barnum heben til hrōfe, • hāleᵹ scepen. Thā middunᵹeard • moncynnæs Uard, eci Dryctin, • æfter tīadæ firum foldu, • Frēa allmectiᵹ."

"Nu scilun herᵹa • hefenricæs uard metudæs mehti • and his modᵹithanc uerc uuldurfadu • sue he uundra ᵹihuæs eci dryctin • or astelidæ. he ærist scop • ældu barnum hefen to hrofæ • haliᵹ sceppend tha middinᵹard • moncynnæs uard eci dryctin • æfter tiadæ firum foldu • frea allmehtiᵹ"

"Nū þ sculan herian • heofonrices þeard, metudes myhte • his modᵹeþanc, þurc þuldorfæder, • sþa he þundra ᵹehþilc, ece drihten • ord astealde; he ærest ᵹesceop • ylda bearnum heofon to hrofe, • haliᵹ scyppend, middanᵹearde • mancynnes þard; ece drihtin, • æfter tida firum on foldum, • frea ællmyhtiᵹ."

"Now must we hymn the Master of heaven, The might of the Maker, the deeds of the Father, The thought of His heart. He, Lord everlasting, Established of old the source of all wonders: Creator all-holy, He hung the bright heaven, A roof high upreared, o’er the children of men; The King of mankind then created for mortals The world in its beauty, the earth spread beneath them, He, Lord everlasting, omnipotent God."

"Bede, like the Vulgate, normally uses the word "gens", not the word "natio", but in his preface's final paragraph he prefers to use the latter when he reaffirms that he had written the "historia nostrae nationis", the history of our own nation. Here, then, in his preface for King Ceolwulf we see the first verbal appearance of the English "nation"... If the nationalism of intellectuals, the Rousseaus, Herders and Fichtes, precedes the existence of nations, as the modernists argue, and it is their "imagining" which brings a nation into being, then Bede is undoubtedly the first, and probably the most influential, such case. It is just that he wrote his books in the eighth, and not the nineteenth century. In his Northumbrian monastery he did indeed imagine England; he did it through intensely biblical glasses, but no less through linguistic and ecclesiastical ones, and he did it so convincingly that no dissentient imagining of his country has ever since seemed quite credible."

"As a master of technical chronology and as a historical writer he is among the greatest; as a theologian and exegete he had, if not the highest qualities—he is no Augustine or Jerome—at least the qualities most necessary for his plan. He had no known master. He was the first Englishman who understood the past and could view it as a whole... Bede stood for sobriety and order in thought, common sense in politics, and moderation in the religious life."

"The quality which makes his work great is not his scholarship, nor the faculty of narrative which he shared with many contemporaries, but his astonishing power of co-ordinating the fragments of information which came to him through tradition, the relation of friends, or documentary evidence. In an age when little was attempted beyond the registration of fact, he had reached the conception of history. It is in virtue of this conception that the Historia Ecclesiastica still lives after twelve hundred years."

"Wyclif does not give Bede as his direct source for the idea that there had existed a state akin to the primitive Church in the English Church before the Conquest. However, it is clear that Bede's entire Historia Ecclesiastica put forth this point of view. Specifically, in his description of the life of St. Augustine and his followers after their arrival in Kent, Bede said that as they began their apostolate, they imitated "the life of the primitive Church"... It seems that Bede had a concept of a distinct English ecclesiastical tradition. Even the title Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum suggests this. In his epistle to archbishop Egbert, Bede complained about the Church he saw at the end of his own life as having departed from its earlier purity. It seems evident that Wyclif was influenced by Bede in his own development of a similar point of view and the resultant remarkably similar criticisms of his own ecclesiastical contemporaries."

"More and more, as the organic world was observed, the vast multitude of petty animals, winged creatures, and "creeping things" was felt to be a strain upon the sacred narrative. More and more it became difficult to reconcile the dignity of the Almighty with his work in bringing each of these creatures before Adam to be named; or to reconcile the human limitations of Adam with his work in naming "every living creature"; or to reconcile the dimensions of Noah's ark with the space required for preserving all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary for their sustenance. ...Origen had dealt with it by suggesting that the cubit was six times greater than had been supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete so large a vessel by supposing that he worked upon it during a hundred years; and, as to the provision of food taken into it, he declared that there was no need of a supply for more than one day, since God could throw the animals into a deep sleep or otherwise miraculously make one day's supply sufficient; he also lessened the strain on faith still more by diminishing the number of animals taken into the ark—supporting his view upon Augustine's theory of the later development of insects out of carrion."

"[H]e, more than anyone else, inspired the idea of the English as one people, called into existence by the special favour of God... It was Bede who gave "Englishness" a manifesto of unique grace and power... Bede's Ecclesiastical History had some of the role in defining English national identity and English national destiny that the narrative books of the Old Testament had for Israel itself, or Homer for the Greeks, or Virgil (rather than Livy) for the Romans."

"You grieve for those who should not be grieved for; yet you speak wise words. Neither for the dead nor those not dead do the wise grieve. Never was there a time when I did not exist nor you nor these lords of men. Neither will there be a time when we shall not exist; we all exist from now on. As the soul experiences in this body childhood, youth, and old age, so also it acquires another body; the sage in this is not deluded."

"The senses, moving toward their appropriate objects, are producers of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go and are brief and changeable; these do thou endure, O son of Bharata!"

"As you put on fresh new clothes and take off those you've worn, You'll replace your body with a fresh one, newly born."

"Swords cut him not, nor may fire burn him, O son of Bharata, waters wet him not, nor dry winds parch. He may not be cut nor burned nor wet nor withered; he is eternal, all-present, firm, unshaken, everlasting. He is called unmanifest, unimaginable, unchanging; therefore, knowing him thus, deign not to grieve!"

"One sees This as a wonder; another speaks of This as a wonder; another hears of This as a wonder; yet, having heard none understands This at all!"

"Either slain thou shalt go to heaven; or victorious thou shalt enjoy the earth. Therefore arise, O Son of Kuntī (Arjuna), resolved on battle."

"You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, but do not attach yourself to nonaction."

"When your intellect transcends the mire of delusion, then you will attain to disgust of what has been heard and what is yet to be heard. When, perplexed by what you have heard, you stand immovable in samadhi, with steady intellect, then you will attain yoga."

"When one's mind dwells on the objects of Senses, fondness for them grows on him, from fondness comes desire, from desire anger. Anger leads to bewilderment, bewilderment to loss of memory of true Self, and by that intelligence is destroyed, and with the destruction of intelligence he perishes"

"To him [the Sage], what seemeth the bright things of day to the mass, are known to be the things of darkness and ignorance—and what seemeth dark as night to the many, he seeth suffused with the light of noonday."

"Not by not acting in this world does one become free from action, nor does one approach perfection by renunciation only. Not even for a moment does someone exist without acting. Even against one’s will, one acts by the nature-born qualities."

"From food come forth beings; from rain food is produced; from sacrifice arises rain, and sacrifice is born of action. Know you that action comes from BRAHMAJI (the Creator) and BRAHMAJI come from the Imperishable. Therefore, the all-pervading BRAHMAN (God-principle) ever rests in sacrifice."

"Nit for me, partha, is there any duty in the three worlds, nor anything to attain that is unattained; and I am always at work."

"All actions are performed by the gunas of prakriti. Deluded by identification with the ego, a person thinks, "I am the doer.""

"One's own duty, even if imperfectly performed, is better than being done by other even if well performed. Death in (performance of) one's own duty is preferable. (The adoption of) the duty of another carries fear (with it)."

"I explained this eternal science of yoga to Vivasvān. Vivasvān shared it with Manu, then Manu imparted it to Ikṣvāku. This science was taught and handed down in succession, but in time it was broken and the science of yoga seems to be lost."

"Whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right, I am born from age to age."

"In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium."

"However men try to reach me, I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end."

"Krishna (Sans.) The most celebrated Avatar of Vishnu, the "Saviour" of the Hindus and the most popular god. He is the eighth Avatar, the son of Devaki, and the nephew of Kansa, the Indian Herod, who while seeking for him among the shepherds and cowherds who concealed him slew thousands of their newly-born babes. The story of Krishna's conception, birth and childhood are the exact prototype of the New Testament story. The missionaries, of course, try to show that the Hindus stole the story of the Nativity from the early Christians who came to India."

"As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change."

"O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."

"Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion — at that time I descend Myself."

"To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium."

"One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna."

"A learned person sees that although there are different bodies, every living being is the soul. He also sees that Krsna as the Supersoul is equally present in all bodies."

"Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, who are lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons do not surrender unto Me."

"It should be understood that all species of life, O son of Kunti, are made possible by birth in this material nature, and that I am the seed-giving father...of all living entities."

"Let it be clear that Raja Krishna, according to what has been revealed to me, was such a truly great man that it is hard to find his like among the Rishis and Avatars of the Hindus. He was an Avatar—i.e., Prophet—of his time upon whom the Holy Spirit would descend from God. He was from God, victorious and prosperous. He cleansed the land of the Aryas from sin and was in fact the Prophet of his age whose teaching was later corrupted in numerous ways. He was full of love for God, a friend of virtue and an enemy of evil."

"The Bhagavad Gītā, also more simply known as Gita, is a Sanatana Dharma or Hindu scripture produced from the colloquy given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna during the w:Kurukshetra WarKurukshetra War. Its philosophies and insights are intended to reach beyond the scope of religion and to humanity as a whole. The context of the Gita is a conversation between Lord Krishna and the Pandava prince Arjuna taking place on the battlefield before the start of the Kurukshetra War. Responding to Arjuna's confusion and moral dilemma about fighting his own cousins, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince, and elaborates on different Yogic and Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies;"

"Sri Aurobindo on the the Gita, on Krishna as godhead, his aura and the Krishna consciousness There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra. The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion...Christ from his cross humanized Europe, the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these events ever happened. Krishna as godhead is the Lord of Ananda, Love and Bhakti, he manifests the union of wisdom (Jnana), and works and leads the earth-evolution through this towards union with the Divine by Ananda, Love and Bhakti."

"Blue is his [Krishna’s] special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests – that is why he is called Nila Krishna. The adjective does not mean that he was blue or dark in the physical body. Violet is the colour of the light of divine Compassion, as also of Krishna’s grace. It is also radiance of Krishna’s protection."

"The broad category suggested by the term “Vaishnava” has been acknowledged by most scholars to encompass the majority of Hindu believers. This includes the veneration of Vishnu, Narayana, Lakshmi, Krishna, Rama, Sita and the remaining avatars (incarnations) with their female consorts, saints, sectarian leaders and followers. A very important division within Vaishnavism is comprised of the mythology and worship of Krishna, one of Hinduism’s most beloved deities. Yet, the “Krishna” traditions themselves are by no means uniform regarding the nature of the personality of Krishna nor the methods of worship. Divided into “normative” and “alternative”, the normative Krishna tradition is based primarily on a canon of early Sanskrit texts, while the so-called alternative Krishna traditions may or may not include these Radhavallabha Sampradaya (RVS)] along with regional or vernacular sources."

"Krishna, Sanskrit Kṛṣṇa, one of the most widely revered and most popular of all Indian divinities, worshipped as the eighth incarnation (avatar, or avatara) of the Hindu god Vishnu and also as a supreme god in his own right. Krishna became the focus of numerous bhakti (devotional) cults, which over the centuries have produced a wealth of religious poetry, music, and painting. The basic sources of Krishna’s mythology are the epic Mahabharata and its 5th-century-ce appendix, the Harivamsha, and the Puranas, particularly Books 10 and 11 of the Bhagavata-purana. They relate how Krishna (literally “black,” or “dark as a cloud”) was born into the Yadava clan, the son of Vasudeva and Devaki, sister of Kamsa, the wicked king of Mathura (in modern Uttar Pradesh). Kamsa, hearing a prophecy that he should be destroyed by Devaki’s child, tried to slay her children, but Krishna was smuggled across the Yamuna River to Gokula (or Vraja, modern Gokul), where he was raised by the leader of the cowherds, Nanda, and his wife Yashoda."

"Radha, in Hinduism, the Gopi (milkmaid) who became the consort of the god Krishna during that period of his life when he lived among the gopas (cowherds) of Vrindavana. Radha was the wife of another gopa but was the most beloved of Krishna’s consorts and his constant companion. In the bhakti (devotional) movement of Vaishnavism, the female, Radha, symbolizes the human soul and the male, Krishna, the divine."

"In my past there is Krishna. In my dreams I dream of recreating a huge college of flutists, a veritable Vrindaban in which students will arrive to learn and study with satchels full of flutes, live in mud huts, eat at a common langar. A modern Vrindaban from which a thousand flutes will ring out each day. For what else is there? When my breath is gone and I can not play anymore what do I leave behind? Some dedicated students! When you leave nothing behind, you cry at the point of death, but I still dream, I dare to dream that through my students my flute will be left behind as the memory of Krishna."

"Rama Rama Rama Rama Sita Rama you chant Do with devotion, and get the release you want... As those Yama hordes arrive, to bid you to come Spirit tries to escape the throat, Hari’s name will not come Body systems cease working and our relative are bemoaning Name of the Ocean-daughter’s lord will it come to your asking? When your breath is blocked by phlegm in your throat Vasudev Krishna’s name will be of no use then to shout When you beautiful body breaks down and falls apart As your eyes get blurred and dead, Ranga’s name will not depart When your body juices mix up and collect down below As the elements disintegrate, uttering God’s name will it allow. Having born as a wicked and done many a cruel deed As soul departs, Puranadara Vittala’s name will not proceed."

"I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant— Among other things —or one way of putting the same thing: That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,... And do not think of the fruit of action. Fare forward. O voyagers, O seamen,... So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna On the field of battle. Not fare well, But fare forward, voyagers."

"I always felt at home with Krishna. You see it was already a part of me. I think it's something that's been with me from my previous birth."

"Lord Krishna – the 8th incarnation of God Vishnu, the Creator– had eight wives (the Ashta-Bharyas). They are: Rukmini, Satyabhama,Jambavati, Kalindi, Mitravrinda, Nagnajiti, Bhadra and Laksmana. Besides Ashtabharyas, he had thousands of adoring female friends (16,000 are prominent among them) who were young girls known as Gopis. These were not his concubines as some non-Hindus may think of. The amorous relationship between Sri Krishna and the Gopi is the symbol of relationship between the creator and the human beings."

"Hindus interpret the Diwali story based upon where they live:In North India they celebrate the story of King Rama's return to Ayodhya after he defeated Ravana by lighting rows of clay lamps. South India celebrates it as the day that Lord Krishna defeated the demon Narakasura. In western India the festival marks the day that Lord Vishnu, the Preserver (one of the main gods of the Hindu trinity) sent the demon King Bali to rule the nether world."

"His first eight wives as told in the Krishna story [appear] in this sequence, 1) Rukmini, 2)Satyabhama, and 3)Jambavati – their marriages are entwined due to a wondrous jewel derived from Surya, the Sun; 4)Kalindi; 5)Mitravinda, 6) Satya or Naganjiti; 7) Bhadra; 8) Laksmana or Madra. Each of these begets ten sons. … Their ranking consists of three sets of wives corresponding to the constituents of Krishna’s soverign rule from Dwarka. The first three of wives signifies Krishna’s majestic status: Rukmini signifies his majesty (sri), Satyabhama signifies his realm (w:Bhumi|bhumi]]); and intertwined with her is Jambavati, who signifies his victory (Vijaya). The second set signifies Aryavarta or the Realm of the Nobles which Krishna takes as his own; Kalindi represents its center, Satya represents its eastern side (and the Solar Dynasty), and Lakshmana represents its western side. The third set signifies the consolidation of Krishna’s Satvata clan, for both Mitravinda and Bhadra are Krishna’s paternal cousins."

"I am not manifest to all, being veiled by yoga-maya and its delusion the world knows Me not, the unborn and immutable (BG 7.25)."

"The second school of yoga is that of Shri Krishna, particularly expounded in the great poem the Bhagavad-Gita... This teaches above all else the doctrine of love. The disciple Arjuna, to whom the Guru spoke, was a great lover of mankind; according to the scripture this great soldier sank down upon the floor of his chariot before the battle of Kurukshetra began, full of sorrow because he loved his enemies and could not bear to injure them. The teacher Shri Krishna then explained to him, amid much philosophical teaching, that the greatest thing in life is service, that God himself is the greatest server—for he keeps the wheel of life revolving, not because any benefit can possibly accrue to him in consequence, but for the sake of the world—and that men should follow his example and work for the welfare of mankind. Many Great Ones, he said, had reached perfection by following this path of life, by doing their duty without personal desire. To love without ceasing is the way of the second Ray; in the Gita it is shown how this love should be directed to men and other beings in karma yoga (the yoga by action or work) and to God in bhakti yoga (the yoga by devotion)."

"On the fourth day, Govardhan puja is performed. On this day Krishna saved Gokul by lifting up the Govardhan Mountain on his little finger and holding it over the people as an umbrella."

"Even if you try not to do your duty you will be perforce obliged to do it. Let the body complete the task for which it came into being. Sri Krishna also says in the Gita, whether Arjuna liked it or not he would be forced to fight. When there is work to be done by you, you cannot keep away; nor can you continue to do a thing when you are not required to do it, that is to say, when the work allotted to you has been done. In short, the work will go on and you must take your share in it -- the share which is allotted to you."

"There was a prophet of God in India who was dark in colour and his name was Kahan."

"My dear husband, You know all the transcendental truths, and by your mercy I have heard the glories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna. Oh Lord, now I long to hear from you the glories of the Ṥrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, which was spoken by Lord Krishna and, by hearing which, one's devotion to Lord Krishna increases."

"The sounding of the mridanga (drum) in the kirtana (Devotional singing) is proclaiming loudly that those who have no devotion to Lord Krishna are very shameful and reprehensible. This is so because the mridanga sound diktum diktum, which means Oh! great shame! Oh! great shame!"

"To attain Supreme peace, everlasting peace and enjoy Supreme bliss, Lord Krishna does not say that there are different Muktis and the liberated jiva (mukta) will go to Several lokas (Vaikuntha etc) and enjoy with different grades of happiness."

"If only people freed themselves from their beliefs in all kinds of Ormuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths, and their incarnation as Krishnas and Christs, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various vedas, Bibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings and infinitely small atoms and molecules,..."

"Second day of [Diwali] is called Naraka Chaturdashi or Chhoti Diwali. Narakasur, after defeating Lord Indra, snatched the magnificent earrings of Mother Goddess Aditi and took sixteen thousand daughters of gods and saints to his harem. Lord Krishna killed the demon, brought all women and earrings of Aditi. Lord Krishna came home early in the morning with demon blood on his forehead. Women massaged scented oil on Krishna and washed away dirt from his body. So we take oil massage and bathe before sunrise this day."

"You must worship the Self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna."

"Always resign yourselves to the Lord Shri Krishna. Always remember that we are but puppets in the Lord's hands. Remain pure always. Please be careful not to become impure even in thought, as also in speech and action; always try to do good to others as far as in you lies."

"Krishna also relates that it was he, in a former incarnation, who communicated the indestructible yoga to an ancient illuminato, Vivasvat, who gave it to Manu, the great legislator. He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, the father of India's solar warrior dynasty. Passing thus from one to another, the royal yoga was guarded by the rishis until the coming of the materialistic ages. Then, due to priestly secrecy and man's indifference, the sacred knowledge gradually became inaccessible."

"In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, 'Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.' If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic 'book' religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history's religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All paths lead to me'"

"While it is the Bhagavata Purana that occupies itself most particularly with the incarnation of Krishna, the Krishna story also occurs in significant detail in other Puranas, particularly the Vishnu Purana, Padma Purana, and the later Brahma Vaivarta Purana, and it is in this genre of literature the stories and legends that developed around his incarnation find their fullest expression."

"Whatever one makes of a few slight references to Krishna in texts that are probably older than the Mahabharata, and of the many efforts to imagine him prior to his literary debut in the epic, the Mahabharata is the first text to portray him as both divine and human, and to conceive of his humanity and divinity in a forceful and complex scale."

"It is also, I believe, a revelation that Karna and the Kauravas consider the option of killing Krishna. Could Karna—and this never-failing spear—really have done that? We are left to ponder the death of God. And what did Karna think of this option?"

"The places and monuments related with Krishna and his life is being encroached, plundered and destroyed systematically, willfully and with all disregard to the cultural and historical heritage. One can well imagine what would have happened during foreign rules and invasions."

"In chapter 7, Krishna reveals that the unquenchably active Nature is actually Krishna's own lower nature (prakriti). What Nature does, therefore, completely conforms to Krishna's will, even to the point that the Gita seems ultimately to teach that all one can do is be Krishna's instrument for Krishna’s activities. At times it appears that Arjuna himself has little say in his actions and will be compelled to do Krishna’s will no matter what Arjuna decides."

"Krishna also reveals that there is an eternal, unchanging, loving relationship between the individual soul and Krishna encompassed by the term bhakti, devotion. **In: p.80"

"In the Bhagavad Gita, devotion to Krishna develops slowly out of the surrounding battle scene. Though that development never quite reaches the depths of attachment of later Krishna bhakti, the text provides an image of Krishna who is both the Lord of the Universe and one who incarnates in this world again and again to set things right and protect the dharma."

"They knew that Yadavas could establish Krishna Raj again and hence it had become necessary to drive wedge, a divide between Krishna and Yadavas. What would be better way than that of making Krishna a god (from god he became God during Bhakti movement)"

"Bless me [Narada to Krishna] that my remembrance [of them] will remain, so that I can travel about meditating [on them]. Thereafter, Narada entered another residence of Krishna's wives, O dear king, desiring to witness the yogamaya of the Lord of the lords of yoga...There he [saw] Krishna again, this time playing with dice with his beloved and with Uddhava..."

"After seeing this exhibition [at many places] of [Maya|yogamaya by Krishna, who was following human ways, Narada said to Hrishikesh Krishna smilingly: “We know that your yogamaya is hard to perceive, even for magicians. But it will manifest, O Soul of the lords of yoga, by service to your lotus feet”....“Give me you leave, O God. I will wonder about the worlds, which are overflowing with your glories, singing about your lilas which purify the earth.”"

"Even the establishment of the system of Char Dham (Four Pilgrimage) related to Krishna's life— Gokul, Dwaraka, Puri and Badrinath— by Sankarachrya seems to be brilliant strategy to keep Krishna in a historical and mythical mode. Hindu or Vedic religion without Krishna or Krishna as God will be nothing but mere rituals and superstition."

"...Buddha, though quite different from Krishna, tried to change the socio-cultural scape of India through his scientific religion, even though he and Buddhism were forcibly exiled from this country."

"Krishna, after exterminating the King of Mathura, did not take the power in to his hands but restored the old system of Vritya or Mandal (circle system) and ruling with the consensus in the consultation with the Samati or Sabha (council)."

"Moreover Krishna was very fond of the downtrodden and oppressed people such as his friends of childhood or his peers or sixteen thousand hapless women whom society could not accept even if they had been liberated by Krishna from the bondage of demon king of Pragjotishpur (Modern Assam) Narakasur. It was Krishna who adopted them, giving his name and telling them, they were his queens as he had given them all the Mangalsutra or matrimonial thread."

"The influence of Krishna philosophy and his different temporal and non-temporal theories on the Buddhism could be deciphered from gleaning the various Buddhist texts, which seems to be the extension, supplantation, and elaboration of the [Krishna philosophy]…"

"...at the time when Gita was happening, Krishna had attained the title of Vasudev as he was addressed as such by Bhisma Pitamah many times and others as well. Moreover, he had already destroyed Kans, w:JarasandhaJarasandh, and the other Prati-Vasudev at the beginning of war, and was going to destroy the remaining Prati-Vasudev in the ensuing war."

"Moreover, Krishna was such a potent force that he had established a new benchmark in the form of Vasudev. What might have been very upsetting and rather threatening for the traditional social and political elites of the ancient India that he had provided virtual guidelines for becoming Vasudev through various acts and machinations. And his life itself was such a broader canvas of Vasudevhood that one could easily imbibe them becoming the Vasudev."

"What might have shocked the highly regimented and stratified society of 1000-900 BC was the Vedic fold and rituals, and mixing with Shudras or 'Dasa' initiated and formalized by Krishna. It was the very daring act of entering the marriage alliance with ‘Shudra’ or the tribal girl (Jambavati) and that too by such popular figure as Krishna who despite not being declared king or heir apparent like his elder brother, Balarama, used to enjoy more power and respect than a King."

"Apart from Krishna, another Yadav, Ghor Angaris who was the second guru of Krishna after Guru Sandipan, enacted another revolutionary feat: He himself performed his last rites embracing the Jainism after leaving the Vedic religion."

"...been appropriated by priestly class and composers of Upanishads without giving credit to Krishna. Moreover, the date of their composition has been stretched to the mythical time preceding the Gita and Krishna."

"...there were many kingdoms such as Avanti, Chedi, Hastinapur, and others where Yadavas or Krishna's relatives were the reigning kings, they did not provide any help to the Mathura."

"It appeared Krishna's act of enforcing the Raj Dharma had angered all the kings of Aryavrata and that was why they did not come to his help. However, Krishna being not an ordinary person, had anticipated the non-cooperative attitude of his [kings of Aryavrata]…"

"It appears to be more of a case of pre-planned conspiracy to obliterate Krishna – a force that had transformed the socio-political scape of ancient India, a visionary, social and political revolutionary, master par excellence in diplomacy and expert in warfare. While the stakes have succeeded in achieving first goal, as Krishna has become not only God but also God of gods, Yadavas survived their joint political-social-cultural-military onslaught."

"In the 4th century BC, Chanakya refers to the story of Krishna's birth, while Megasthenes mentions that the Sourasenoi (Surasenas or Yadavas) hero-worshipped Herakles (Krishna). Their two great cities were Methora (Mathura) and Kleisobora (Krishnapura?) on the navigable river Yobares (Yamuna)....Herkales (Krishna) sent his daughter Pandala to rule over the kingdom of Mathura (Madura)"

"Worship of Krishna as Swayam Bhagvan, or the “Supreme Being”, known as Krishna, arose in the Middle Ages in the context of the Bhakti movement. From the 10th century AD, Krishna became a favourite subject in performing arts and regional traditions of devotion developed for forms of Krishna such as Venkateshvara in Andhra Pradesh, Jagannatha in Orissa, Vithoba in Maharashtra and Srinathji in Rajasthan."

"The Sanskrit word ‘krshna’ is primarily an adjective meaning “black”, “dark”, or “dark-blue”. Sometimes it is also translated as “all attractive”. In the Lalitavistara Sutra, Krishna is the chief of the black demons, the enemies of the Buddha."

"The principal scriptures discussing Krishna's story are the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana. Worship of a deity or hero called Krishna, in the form of Vasudeva, Bala Krishna or Gopal, can be traced to the 4th century BC."

"The earliest text that explicitly provides detailed descriptions of Krishna as a personality is the epic Mahabharata which depicts Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu. Krishna is central to many of the main stories of the epic. The eighteen chapters of the sixth book (Bhishma Parva) of the epic that constitutes the Bhagavad Gita contain the advice of Krishna to the warrior-hero Arjuna, on the battlefield."

"Krishna is already an adult in the epic [Mahabharta], although there are allusions to his earlier exploits. The Harivamsa, a later appendix to this epic, contains the earliest detailed version of Krishna's childhood and youth."

"Panini, the ancient grammarian (probably belonged to 5th century or sixth century BC) mentions a character called Vasudeva son of Vasudeva, and also mentions Kaurava and Arjuna which testifies to Vasudeva Krishna, Arjuna and Kauravas being contemporaries. Megasthenes (350-290 BC), a Greek ethnographer and an ambassador of Seleucus I to the court of Chandragupta Maurya mentioned about Herakles in his famous work Indica. Many scholars have suggested that the deity identified as Herakles was Krishna"

"There is no unanimity among the theologians and religious figures as what is the position of Krishna. It shows he is being interpreted as per the whims and fancies of the person and sects concerned. This also proves the historicity of Krishna."

"Garbe believes Krishna to have lived about two hundred years before Buddha, to have been son of Vasudeva, to have founded a monotheistic and ethical religion, and to have been eventually deified and identified with the god Vasudeva, he founded. In the Mahabharata we have all traditions about Krishna that survived until then, non-Aryan hero, a spiritual teacher, a tribal god."

"In the Buddhist texts the term 'kala' has been used for denote the villainous men or of wicked tendency, while in the Jain texts the term 'Krishna or Vasudev' has been used for referring to the great personality, called as the 'Slaka Purush'."

"It is clear that Krishna's historicity and legacies have been highjacked to the non-temporal level at the best and mythical level at the worst. If seen from objective point of view, there should not be any doubt about the historicity of Krishna and Mahabharata period"

"Krishna and post-Krishna era underlines the rather high period of Indian socio-political scape when ruling elites or Kshatriya was like philosopher king. The Gana-Sangh system or rather republican credo that Krishna had displayed in his stately conduct or the democratic principles of debate, discussion, and unanimity or a sort of consensus characterizing Yadavas and Krishna’s conduct testifies this."

"Krishna: Political Philosophy If Plato is called the father of politics and Machiavelli as that of modern politics, then Krishna could be undoubtedly designated as the father of politics of all the time. It is another matter that he has been relegated to the mystical realm, making him the God Himself."

"...republican credo of Yadavas were refined and institutionalized by Krishna, and for upholding it, he did not spare his own relatives such as Kans, Shishupal and others. Moreover, for the sake of republican credo of electing the capable King irrespective of whether he is elder, Krishna took part in the great war of Mahabharata on the side of Pandavas, who were the sons of younger brother, Pandu of Hastinapur."

"It is no surprise that Chankya or Kautilya cast off his political theory based on the organizational pattern, appropriating not only the nomenclature but also various aspects of Krishna real politicking and diplomacy. Of course, without acknowledging Krishna and his contribution to the humanity. Even Buddha, whose three-fourth tenets of Buddhism is based on Krishna’s Samkhya, Karma Yoga, Gyana Yoga and Gita has not named Krishna in his acknowledgments, though he has done so indirectly by conceding the ancient traditions, thinkers and philosophers."

"...Nanda the foster parents of Krishna and his uncle who was the brother of Krishna's father has been referred as Mandaladhish (Head of Mandal) of Gokul Mandal. Therefore, the Mandal was administrative unit and the kingdom was organized into different Mandal whose head was responsible for the administration, tax collection and other matters."

"Sri Krishna stole the hearts of the Gopis unconditionally. The Gopis stole His Ecstasy unreservedly."

"Man’s growing divinity cries for the human perfection in Sri Krishna the man. In Sri Krishna’s humanity lies man’s promise of becoming divine."

"Sweetness and grace inexpressible, bond unbreakable, sacrifice unfathomable — this indeed is Radha, the Mother-Heart of Sri Krishna."

"Arjuna is the ascending human soul. Krishna is the descending divine Soul. Finally they meet. The human sou says to the divine Soul: “I need you.”The divine Soul says to the human soul: *I need you, too. I need you for my self-manifestation. You need me for your self-realisation.” Arjuna says: “O, Krishna, you are mine, absolutely mine.” Krishna says: “O, Arjuna, no mine, no thine. We are the Oneness complete, within, without.”"

"God is proud of His Divinity in Sri Krishna. Man is proud of his humanity in Sri Krishna."

"Sri Krishna is the beloved Boatman who untiringly plies His Boat of Consciousness between India’s unparalleled history and Her unrivalled spirituality."

"Sri Krishna’s Flute stirs the Universal Consciousness. Sri Krishna’s Gita enchants the Transcendental Consciousness."

"Sri Krishna plays on His Flute. We hear. We do something more. We barter our body’s dust with His Soul’s Plenitude."

"The influence of the Mahabharata is a flowering of centuries. The influence of Sri Krishna is the Blessing for Eternity."

"The Pandavas had love for Sri Krishna. Sri Krishna had not only love but also unstinting concern for the Pandavas."

"Arjuna ultimately became the spiritual child of Sri Krishna. Sri Krishna ultimately became the loving slave of Arjuna’s surrender."

"If the Avatar Sri Krishna is the most complicated Door, then the Gita, His Song, is the most effective Key."

"Radha carries the human soul into Sri Krishna’s Heart. Sri Krishna transforms the human soul into the Divine Soul and commands it to play its role in the Divine Play."

"The Gita is Sri Krishna’s Heart, his Vision-in-Fulfilment. The Gita is humanity’s Breath, its Journey towards Immortality."

"For an earth-bound soul, the Gita can fruitfully reconcile the dark problems of human life. For a Heaven-seeking soul, the Gita can awaken a new consciousness of ever-increasing Bliss."

"I do. I refuse to accept the invitation of Desire. Sri Krishna does. He comes in to illuminate my consciousness."

"My ideal is to mount higher and higher up the ladder of divine evolution. Sri Krishna’s Ideal is to make of Himself the divine Sacrifice to strengthen the rungs of the ladder."

"Sri Krishna is sweet when I realise Him in the perfection of my “I". Sri Krishna is sweeter when I realise Him as the Doer. Sri Krishna is sweetest when I realise Him as the Pilot of all my actions and myself as His dedicated instrument."

"An aspirant’s is the cry that compels Sri Krishna to seize him with the very madness of love."

"A Vaishnava’s life is love-intoxicated. He is a portion of Sri Krishna’s individuality, perpetuating all the divine qualities of an everlasting Life."

"When I live in Sri Krishna’s Soul, I see the Truth from above. When I live in Sri Krishna’s Heart, I see the Truth from within. When I live in Sri Krishna’s Body, I see the Truth from without."

"Sri Krishna is the shoreless ocean of Bliss. But as soon as I sincerely dedicate myself to Him, He presents me with His own Boat and takes me to the boundless Shore, the Golden All."

"Sri Krishna walked the soil to annihilate the philosophies of world-shunning spirituality and of world-grasping materialism. He established on earth the “Dharmarajya,” the Kingdom of the Inner Law. He restored the true spirit of Kshatriya heroism, motivated not by human ego, but by Divine Will, making man a devoted and active instrument of the Supreme. He brought down to the earth-consciousness the supreme Truth that earth and earthly life, being inherently divine, must be made outwardly divine, fully and totally, in every sphere, in every aspect."

"The sky is clouded; and the wood resembles The sky, thick arched with a black tamala boughs; Oh Radha, Radha! Take this soul that trembles In life's deep midnight, to thy Golden house. So Nanda spoke -- and led by Radha’s spirit, The feet of Krishna found the road aright; Wherefore, in bliss which all high hearts inherit, Together taste they love's divine delight."

"Beautiful Radha, Jasmine bosomed Radha, All in the Spring-time waited by the wood For Krishna fair, Krishna the all-forgetful, - Krishna with earthly love's false fire consuming – And some one of her maidens sang this song: --"

"I know where Krishna tarries in these early days of Spring, When every wind from warm Malay brings fragrance on its wing; Brings fragrance stolen far away from thickets of the clove, In Jungles where the bees hum and the Koil flutes her love; He dances with the dancers, at the merry morrice one, All in the budding Spring-time, for ‘tis sad to be alone."

"I know how Krishna passes these hours of blue and gold, When parted lovers sigh to meet and greet and closely hold Hand fast in hand; and every branch upon the Valkul-tree Droops downward with a hundred blooms, in every bloom a bee; He is dancing with the dancers to a laughter-moving tone, In the soft awakenings Spring-time, when ‘tis hard to live alone."

"When Kroona-flowers, that open at a lover's lightest tread, Break, and, for shame at what they hear, from white blush and modest red; And all the spears on all the boughs of all the Ketuk-glades Seem ready darts to pierce the hearts of wandering youths and maids; ‘Tis there thy Krishna dances till the merry drum is done, All in the sunny Spring-time, when who can live alone?"

"Where the breaking forth of blossom on the yellow Keshra-sprays Dazzles like Kama’s sceptre, whom all the world obeys; And Patal-buds fill drowsy bees from pink delicious bowls, As Kama’s nectared goblet steeps in languor human souls; There he dances with the dancers, and of Radha thinketh none, All in the warm new Spring-tide, when none will live alone."

"Mark this song of Jayadev! Deep as pearl in ocean-wave Lurketh in its lines a wonder Which the wise alone will ponder: Though it's seemeth of the Earth, Heavenly is the music's birth; Telling darkly of delights In the wood, of wasted nights, Of witless days, and fruitless love, And false pleasures of the grove,And rash passions of the prime, And those dances of Spring-time; Time, which seems so subtle-sweet, Time, which pipes to dancing-feet, Ah! So softly -- Ah! So sweetly -- That among those wood-maids featly Krishna cannot choose but dance, Letting pass life's greater chance."

"Yet the winds that sigh so As they stir the rose Wake a sigh from Krishna Wistfuller than those; All their faint breaths swinging The creepers to and fro Pass like rustling arrows Shot from Kama’s bow: Thus among the dancers What those Zephyrs bring Strikes to Krishna's spirit Like a darted sting."

"And as if -- far wandered -- The traveller should hear The bird of home, the Koil, With nest-notes rich and clear; And there should come one moment A blessed fleeting dream Of the bees among the mangoes Beside his native stream; So flash those sudden yearnings, That sense of a dearer thing, The love and lack of Radha Upon his soul in spring."

"Then she, the maid of Radha, spake again; And pointing far away between the leaves Guided her lovely Mistress where to look, And note how Krishna wantoned in the wood Now with this one, now that; his heart, her prize; Panting with foolish passions, and his eyes Beaming with too much love of those fair girls -- Fair, but not so as Radha; and she sang:"

"See, Lady! How thy Krishna passes these idle hours Decked forth in fold of woven gold, and crowded with forest flowers; And scented with sandal, and gay with gems of price -- Rubies to mate his laughing lips, and diamonds like his eyes; -- In the company of damsels, who dance and sing and play, Lies Krishna, laughing, toying, dreaming his Spring away."

"One, with star-blossomed champak wreaths, woos him to rest his head On the dark pillow of her breast so tenderly outspread; And o’er his brow with roses blown she fans a fragrance rare, That falls on the enchanted sense like rain in thirsty air, While the company of damsels wave many an odorous spray, And Krishna, laughing, toying, sighs the soft Spring away."

"Another, gazing in his face, sits wistfully apart Searching it with those looks of love that leap from heart to heart; Her eyes -- afire with shy desire, veiled by their lashes black -- Speak so that Krishna cannot choose but send the message back, In the company of damsels whose bright eyes in a ring Shine round him with soft meanings in the merry light of Spring."

"The third one of that dazzling band of dwellers in the wood -- Body and bosom panting with the pulse of youthful blood -- Leans over him, as in his eyes lightsome thing to speak; And then with leaf-soft lip imprints a kiss below his cheek; A kiss that thrills, and Krishna turns at the silken touch To give it back -- Ah, Radha! forgetting thee too much."

"And one with the arch smile beckons him away from Jumna’s banks, Where the tall bamboos bristle like spears in battle ranks. And plucks his cloth to make him come into the mango-shade, Where the fruit is ripe and golden, and the milk and cakes are laid: Oh! golden-red the mangoes, and glad the feasts of Spring, And fair the flowers lie upon, and sweet the dancers sing."

"Sweetest of all that Temptress who dances for him now With subtle feet which part and meet in the Rasa measures slow, To the chime of silver bangles and the beat of rose-leaf hands, And pipe and lute and cymbal played by the woodland bands; So that wholly passion-laden-eye, ear, sense, soul o'er come -- Krishna is there as in the forest; his heart forgets its home."

"Krishna, made for heavenly things, 'Mid those woodland singers sings; With those dancers dances featly, Gives back soft embraces sweetly; Smiles on that one, toys with this, Glance for glance, and kiss for kiss; Meets the merry damsels fairly, Plays the round of folly rarely, Lapped in milk-warm Spring-time weather, He and those brown girls together."

"And this shadowed earthly love In the twilight of the grove, Dance and song and soft caresses, Meeting looks and tangled tresses, Jayadev the same hath writ, That ye might have gain of it, Sagely its deep sense conceiving And its inner light believing; How that Love -- the mighty Master, Lord of all the stars that cluster In the sky, swiftest and slowest, Lord of highest, Lord of lowest - Manifests Himself to mortals, Winning them towards the portals Of his secret house, the gates Of that bright paradise which waits The wise in love. Ah, human creatures! Even your fantasies are teachers. Mighty Love makes sweet in seeming Even Krishna's woodland dreaming; Mighty Love sways all alike From self to selfishness. Oh! Strike From your eyes the veil, and see What love willeth Him to be Who in error, but in grace, Sitteth with that Lotus-face, And those eyes whose rays of heaven Unto phantom-eyes are given; Holding fast of foolish mirth With these visions of the Earth; Leaving Love, and Love imparting; Yet with sense of loss upstarting: --"

"For the cloud that the veils of the fountains Underneath the sandal mountains, How -- as if the sunshine drew All its being to the blue -- It takes flight and seeks to rise High into the purer skies, High into the snow and frost, On the shining summits lost! Ah! And how the Koil's strained Smites the traveller with pain, -- When the mango blooms in Spring, And "Kahoo", "Kahoo", they sing -- Pain of pleasure not yet won, Pain of journeys not yet done Pain of toiling without gaining, Pain ‘mid gladness of still paining."

"But may he guide us all to glory high who laughed when the Radha glided, hidden, by, An all among those damsels free and bold Touch Krishna with a soft mouth, kind and cold; And like the others leaning upon his breast, Unlike the others, left their Love’s unrest; And like the others, joining in his song, Or like the others, made him silent long."

"Be your holiness persuaded that I am, and ever shall be, of such moderation as to keep aloof, as far as possible, from every undertaking which may testify any hatred towards the Roman Catholic religion. Nay, rather I will seize all opportunities, by a gentle and generous mode of conduct, to remove all sinister suspicions entirely; so that, as we all confess one undivided Trinity and one Christ crucified, we may be banded together unanimously into one faith."

"Princes are not bound to give an account of their Actions but to God alone."

"You desire a preservation of the liberties; it is good, but for God's sake do not spend so much time that a foreign enemy may hazard both liberties and prerogative... Therefore go on without distrust. I must tell you so, and it is for you to believe me that sit at the helm."

"Being by God's ordinance, according to our just title, Defender of the Faith, and Supreme Governor of the Church, within these our dominions, we hold it most agreeable to this our kingly office, and our own religious zeal, to conserve and maintain the Church committed to our charge, in the unity of true religion, and in the bond of peace; and not to suffer unnecessary disputations, altercations, or questions to be raised, which may nourish faction both in the Church and Commonwealth."

"That the Articles of the Church of England (which have been allowed and authorised heretofore, and which our clergy generally have subscribed unto) do contain the true doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to God's Word: which we do therefore ratify and confirm, requiring all our loving subjects to continue in the uniform profession thereof, and prohibiting the least difference from the said Articles."

"And whereas, for several ill ends, the calling againe of a Parliament is divulged, howsoever Wee have shewed, by Our frequent meeting with Our People, Our Love to the use of Parliaments; Yet the late abuse, having for the present driven Us unwillingly out of that course, Wee shall account it presumption, for any to prescribe any time unto Us for Parliaments, the Calling, Continuing, and Dissolving of which is alwayes in Our owne power; and Wee shall bee more inclinable to meete in Parliament againe, when Our People shall see more clearly into Our Intents and Actions, when such as have bred this interruption shall have received their condigne punishment, and those who are misled by them, and by such ill reports, as are raised upon this occasion, shall come to a better understanding of Us and themselves."

"There be two things in your Letter that require Answer, to wit, the Answer to their Petition, and concerning the Explanation of their damnable Covenant; for the first, the telling you that I have not changed my mind in this particular, is Answer sufficient, since it was both foreseen by me, and fully debated betwixt us two before your down-going; and for the other, I will onely say, that so long as this Covenant is in force, (whether it be with or without Explanation) I have no more Power in Scotland than as a Duke of Venice; which I will rather die than suffer."

"And though it should perhaps cast all loose, (as you express;) yet We take God to witness, We have permitted them to doe many things in this Assembly, for establishing of Peace, contrary to Our Own Judgment. And if on this point a Rupture happen, We cannot help it; the fault is on their own part, which one day they may smart for. So you have in this Point Our full Resolution."

"If you find, that what We have commanded you to doe is likely to cause a Rupture, their impertinent Motions give you a fair occasion to make it appear to the World, that We have condescended to all matters which can be pretended to concern Conscience and Religion; and that now they aim at nothing but the Overthrow of Royal Authority, contrary to all their Professions, which We can neither with Honour nor Safety suffer."

"Our Father of blessed memorie immediately after his comming into England, comparing the decencie and uniformitie of Gods worship here, especially in the Liturgie of the Church, with that diversitie, nay deformitie which was used in Scotland, where no set or publike forme of prayer was used, but Preachers or Readers and ignorant Schoolmasters prayed in the Church, sometimes so ignorantly as it was a shame to all Religion to have the Majestie of God so barbarously spoken unto, sometimes so seditiously that their prayers were plaine Libels, girding at Soveraigntie and Authoritie; or Lyes, being stuffed with all the false reports in the Kingdome."

"For We supposing that they might have taken some offence, if We should have tendered them the English Service Booke totidem verbis, and that some factious spirits would have endevoured to have misconstrued it as a badge of dependance of that Church upon this of England, which Wee had put upon them to the prejudice of their Lawes and Liberties; We held it fitter that a new Booke should be composed by their own Bishops, in substance not differing from this of England, that so the Roman party might not upbraid Us with any weightie or materiall differences in Our Liturgies, and yet in some few insensible alterations differing from it, that it might truely and justly be reputed a Book of that Churches owne composing, and established by Our Royall Authority, as King of Scotland."

"Disobedience to this our Proclamation Wee had little reason to expect, because this Service-book was no new thing unto them: For it not differing from the English Service-book in any materiall point, and We supposing that the English Liturgie neither Was nor could bee displeasing to them, did likewise conceive that this Book should be as little disliked by them."

"Now, doth this Petition deserve the name of an explication of their Covenant? much lesse of such an explication as should give either Us or Our Commissioner any satisfaction? No, for it containeth neither more nor lesse then this, that they doe not meane to shake off their obedience, if We will give way to all their courses, which by this Petition they justifie; so that their meaning is, that they will continue obedient subjects, if We will part from Our Soveraigntie; which is in effect, that they will obey if Wee will suffer them to command."

"Since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect from you that you will send them unto me as soon as they return hither. But, I assure you on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant any other."

"I confess that, speaking as a mere soldier or statesman, there is no probability of my ruin; yet, as a Christian, I must tell you that God will not suffer rebels and traitors to prosper, nor this cause be overthrown, and whatever personal punishment it shall please hi to inflict on me, must not make me repine, much less give over this quarrel... Indeed, I cannot flatter myself with the expectation of good success more than this, to end my days with honour and a good conscience."

"As I know that you are not now to learn that chiefest particular duty of a king is to maintain the true religion (without which he can never expect to have God's blessing), so I assure you that this duty can never be right performed without the Church is rightly governed, not only in relation to conscience, but likewise for the necessary subsistence of the Crown. For, take it as an infallible maxim from me, that, as the Church can never flourish without the protection of the Crown, so the dependency of the Church upon the Crown is the chiefest support of regal authority. This is that which is so well understood by the English and Scots rebels, that no concessions will content them without the change of Church government, by which that necessary and ancient relation which the Church hath had to the Crown is taken away. Wherefore, my first direction to you is, to be constant in the maintenance of the episcopacy, not only for the reasons abovesaid, but likewise to hinder the growth of Presbyterian doctrine, which cannot but bring anarchy into any country, wherever it shall come for any time."

"Next to religion, the power of the sword is the truest judge and greatest support of sovereignty which is unknown to none (as it may be that of religion is to some). Wherefore, concerning this, I will only say that whosoever will persuade you to part with it, does but in a civil way desire you to be no king; reward and punishment (which are the inseparable effects of regal power) necessarily depending upon it, and without which a king can neither be loved nor feared of his subjects."

"I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King, they all going in his name: and one of their maxims is, that the King can do no wrong."

"For the people. And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any Body whomsoever. But I must tell you, That their Liberty and Freedom, consists in having of Government; those Laws, by which their Life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government (Sir) that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things, and therefore until they do that, I mean, that you do put the people in that liberty as I say, certainly they will never enjoy themselves. Sirs, It was for this that now I Have come here. If I would have given way to an Arbitrary way, for to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword, I needed not to have come here; and therefore, I tell you, (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) That I Am the Martyr of the People."

"I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the World."

"The respect and obedience that Christ and his Apostles showed to the rulers of the states they lived in is clearly shown in the Gospel. However, the idea that Christ or his Apostles ever commanded the establishment of an equal-ranking group of presbyters, in the way the Scots are trying to do, doesn't seem very debatable to me."

"If Presbyterianism, in such a supreme form, is truly an institution of Christ, it certainly stands apart from all others. It would be the first and only part of Christianity that needed to be established and spread with so much Christian bloodshed—a bloodshed that flows in a direction completely opposite to the early founders of Christianity and Episcopacy, who patiently sacrificed their own lives instead of violently taking others'. There seems to be too much human ambition in it to truly reflect Christ's teachings."

"That, whatever his faults, Charles died a martyr for his Church and his religious convictions is beyond dispute... The image of Charles I as a Christ-figure was soon to become familiar through the illicit circulation of the Eikon Basilike. This image, more powerful than all the intellectual arguments of James I in defence of royal absolutism, is among the main reasons why the age of absolute monarchy par excellence in England came after 1660 rather than before 1640."

"Unlike James, Charles looked every inch a Divine Right monarch, despite his short stature. That is, he bore himself with regal dignity and maintained proper courtly etiquette at all times. He was also monogamous and kept a much more respectable court than his father. Highly cultured, he was probably the greatest connoisseur ever to sit on the English throne. Charles sent his diplomats scouring the studios of Europe to fill Whitehall Palace with the most distinguished collection of artwork of any early modern ruler. At his insistence both Rubens and van Dyck came to England and painted for the Stuarts. Van Dyck's portraits of the royal family are one of the great achievements of Western art and kingly propaganda, projecting an image of monarchy so serenely confident in its exercise of divinely inspired royal power."

"Unfortunately, that image also concealed a more ambiguous reality. As with so many rulers before him, the new king's good qualities had a dark side. Charles's sense of royal dignity often struck his subjects as mere aloofness; indeed, it cannot be said that he was often generous or possessed of a common touch. Perhaps his punctiliousness compensated for insecurity: over his short stature, his stutter, and his general awkwardness in dealing with people. Unlike his voluble father, Charles was a shy and reticent man who, nevertheless, rarely took advice. He would make a decision or issue an order as a matter of royal prerogative, without consultation, then expect unquestioning obedience, no matter how apparently absurd the demand. He felt no need to explain himself to his parliaments or his people. As a result, his enemies were often able to put their own "spin" on his motives. His authoritarianism was the product of an inflexible mind which saw dissent as disloyalty, retreat as a sign of weakness. That is, unlike James, Charles was very nearly incapabe of compromise or even understanding opposing viewpoints. His court may have been more decorous than his father's, but it was also more narrow. Buckingham was allowed no rival in distributing patronage and politicians out of royal favor received clear signals that they were not welcome. This left the court isolated from opinion in the rest of the country."

"Charles did not wish to moderate between competing views; he expected compliance and he was perfectly capable of being disingenuous or duplicitous in order to win it."

"Refusing to recognize the court's authority, Charles stood or sat impassively and disdainfully, but with great dignity, as the prosecution sought to make its case. The spectacle must have been impressive: the largest medieval hall in England packed to the rafters with spectators. At its south end, on several tiers of red velvet benches sat the commissioners: assorted army officers, MPs, and gentlemen, presided over by a heretofore obscure judge, John Bradshaw (1602-59). Before them sat an array of lawyers and clerks, all in black. At the north end and in the upper galleries, crowds of spectators, held back by wooden rails and soldiers in their red coats. On the other side of a hastily constructed wooden partition, in a makeshift dock in the middle of the hall, the magnetic object of all eyes, a solitary figure in black, but for the brilliant blue and silver of the Star and Garter- the king. Given his refusal to make or plead a case, the verdict was a foregone conclusion. King Charles was found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors against the people of England. On January 27 he was condemned to death by beheading. At this point he demanded to speak, but Parliament was not about to let him do so now. Instead, 59 commissioners signed the most notorious death warrant in English history. Years later, upon losing the first English Civil War, Charles I had stated "that if I cannot live as a king, I shall die like a gentleman." He now set about to do precisely that."

"The night before his execution, the king burned his papers and saw his youngest children for the last time. The next morning, January 30, 1649, he rose and, after asking about the weather outside, put on an extra shirt for the walk across St. James' Park to the scaffold: ever concerned with the dignity of his appearance, Charles did not want to create an impression of fear by shivering. He was escorted by armed guard through the park to the Banqueting House at Whitehall- one of those expensive building projects of his father's which had so alienated the English taxpayer. One wonders what he thought as he walked through the hall under its magnificent ceiling- a depiction of his father's apotheosis in heaven by Peter Paul Rubens- and thus the sort of expensive art project which had proved controversial in his own ill-fated reign. At the end of his walk was an open window facing west; outside it a scaffold draped in black, at the center of which was the block. Beyond and below stood a crowd of ordinary Londoners, held back by solders. The king emerged into the gray light of the January day and asked to speak, but, dogged by his weak voice and bad luck to the last, he was inaudible. He then turned to his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Juxon (1582-1663), and remarked that the executioner sent him "from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown." Turning to the block, he knelt down, said a brief prayer, and in signal worked out with the henchman beforehand, stretched out his hands. The axe fell and, as was customary, the executioner raise the late king's head for all to see. It is said that at this sight, which normally elicited cheers, the crowd uttered a deep groan."

"Cromwell's charge at Naseby determined the Civil War. When the grim Ironsides rode down the more splendid cavalry that mustered under the royal standard, they destroyed Charles's last chance of keeping the open field. Thenceforth, all he could do was to move about amongst his strongholds, the reduction of which was the only work that remained to be accomplished by the victorious army of the parliament. One after another, some by storm and some by famine, garrisoned cities, towns, and fortified mansions fell into the hands of Fairfax and Cromwell, and as the year 1645 approached its termination, the parliamentary forces began to hem in the king's last place of retreat, the loyal and beautiful Oxford, the capital of the Cavaliers. The Roundheads were first discerned from the old tower of Oxford Castle, crowning the heights at a distance from the city. They soon approached nearer, commanding every road, and seizing every defensible point; but it was not until Fairfax had cleared the West, and driven the Prince of Wales to Scilly, that he returned northward with the main body of his troops, and prepared to invest Oxford in due form."

"The question then arose- What was the king to do? His friends, even the most sanguine, deemed his cause irretrievably lost. Without money, his supporters ruined by the sacrifices they had already made, his garrisons compelled to plunder as their only means of support, and the country consequently universally disaffected towards the royal cause, it was impossible that the king could carry on the contest any longer. What then was he to do? He had now tried almost all possible courses. He had endeavoured to govern with a parliament, and had failed. He had striven to do so without a parliament: in that also he had failed. Again, he had been induced to call a parliament by which he had been driven into concessions, but they were made grudgingly, in bad faith, and with the clear intention of being resumed as soon as possible: in this course he had also failed. Lastly, he had appealed to the final arbiter of national disputes, and again the result had been adverse to his hopes. His subjects, esteemed the most loyal people in Europe, had met him, front to front, in the open field. His choicest troops, commanded by some of the bravest of the English nobility, had been beaten in many successive engagements, and, finally, had been cut to pieces and utterly destroyed. What now remained for him to do? Peace, upon the best terms that could be obtained, was the ardent longing of every one. The staunchest Cavaliers saw that submission was a bitter but unavoidable necessity. The victorious party must have its way. The cause had been decided in their favor. The losers must submit."

"Such was the feeling and the reasoning of the Cavaliers, but not of the king. Submission was a thing to which Charles could never be brought. It was his candid avowal with respect to his own character, that he could never yield in a good cause; which every man thinks his own cause to be. True, it was no longer possible for him to gain his ends by active measures; but he had not ceased to be a power in the State. If he could not govern, he might prevent his enemies from doing so. The weary and exhausted country could have no peace without him. If those who were opposed to him desired tranquility, they must have it upon his terms. He was beaten, vanquished, ruined, but no earthly power could induce him to sacrifice his royal dignity by yielding the principal points which were in dispute."

"He believed that the machine of government could not act without him; that if he could only keep the public affairs long enough in the condition of dead-lock to which they were reduced, his enemies would be wearied, or would be forced by the people, into yielding to his terms. His mind was as full as ever of the most exalted notions of the sacred and indefeasible character of his royal authority. All who opposed him were, in his estimation, wicked rebel whom God would judge. It was his place to govern, and that of his people to submit. His sins of misgovernment never occurred to him. Regret that for many years his course of action had been totally wanting in the kingly virtues of justice and fair dealing never entered his mind. It never troubled him that he had sought to govern in defiance of his own concessions, in opposition to the even then acknowledged principles of the constitution, and in breach of his coronation oath. The only things which grieved him were his concessions to the popular fury which himself had roused. While such was Charles' state of mind, peace was out of the question. On the side of parliament, it was clearly seen that when a king sets up his standard against his people, he must conquer or submit; and that if, having failed to conquer, he refuses to submit, he must be deposed. To have yielded to him on the ultimate points of the contest, would have been to have relinquished the fruits of the warfare in which parliament had been victorious. What then was to be done? Simply to follow him through a succession of messages and answers, until it became apparent to the people that the country must be governed without him. That was the course for parliament, but what remained for the king? Nothing but to fall back upon his old course of intrigue."

"Without much talent for intrigue, or even much dexterity in its practice, Charles had great fondness for being engaged in it. In all difficulties it was his resource, and at the time with which we are dealing he was fanatically sanguine that some one or other of his little subtle stratagems would ultimately succeed. We are accustomed to associate the notion of fanaticism with the opposite party only. They concluded that the cause of the parliament was righteous and favored by God because it was successful. Every one sees this to have been a dangerous judging of the ways of Providence from partial results. We can all join in condemning conclusions so presumptuous and so illogical. But the same reasoning was equally rife at Oxford as at Westminster. Charles attributed his want of success in the war to God's anger against him for his concurrence in the death of Stafford. He confidently anticipated the approach of a time when he should have drained the cup of vengeance. Mercy would then, he presumed, take the place of justice, and the storm of heavenly wrath, transferred from him, would fall heavily on the heads of his enemies. To help on the ends of Providence, to expedite, as he supposed, the coming of that happy day, and to gain time until it should dawn, were the objects of the many intrigues in which he was involved during the year 1646."

"He had learned from his father to fancy that he had a right to be absolute; and had the courage that his father wanted to try for it. This made him quarrel with parliaments, and attempt to rise money without them, which no king has a right to do: but there was then spirit and virtue enough in the nation to oppose it. He would likewise, by the advice of a hot-headed parson (Archbishop Laud), establish the Common Prayer through the whole kingdom by force, to which the Presbyterians would not submit. These, and many other violences, raised a civil war in the nation, in which he was beaten and taken prisoner. A high court of justice was erected on purpose for his trial, where he was tried and condemned for high treason against the constitution; and was beheaded publicly, about one hundred years ago, at Whitehall, on the 30th of January. This action is much blamed; but, however, if it had not happened, we had had no liberties left."

"Thus goaded, Charles, accompanied by three or four hundred swordsmen- "Cavaliers" we may now call them- went down to the House of Commons. It was January 4, 1642. Never before had a king set foot in the Chamber. When his officers knocked at the door and it was known that he had come in person members of all parties looked upon each other in amazement. His followers beset the doors. All rose at his entry. The Speaker, William Lenthall, quitted his chair and knelt before him. The King, seating himself in the chair, after professing his goodwill to the House, demanded the surrender of indicted Members- Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hazelrigg, and Strode. But a treacherous message from a lady of the Queen's Bedchamber had given Pym a timely warning. The accused Members had already embarked at Westminster steps and were safe amid the train bands and magistrates of the City. Speaker Lenthall could give no information. "I have only eyes to see and ears to hear as the House may direct," he pleaded. The King, already conscious of his mistake, cast his eyes around the quivering assembly. "I see that the birds are flown," he said lamely, and after some civil reassurances he departed at the head of his disappointed, growling adherents. But as he left the Chamber a low, long murmur of "Privilege" pursued him. To this day the Members for the City take their places on the Treasury bench at the opening of a session, in perpetual acknowledgement of the services rendered by the City in protecting the Five."

"By the end of 1648 it was all over. Cromwell was Dictator. The Royalists were crushed; Parliament was a tool; the Constitution was a figment; the Scots were rebuffed, the Welsh back in their mountains; the Fleet was reorganized, London overawed. King Charles, at Carisbrooke Castle, where the donkey treads the water wheel, was left to pay the bill. It was mortal."

"Plainly the fruit of the victory that could most easily be gathered was the head of the king. True, he had never moved from Carisbrooke, but was he not the mainspring of the whole of this vast movement of England against the Army, its rule, even its pay? Was he not the pivot upon which all public opinion turned? Did he not embody all those courses which the Ironsides either hated or could not unravel? Was he not a trophy gained by march and battle? At a moment of great hesitancy in matters of government, when everything was fluid and uncertain, here was a supreme act which all could understand and upon which the Army could unite. The execution of Charles Stuart, "the Man of Blood," could alone satisfy the soldiers and enable their leaders to hold their obedience."

"A strange destiny had engulfed this King of England. None had resisted with more untimely stubbornness the movement of his age. He had been in his heyday the convinced opponent of all we now call our Parliamentary liberties. Yet as misfortunes crowded upon him he increasingly became the physical embodiment of the liberties and traditions of England. His mistakes and wrong deeds had arisen not so much from personal cravings for arbitrary power as from the conception of kingship to which he was born and which had long been the settled custom of the land. In the end he stood against an army which had destroyed all Parliamentary government, and was about to plunge England into a tyranny at once more irresistible and more petty than any seen before or since."

"He did not flinch in any respect from the causes in which he believed. Although, no doubt, in bargainings and maneuvers with his enemies he had practised deceit and ill faith, these arose from the malignancy and ever-shifting character of the quarrel, and were amply matched upon the other side. But he never departed from his central theme either in religion or State. He adhered unswervingly to the Prayer Book of the Reformed Church and to the Episcopacy, with which he conceived Christianity was to be interwoven. By his constancy, which underlay all the shifts and turns of the tumultous and swiftly changing years, he preserved the causes by which his life was guided. He was not a martyr in the sense of one who dies for a spiritual ideal. His own kingly interests were mingled at every stage with the larger issues. Some have sought to represent him as the champion of the small or humble man against the rising money-power. This is fanciful. He cannot be claimed as the defender of English liberties, nor wholly of the English Church, but none the less he died for them, and by his death preserved them not only to his son and heir, but to our own day."

"I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it."

"Cruel necessity."

"What the King said to me the 29th January 1648. being the last time I had the happinesse to see Him. He told me, He was glad I was come, and although He had not time to say much, yet somewhat He had to say to me, which he had not to another, or leave in writing, because He feared their Crueltie was such, as that they would not have permitted Him to write to me. He wished me not to grieve and torment myself for Him, for that would be a glorious death that He should die, it being for the Laws and Liberties of this Land, and for maintaining the true Protestant Religion. He bid me read Bishop Andrews's Sermons, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Politie, and Bishop Laud's Book against Fisher, which would ground me against Poperie. He told me, He had forgiven all His Enemies, and hoped God would forgive them also; and commanded Us, and all the rest of my Brothers & Sisters, to forgive them... Further, He commanded Us all to forgive those people, but never to trust them; for they had been most false to Him, and to those that gave them power, and He feared also to their own souls; And desired me not to grieve for Him, for He should die a Martyr; And that He doubted not but the Lord would settle His Throne upon his Son, and that We should be all happier, then We could have expected to have been, if He had lived: With many other things, which at present I cannot remember."

"Amidst the wreck of his fortunes Charles seized on the growing discord among his opponents as a means of retrieving all. He trusted that the dread of revolution would at last rally the whole body of conservative Englishmen round the royal standard; and it is likely enough that had he frankly flung himself on the side of the Parliament at this juncture he might have regained much of his older power. But, beaten and hunted as he was from place to place, he was determined to regain not much but all. The terms which the Houses offered were still severe; and Charles believed that a little kingcraft would free him from the need of accepting any terms whatever. He therefore intrigued busily with both parties, and promised liberty of worship to Vane and the Independents at the moment when he was negotiating with the Parliament and with the Scots. His negotiations were quickened by the march of Fairfax upon Oxford. Driven from his last refuge at the close of April 1646, the King had to choose between a flight from the realm or a surrender to one of the armies about him. Charles had no mind to forsake England when all seemed working for his success; and after some aimless wanderings he made his appearance in May in the camp of the Scots."

"On the twentieth of January Charles appeared before Bradshaw's Court only to deny its competence and to refuse to plead; but thirty-two witnesses were examined to satisfy the consciences of his judges, and it was not till the fifth day of the trial that he was condemned to death as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy of his country. The popular excitement vented itself in cries of "Justice," or "God save your Majesty," as the trial went on, but all save the loud outcries of the soldiers was hushed as, on the 30th of January, 1649, Charles passed to his doom. The dignity which he had failed to preserve in his long jangling with Bradshaw and the judges returned at the call of death. Whatever had been the faults and follies of his life, "he nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable scene." Two masked executioners awaited the King as he mounted the scaffold, which had been erected outside one of the windows of the Banqueting House at Whitehall; the streets and roofs were thronged with spectators; and a strong body of soldiers stood drawn up beneath. His head fell at the first blow, and as the executioner lifted it to the sight of all a groan of pity and horror burst from the silent crowd."

"The news of the King's death was received throughout Europe with a thrill of horror. The Czar of Russia chased the English envoy from his court. The ambassador of France was withdrawn on the proclamation of the Republic. The protestant powers of the Continent seemed more anxious than any to disavow all connexion with a Protestant people who had brought their King to the block. Holland took the lead in acts of open hostility to the new power as soon as the news of the execution reached the Hague. The States-General waited solemnly on the Prince of Wales, who took the title of Charles the Second, and recognized him as "Majesty," while they refused an audience to the English envoys. Their Stadtholder, his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, was supported by popular sympathy in the aid and encouragement he afforded to Charles; and eleven ships of the English fleet, which had found a refuge at the Hague ever since their revolt from the Parliament, were suffered to sail under Rupert's command, and to render the seas unsafe for English traders. The danger however was far greater nearer home."

"Charles was put to death at the time when his influence, long on the wane, was at its lowest point. He had outlived his usefulness, alienated every party, political and religious, betrayed and deserted his most intimate accomplices, and deceived his subjects generally. Charles had talents above the average. With much of the culture and refinement of his epoch, he lacked that breadth of view, consistency of purpose, and firmness of will which distinguish a good ruler and a powerful statesman. His manliness was not of the highest order, and his courage was spasmodic, which is not to be wondered at, since in courting success Charles acted on the vicious principle that the end justifies the means. The oft-repeated assertion that Charles died a martyr to religion and to Episcopacy cannot be maintained by any one cognizant of the unscrupulous stratagems which he used in order to restore himself to absolute power, such as the temporary countenancing of Presbyterianism in Scotland in 1641, and his offer to re-establish popery in Ireland in 1645."

"After Charles tried to rule as an autocrat for eleven years, the outcome was civil war and his defeat and execution in 1649. To us, that execution ranks as the truly revolutionary event of English history. But to see revolutions as incidents rather than processes is misleading. Charles’ execution was not seen at the time as a revolutionary triumph, whether for democracy or for Parliament. It was rather, as its instigator Oliver Cromwell put it, a cruel necessity’ to secure the sanctity of the Petition of Right. If that required violence, so be it."

"There are thus grounds for believing that never since the days of Charles I. have we had either so much provision of work for the able-bodied or so complete a system of looking after the more needy."

"The personal government of Charles I. has been more associated with the exaction of Ship Money than with attempts to enforce a system which has much in common with the socialistic schemes with which we are familiar on paper, and yet these eleven years are remarkable for more continuous efforts to enforce socialistic measures than has been made by the central Government of any other great European country. Apart from its success or failure the attempt is interesting, because it shows us the ideal of government which was in the minds of Charles I. and his advisers, and reminds us that these infringers of individual liberties were also, in intention at least, the protectors of the poor."

"Historians are in general agreement that Charles I was a lamentable failure as a monarch and by 1640 he had alienated most of his subjects. While far from being a stupid man, Charles was temperamentally authoritarian, holding to an exalted notion of the nature of kingship as God-given and denying opposition any legitimacy. Cold and aloof, he lacked basic political skills and judgment and came increasingly to be seen as untrustworthy. He made concessions with the greatest of reluctance, and sought to reverse them later, and gained a well-deserved reputation for deviousness by negotiating with opponents while, at the same time, planning to use force against them. He pursued unpopular policies, none more so than his disastrous religious policy, and he was personally responsible for the decision to impose the Scottish prayer book which set the whole chain of events that would eventually lead to civil war in motion. Yet the entire responsibility for the conflict cannot be laid at Charles' door even though he had an important part to play in making it possible."

"He had received from nature a far better understanding, a far stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his father's. He had inherited his father's political theories, and was much more disposed than his father to carry them into practice. He was, like his father, a zealous episcopalian. He was, moreover, what his father had never been, a zealous Arminian, and, though no Papist, liked a Papist much better than a Puritan. It would be unjust to deny that Charles had some of the qualities of a good, and even of a great prince. He wrote and spoke, not, like his father, with the exactness of a professor, but after the fashion of intelligent and well educated gentlemen. His taste in literature and art was excellent, his manner dignified, though not gracious, his domestic life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to have learned from the theologians whom he most esteemed that between him and his subjects there could be nothing of the nature of mutual contract; that he could not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic authority; and that, in every promise which he made, there was an implied reservation that such promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole judge."

"At the same time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition null. He publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against his people: he privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Loraine. He publicly denied that he employed Papists: at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even connive at Popery: he privately assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense. Glamorgan received, in the royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics."

"In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious zealots, to whom this deed Charles's execution] is to be ascribed, had committed, not only a crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers that he was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His memory was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated with those free institutions which he had, during many years, laboured to destroy: for those free institutions had perished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended by his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy and of the exiled house, a reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been set up in all its old dignity."

"From that day (4 January 1642) whatever of confidence and loyal attachment had survived the misrule of 17 years was, in the great body of the people,extinguished for ever."

"In the early part of 1642 only two small minorities saw a resort to force as either necessary or inevitable. There were a few wholehearted royalists who for some time had been telling the king that if he did not show a willingness to defend his rights by force he would never be able to stop the steady erosion of his power; and there were a few radical puritans who were ready to resort to force to bring about sweeping changes in the government and doctrine of the church. But the vast majority of the two Houses of Parliament, of the nobility and gentry in general, of the government officers, of the lawyers, of the mayors and aldermen of the towns, of the leading merchants, in other words, the great bulk of the governing classes, still deplored the thought of resolving the disagreement by force, and still hoped for and expected agreement between the king, Lords and Commons."

"Yet they were steadily being divided into two parties during 1642; parliamentarians, who distrusted the king and demanded more restrictions on his power, at least for a time until they could trust him with greater power again; and royalists, who were unhappy about reducing the power of the crown too much, and longed to be able to trust the king. This was not a division over religious or political ends. Thus men from the same social background and with the same economic interests, with similar political and religious ideas, found themselves in opposite parties, for the decision they had to take in 1642 was not a decision about the best form of government for the church or for the state, nor about the changes in the social or the economic order, but simply whether or not to trust Charles I."

"Many of those who distrusted the king and regarded his obstinacy as the only obstacle to agreement consented to the raising of an army under the command of the Earl of Essex because they thought that a show of force would make the king more reasonable. They believed that no more than a show of force would be necessary because the king appeared to have few supporters and small means to raise an army; he would not be able to fight and would be obliged to negotiate. But the king proved to have more supporters and greater resources than at first appeared. For many were willing to trust him now that he seemed almost powerless. They did not wish to see him forced into an abject surrender which would permanently weaken the crown. They supported him because they thought that when parliament saw that he had the means to fight it would moderate its demands and reach an agreement without bloodshed. So by the end of summer 1642 there were two armies on foot in England, and the country found that it had drifted into a civil war that few wanted to fight."

"Distrust was the main obstacle to agreement between king and parliament, but it might not have been an insurmountable obstacle without the conjuncture of other factors, which involved the lower classes in the crisis and drove a deeper wedge into the ruling class. These other factors were the fear of papists, the sharp decline of trade and industry, and an upsurge of class-feeling and class-hostility."

"By 1640 it was overwhelmingly believed that Charles was an innovative and irresponsible monarch: that he tolerated the spread of Popery at Court and in government; that he sought to change the religion of Englishmen away from "the pure religion of Queen Elizabeth and King James" by his support of Laudian clericalism; that his misuse of his prerogative powers constituted a threat to the security of mens' liberties and properties."

"In 1603 King James VI of Scotland succeeded the childless Queen Elizabeth I on the throne of England as James I. Thereafter, although frequently professing an intimate attachment to their ancient kingdom, both he and his son King Charles I, who succeeded him in 1625, regarded themselves first and foremost as English monarchs. Scotland nevertheless still retained its own parliament, referred to as the Estates, and therefore its own quite separate system of government. Unfortunately, moves initiated by Charles I in 1633 with the aim of bringing both the Scottish church and legal system into line with English practice proved to be a disastrous mistake. In 17th century Britain religion and politics were still inextricably linked, and the monarchy's temporal and religious prerogatives were both the subject of passionate debate among the influential classes. Less than a century beforehand the struggle between Roman Catholic and Protestant had seen religious martyrs burned alive at the stake; and despite Elizabeth's generally successful establishment of the Anglican Protestant church of England created by her father Henry VIII, both her reign and that of James I were intermittently troubled by Roman Catholic conspiracies."

"In England a strong dissenting or low-church movement (the Puritans) was hostile to what it saw as Charles' ambiguity towards Catholicism (his queen was a French Catholic), and suspicions of his rumored future plans for meddling with the Protestant settlement. Simultaneously, on the political front, resentment was growing in both England and Scotland towards the King's autocratic style of rule, which tended to unite very diverse groups in at least temporary opposition to Charles, whatever their fundamental views of the monarchy itself. On his part, Charles was continually frustrated by the grudging and conditional grants of funds controlled by the English Parliament which was increasingly conscious of its own constitutional powers, and of which some influential members were leaders of the Puritan religious movement."

"In committing himself to Arminianism, Charles destroyed the painstaking labour James had put into making a cosmetic unity between the kingdoms. He committed himself to that interpretation of the English religious settlement which had least in common with the kirk of Scotland... The primum mobile of the British crisis, chronologically and probably logically as well, was the conflict between Charles and the Scottish Covenanters. This was a real clash of ideas as well as of interests. It enshrined visions of the church, and of authority, so far apart that no real compromise was ever likely to be possible between them. It was this conflict which was the vortex into which the other kingdoms were drawn. This is not to say that Charles was faced by a united Scotland: it has been one of the major findings of this book that that was not the case: all kingdoms, like all English counties, and even most English villages, were divided. Yet it was clearly in Scotland that the Calvinist-Presbyterian ideas to which Charles was most deeply allergic had taken the deepest root. It was the Scots who resorted to arms first, and who did so with the least compunction. It was Charles's determination to suppress them when he was physically unable to do so which caused his authority to collapse, and troubled the English waters enough to encourage the Scots to fish in them."

"Charles I could govern without parliament only as long as he stayed out of war. But the truth is that fighting wars was the essential function of the early modern state, and by this simple test his Personal Rule was an abysmal failure. Even the relatively minor (by European standards) effort required to subdue the Scots rebels brought his government to its knees."

"Three of James's qualities were conspicuously lacking in his son: his shrewd intelligence, his wisdom in the ways of the world, and a certain natural authority. Charles was not stupid, but his mind was narrow and inflexible, and since his imagination was severely limited he too often failed to foresee the results of his decisions or to gauge their impact on other people. Indeed decisions did not come easily to him, and once he had painfully arrived at them he tended to affirm them so uncompromisingly that if a tactical withdrawal should prove necessary, as it often did, it was bound to be humiliating."

"Scriptura sacra mentis oculis quasi quoddam speculum opponitur, ut interna nostra facies in ipsa videatur. Ibi etenim foeda, ibi pulchra nostra cognoscimus."

"There are some so restless that when they are free from labour they labour all the more, because the more leisure they they have for thought, the worse interior turmoil they have to bear."

"The bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire."

"In vain do they think themselves innocent who appropriate to their own use alone those goods which God gave in common; by not giving to others that which they themselves receive, they become homicides and murderers, inasmuch as in keeping for themselves those things which would alleviate the sufferings of the poor, we may say that every day they cause the death of as many persons as they might have fed and did not. When, therefore, we offer the means of living to the indigent, we do not give them anything of ours, but that which of right belongs to them. It is less a work of mercy which we perform than the payment of a debt."

"Non Angli, sed angeli."

"They are not Angles, but angels."

"No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely."

"And let the fear and dread of you be upon all of the animals of the earth.” Clearly, fear and dread were prescribed for the animals, but evidently it was forbidden among humans. By nature a human is superior to a brute animal, but not other humans."

"Moreover, because the slothful mind is typically brought to its downfall gradually, when we fail to control our speech, we move on to more harsh words. Thus, at first, we are happy to speak of others kindly; afterwards, we begin to pick at the lives of those of whom we speak, and finally our tongues break into open slander against them."

"Those who do not speak the words of God with humility must be advised that when they apply medicine to the sick, they must first inspect the poison of their own infection, or else by attempting to heal others, they kill themselves."

"The early Christians also extolled torture as just deserts for the sinful. Most people have heard of the seven deadly sins, standardized by Pope Gregory I in 590 CE. Fewer people know about the punishment in hell that was reserved for those who commit them: "Pride: Broken on the wheel. Envy: Put in freezing water. Gluttony: Force-fed rats, toads, and snakes. Lust: Smothered in fire and brimstone. Anger: Dismembered alive. Greed: Put in cauldrons of boiling oil. Sloth: Thrown in snake pits." The duration of these sentences, of course, was infinite. By sanctifying cruelty, early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematic torture in Christian Europe. If you understand the expressions to burn at the stake, to hold his feet to the fire, to break a butterfly on the wheel, to be racked with pain, to be drawn and quartered, to disembowel, to flay, to press, the thumbscrew, the garrote, a slow burn, and the iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of a heavy-metal rock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways that heretics were brutalized during the Middle Ages and early modern period."

"Gregory's letters are extraordinarily interesting, not only as showing his character, but as giving a picture of his age. His tone, except to the emperor and the ladies of the Byzantine court, is that of a head master-sometimes commending, often reproving, never showing the faintest hesitation as to his right to give orders."

"Gregory is in a very real sense the last of the Romans. His tone of command, while justified by his office, has its instinctive basis in Roman aristocratic pride."

"The path to heaven lies through heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven."

"If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only yonder. (Letter 368 to Stefano Maconi)"

"Catherine of Siena was only six years old when Jesus appeared to her dressed majestically as the Supreme Pontiff, with three crowns on his head and a red cloak, flanked by St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul. She devoted herself to serving the Church and, in particular, the clergy and the Pope."

"From the saints I must take the substance, not the accidents of their virtues. I am not St. Aloysius, nor must I seek holiness in his particular way, but according to the requirements of my own nature, my own character and the different conditions of my life. I must not be the dry, bloodless reproduction of a model, however perfect. God desires us to follow the examples of the saints by absorbing the vital sap of their virtues and turning it into our own life-blood, adapting it to our own individual capacities and particular circumstances. If St. Aloysius had been as I am, he would have become holy in a different way."

"One of my favorite phrases that brings me great comfort: We are not on earth as museum keepers, but to cultivate a flourishing garden of life and to prepare a glorious future. The Pope is dead. Long live the Pope!"

"[Pacem esse] dicimus in veritate positam, ad iustitiae praecepta constitutam, caritate altam et expletam, libertate postremo auspice effectam."

"John XXIII, when asked "How many people work in the Vatican?" replied, "Probably about half"."

"Visiting a hospital he asked a boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy said either a policeman or a pope. "I would go in for the police if I were you," the Holy Father said. "Anyone can become a pope, look at me!""

"When a cardinal complained that a rise in Vatican salaries meant a particular usher earned as much as the cardinal, the pope remarked: "That usher has 10 children; I hope the cardinal doesn't.""

"Not long after he was elected pope, John was walking in the streets of Rome. A woman passed him and said to her friend, "My God, he's so fat!" Overhearing what she said, he turned around and replied, "Madame, I trust you understand that the papal conclave is not exactly a beauty contest.""

"When he was cardinal and patriarch of Venice, the future pope was talking with a wealthy city resident and told him, "You and I have one thing in common: money. You have a lot and I have nothing at all. The difference is I don't care about it.""

"[In Pope John XXIII] the novelty did not concern doctrine, but rather the way of expounding it and perhaps sometimes interpreting it, without ever betraying or modifying it. And of applying it to concrete situations. It then concerned, so to speak, the style, in speaking and acting, both inside and outside the Church: a greater readiness to understand the ‘other’; a charge of ‘sympathy’ in endeavouring to evaluate the mentality or attitudes of even those furthest away; an ability to be aware of their objective difficulties and the art of knowing how to create a climate of trust, despite the distance, or even the head-on opposition of reciprocal positions; the care not to offend people while telling the truth."

"It is with great pleasure that I have learned of your election as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. I join with other Americans in extending my congratulations on your elevation to this high office. My best wishes for the success of your endeavors are, I am certain, shared by men of good will everywhere."

"It is difficult to realize that three years have elapsed since Your Holiness announced that you planned to convene an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church--the first in almost a hundred years. During these three fateful years, millions of my fellow citizens in the United States, including many who do not belong to the Catholic Church, have followed with lively and sympathetic interest the work of the various preparatory Commissions appointed by Your Holiness to draw up the agenda for this extraordinarily important Council. They have also read, with particular interest and with genuine admiration for your all-embracing concern for the welfare of humanity, the several inspiring statements issued by Your Holiness on the background and purposes of the Council."

"I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, at Paris; what have I learned? The language of doubt; but in me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men."

"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me."

"Up to his twenty-sixth year the heart of Ignatius was enthralled by the vanities of the world. His special delight was in the military life, and he seemed led by a strong and empty desire of gaining for himself a great name."

"Let me look at the foulness and ugliness of my body. Let me see myself as an ulcerous sore running with every horrible and disgusting poison."

"The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness. So the best way seems to be to scourge oneself with thin cords which hurt superficially, rather than to use some other means which might produce serious internal injury."

"The picture. A great plain, comprising the entire Jerusalem district, where is the supreme Commander-in-Chief of the forces of good, Christ our Lord: another plain near Babylon, where Lucifer is, at the head of the enemy."

"Imagine that leader of all the enemy, in that great plain of Babylon, sitting on a sort of throne of smoking flame, a horrible and terrifying sight. Watch him calling together countless devils, to despatch them into different cities till the whole world is covered, forgetting no province or locality, no class or single individual."

"The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit."

"We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchical Church defines it thus."

"Ignatius, for understandable reasons, is the saint I know better than any other. He founded our Order. … Jesuits were and still are the leavening — not the only one but perhaps the most effective — of Catholicism: culture, teaching, missionary work, loyalty to the Pope. But Ignatius who founded the Society, was also a reformer and a mystic. Especially a mystic. … They have been fundamental. A religion without mystics is a philosophy. … I love the mystics; Francis also was in many aspects of his life, but I do not think I have the vocation and then we must understand the deep meaning of that word. The mystic manages to strip himself of action, of facts, objectives and even the pastoral mission and rises until he reaches communion with the Beatitudes. Brief moments but which fill an entire life."

"[Friends of order] are often heard to say that the Jesuits must be reestablished. Without disputing the merits of this order, one must say that this suggestion for their reestablishment indicates a lack of deep reflection. Do they mean that St Ignatius is at hand ready to serve our purposes? If the order were destroyed, perhaps it could be reestablished by some lay brother with the same inspiration that created it originally, but all the sovereigns in the world would never succeed."

"Out of this crucible of trial, self-examination, and anguished yearning for peace and light there emerged in Iñigo de Loyola that balance of spirit and matter, of mind and body, of mystical contemplation and pragmatic action that has ever since been recognized as typically and specifically "Ignatian," as distinct from the spirituality of, say, St. Benedict or St. Dominic or St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila."

"He said it himself, he sinned long and hard, to quote Luther; his conversion was total, his expiation very long, accompanied by a love of life and works, including the foundation of a Company that after 400 years is still one of the pillars of our Church."

"Protestant success, at first amazingly rapid, was checked mainly as a resultant of Loyola's creation of the Jesuit order."

"Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."

"For those who believe, no words are necessary. For those who do not believe, no words are possible."

"Exitus acta probat."

"Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience."

"Every age and degree of understanding should have its proper measure of discipline. With regard to boys and adolescents, therefore, or those who cannot understand the seriousness of the penalty of excommunication, whenever such as these are delinquent let them be subjected to severe fasts or brought to terms by harsh beatings, that they may be cured."

"There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence."

"Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ (Matt 16:24; Luke 9:23); discipline your body (1 Cor 9:27); do not pamper yourself, but love fasting. You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick (Matt 25:36), and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing. Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else."

"If the excrement of an elephant should be smeared on skin in which lice appear and left until it dries upon the skin, the lice will not remain on it but will depart immediately. If the fat of an elephant is smeared with it, it is said to cure the pain of one who suffers a headache; it is even said that if an ounce of elephant bone is drunk with ten ounces of wild mountain mint from something which a leper first touched, it does the most for a headache."

"The metals are all essentially identical; they differ only in form. Now, the form brings out accidental causes, which the experimenter must try to discover and remove, as far as possible. Accidental causes impede the regular union of sulphur and mercury; for every metal is a combination of sulphur and mercury. A diseased womb may give birth to a weakly, leprous child, although the seed was good; the same is true of the metals which are generated in the bowels of the earth, which is a womb for them; any cause whatever, or local trouble, may produce an imperfect metal. When pure sulphur comes in contact with pure mercury, after more or less time, and by the permanent action of nature, gold is produced."

"This dumb ox will fill the world with his bellowing."

"Natural science does not consist in ratifying what others have said, but in seeking the causes of phenomena."

"Do there exist many worlds, or is there but a single world? This is one of the most noble and exalted questions in the study of Nature."

"Of Albertus Magnus, the Doctor Universalis of the Dominicans, Roger Bacon writes that what is useful in his works might be summed up in a treatise twenty times as short as they are."

"In speaking of Thomas Aquinas, who, it is true, had not attained at the time when Roger Bacon wrote to the commanding position of authority which was afterwards accorded to him in the schools, he couples him with Albertus Magnus, and says that they both became teachers before they had been adequately taught, and lectured on a philosophy and a theology which they had imperfectly learned."

"Ceux-là qui aiment à se faire craindre, craignent de se faire aimer, et eux-mêmes craignent plus que tous les autres; car les autres ne craignent qu'eux, mais eux craignent tous les autres."

"When your heart roams or gets distracted lead it back very gently, softly putting it close to its Master; and even if you spend your whole hour doing nothing except gathering up your heart quite calmly and putting it close to Our Lord, and even if your heart does nothing except turn away as soon as you have led it back, your hour will have been very well spent"

"There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love—every man works his oar voluntarily!"

"You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working ; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves."

"Have patience with every one, but especially with yourself."

"A heart-memory is better than a mere head-memory. Better to carry away a little of the love of Christ in our souls, than if we were able to repeat every word of every sermon we ever heard."

"De quoi sert-il de bastir des chasteaux en Espagne puisqu’il faut habiter en France?"

"È innanzitutto certo che in tutta la Sacra Scrittura non si troverà mai traccia della Chiesa attuale intesa come una società invisibile; ne esporrò qui, con la massima fedeltà, le ragioni. Gesù Cristo, nostro Redentore e Maestro, per ogni difficoltà o dissenso – sia di dottrina che di morale – ci rimanda sempre alla santa Chiesa per ottenerne l’infallibile soluzione. San Paolo insegna a Timoteo come i cristiani debbano vivere concretamente nella Chiesa. Egli stesso fece convocare gli anziani della chiesa asiatica, mostrando loro come fossero stati costituiti dallo Spirito Santo per reggere la Chiesa. Egli stesso, infine, fu inviato dalla Chiesa insieme a San Barnaba Egli stesso fu inviato dalla Chiesa insieme a San Barnaba e da quelle stesse chiese fu ricevuto per confermarle e per ordinarvi i sacri pastori, i vescovi e i sacerdoti. Ora, come si potrebbe riferire tutto questo a una Chiesa invisibile e immaginaria? E dove mai avrebbe potuto trovare una simile chiesa per presentarvi ricorsi giudiziari, per viverci e per governarla?"

"We accuse our neighbours for minor things, and excuse ourselves for major ones."

"Since we live in the world, we must follow the laws of the world in everything that is not sinful"

"Cor ad cor loquitur."

"What we do for others always seems like a lot, what others do for us seems like nothing."

"Madam, this desire [for holiness] must be in you like the orange trees of the Genoese Riviera, which, for almost the entire year, are laden with fruit, flowers and leaves at the same time."

"The damned are in the abyss of Hell, as within a woeful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments, in all their senses and members, because as they have employed all their senses and their members in sinning, so shall they suffer in each of them the punishment due to sin."

"Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.... Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs."

"Car l'amitié est un amour mutuel, & s'il n'est mutuel, ce n'est pas amitié."

"It is the mark of a mean, vulgar and ignoble spirit to dwell on the thought of food before meal times or worse to dwell on it afterwards, to discuss it and wallow in the remembered pleasures of every mouthful. Those whose minds dwell before dinner on the spit, and after on the dishes, are fit only to be scullions."

"The elephant, not only the largest but the most intelligent of animals, provides us with an excellent example. It is faithful and tenderly loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year and then for no more than five days, and so secretly as never to be seen, until, on the sixth day, it appears and goes at once to wash its whole body in the river, unwilling to return to the herd until thus purified. Such good and modest habits are an example to husband and wife."

"Experto crede: aliquid amplius invenies in silvis, quam in libris. Ligna et lapides docebunt te, quod a magistris audire non possis."

"Liberavi animam meam."

"Bestia illa de Apocalypsi, cui datum est os loquens blasphemias, et bellum gerere cum sanctis (Apoc. XIII, 5-7), Petri cathedram occupat, tanquam leo paratus ad praedam."

"Non est jam dicere, "Ut populus, sic sacerdos"; quia nec si populus, ut sacerdos."

"Qui se sibi magistrum constituit, stulto se discipulum subdit."

"Vulgo dicitur: Quod non videt oculus, cor non dolet."

"Qui me amat, amat et canem meam."

"Ego addo et de pertinacia Græcorum, qui nobiscum sunt, et nobiscum non sunt, juncti fide, pace divisi, quanquam et in fide ipsa claudicaverint a semitis rectis."

""My burden is light," said the blessed Redeemer, a light burden indeed, which carries him that bears it. I have looked through all nature for a resemblance of this, and seem to find a shadow of it in the wings of a bird, which are indeed borne by the creature, and yet support her flight towards heaven."

"The faith of simplicity is mocked, the secrets of Christ profaned, questions on the highest things are impertinently asked, the Fathers scorned because they were disposed to conciliate rather than solve such problems. Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith. It falls upon things which are beyond it...desecrates sacred things more than clarifies them. It does not unlock mysteries and symbols, but tears them asunder; it makes nought of everything to which it cannot gain access and disdains to believe all such things."

"Prostrate, see Thy cross I grasp, And Thy pierced feet I clasp; Gracious Jesus, spurn me not; On me, with compassion fraught, Let Thy glances fall. From thy cross of agony, My Beloved, look on me; Turn me wholly unto Thee; "Be thou whole," say openly, "I forgive thee all.""

"Our King [Jesus] is accused of treachery; it is said of him [by the Muslims] that he is not God, but that he falsely pretended to be something he was not."

"Obey your bishop! “Obey those set over you [Heb 13:17],” the teachers of the Church…. I remind you, my dear friends, of what I said when I was with you: do not receive any outside or unknown preacher, unless he be sent by your bishop or preaches with the permission of the pope. For “how shall they preach unless they are sent [Rom 10:15]?”"

"Do what Jesus says,... what he commands through his ministers who are in the Church [see 1 Cor 6:4]. Be subject to his vicars, your leaders, not only those who are gentle and kind, but even those who are overbearing [see 1 Pt 2:18]."

"It’s not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other; each does the whole work, in its own peculiar contribution. Grace does the whole work, and so does free choice – with this one qualification: That whereas the whole is done in free choice, so is the whole done of grace."

"I rejoiced so greatly when I heard of your answer in the case of some who seemed to be filled with extravagant ambition for the office of legate, and to hope for it with impudence, even more than I can say. And not only I but all who love your name rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Moreover, when I read your letter written in the cause of the Church of Rodez, then was my mouth filled with laughter and my tongue with joy. Such things as these are worthy of your Apostleship, they honour the highest See, they are just what is becoming to the Bishop of the world. Whence, also, I bow my knees to the Author of your unique Primacy... In truth, you have been raised to this chair for the fall and rising again of many."

"Among us on the earth there is His memory; but in the Kingdom of heaven His very Presence. That Presence is the joy of those who have already attained to beatitude; the memory is the comfort of us who are still wayfarers, journeying towards the Fatherland."

"The reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of our love for Him is to love Him without measure."

"I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself, as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial. But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness, the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative, the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty. Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he must ever cry out lamentably, ‘O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me’ (Isa. 38.14); and again, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7.24)Seeing that the Scripture saith, God has made all for His own glory (Isa. 43.7), surely His creatures ought to conform themselves, as much as they can, to His will. In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day: ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To reach this state is to become deified. As a drop of water poured into wine loses itself, and takes the color and savor of wine; or as a bar of iron, heated red-hot, becomes like fire itself, forgetting its own nature; or as the air, radiant with sun-beams, seems not so much to be illuminated as to be light itself; so in the saints all human affections melt away by some unspeakable transmutation into the will of God. For how could God be all in all, if anything merely human remained in man? The substance will endure, but in another beauty, a higher power, a greater glory. When will that be? Who will see, who possess it? ‘When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?’ (Ps. 42.2). ‘My heart hath talked of Thee, Seek ye My face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek’ (Ps. 27.8). Lord, thinkest Thou that I, even I shall see Thy holy temple?"

"What of the souls already released from their bodies? We believe that they are overwhelmed in that vast sea of eternal light and of luminous eternity"

"Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis."

"Sunt namque qui scire volunt eo fine tantum ut sciant; et turpis curiositas est. Et sunt qui scire volunt, ut sciantur ipsi; et turpis vanitas est. ... Et sunt item qui scire volunt, ut scientiam suam vendant, verbi causa, pro pecunia, pro honoribus; et turpis quaestus est. Sed sunt quoque qui scire volunt, ut aedificent; et caritas est. Et item qui scire volunt, ut aedificentur; et prudentia est."

"Look at those detractors. Look at those dogs. They ridicule us for baptizing infants, praying for the dead, and asking the prayers of the saints. They lose no time in cutting Christ off from all kinds of people to both sexes, young and old, living and dead. They put infants outside the sphere of grace because they are too young to receive it, and those who are full grown because they find difficulty in preserving chastity. They deprive the dead of the help of the living, and rob the living of the prayers of the saints because they have died. God forbid! The Lord will not forsake his people who are as the sands of the sea, nor will he who redeemed all be content with a few, and those heretics...."

"It is difficult now to look back across the centuries and appreciate the tremendous impact of his personality on all who knew him. The fire of his eloquence has been quenched in the written words that survive. As a theologian and a controversialist he now appears rigid and a little crude and unkind. But from the day in 1115 when, at the age of twenty-five, he was appointed Abbot of Clairvaux, till his death nearly forty years later he was the dominant influence in the religious and political life of western Europe."

"There were some men whose genius and virtues would have adorned any age. Among these was... Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), whose pen was to control Christendom for a generation, and whose sainthood shines through all ages, was in the nursery when the soldiers of the cross started for the East. There were noble women, too. Bernard owed much of his talent and virtue to his mother, Aletta, whose memory is the imperishable ornament of womanhood. ...The intellectuality of this period exercised itself almost entirely with theological and religious subjects. Men in seclusion elaborated and defended existing church doctrines and gave pious flight to their imaginations. But of literature as such there was none; even the Troubadours had not begun to rhyme the Provencal tongue. The hot breath of the crusades themselves forced the debris of the Latin to send out its first flowers of poesy."

"From the days of Charlemagne it had been the custom to signalize entrance upon manhood by buckling about the loins the sword, the investment with "virile arms." The church, in hopeless inability to check the universal passion for fight, sought only to direct it to the suppression of ecclesiastical enemies. ...Bernard, without dispute the holiest man of the twelfth century, offered no excuse or palliation for his harangue to the faithful. "Let them kill the enemy or die. To submit to die for Christ, or to cause one of His enemies to die, is naught but glory.""

"The church steadily compacted its power about thrones and people. The authority of the Papacy was especially augmented in this period by its temporary success against a movement whose ultimate triumph was destined to cost the Roman Church its dominance of Christendom, viz., the impulse towards liberal thought. The standard-bearer of this essential Protestantism was Abelard. This astute reasoner placed the human judgment, when guided by correct scholarship, above all traditional authority. The popularity of his teaching was a serious menace to the doctrines of the church, so far as these rested upon the dictation of the popes. The consternation of ecclesiastics was voiced by Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux who declared, in his appeal to Pope Innocent II: "These books of Abelard are flying abroad over all the world; they no longer shun the light; they find their way into castles and cities; they pass from land to land, from one people to another. A new gospel is promulgated, a new faith is preached. Disputations are held on virtue and vice not according to Christian morality, on the sacraments of the church not according to the rule of faith, on the mystery of the Trinity not with simplicity and soberness. This huge Goliath, with his armor-bearer, Arnold of Brescia, defies the armies of the Lord to battle." The Goliath fell, but by no pebble from the sling of a David."

"Bernard was justly reputed the greatest mind of the age. He hesitated to enter into a learned controversy with Abelard, but smote him with a thunderbolt of excommunication, which he secured from the hands of the occupant of the Vatican throne."

"It was while the papal territory in Italy was... occupied by the adherents of Arnold that the second crusade [1145–1149] was inaugurated. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, was its chief inspirer, both in counsel with the leaders of Europe and with his voice as its popular herald. High above generals and scholars, beyond kings, emperors, and popes, this man stands in the gaze of history. His repute for wisdom and sanctity was extended by miracles accredited to his converse with Heaven. Believed to be above earthly ambition, he commanded and rebuked with a celestial authority. Papal electors came to consult the monk before they announced their judgment as to who should be Pope, and when on the throne, the Pope consulted the monk before he ventured to set the seal of his infallibility to his own utterances. Bernard's humility may have been great Godward, but it was not of the sort to lead him to decline the solemn sovereignty of men's minds and wills."

"When Henry I of England hesitated to acknowledge Innocent II, Bernard's choice for Pope, on the ground that he was not the rightful occupant of the holy see, the monk exclaimed, "Answer thou for thy other sins; let this be on my head.""

"When Lothaire of Germany demanded of the Holy Father the renewal of the right of imperial investitures, the saint threw his spell about the emperor and left him submissive at the feet of the pontiff."

"When Louis VII of France, in his rage against Thibaut, Count of Champagne, carried devastation through the count's domains and burned the church of Vitry, with thirteen hundred of its citizens who had there taken refuge against his vengeance, Bernard openly rebuked the king, and with such effect that the monarch proposed, as a self-inflicted penance, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there to wipe out his guilt in the blood of Moslems. In this purpose of Louis VII originated the second crusade."

"Pope Honorius delegated Bernard to preach throughout France and Germany the renewal of the holy war. Drawn as much by the fame of the monk as by the mandates of the king and the Pope, a vast assembly of prelates and nobles gathered at Vézelay in Burgundy. A large platform was erected on a hill outside the city. King and monk stood together, representing the combined will of earth and heaven. The enthusiasm of the assembly of Clermont in 1095, when Peter the Hermit and Urban II launched the first crusade, was matched by the holy fervor inspired by Bernard as he cried, "O ye who listen to me! Hasten to appease the anger of heaven, but no longer implore its goodness by vain complaints. Clothe yourselves in sackcloth, but also cover yourselves with your impenetrable bucklers. The din of arms, the danger, the labors, the fatigues of war, are the penances that God now imposes upon you. Hasten then to expiate your sins by victories over the Infidels, and let the deliverance of the holy places be the reward of your repentance." As in the olden scene, the cry "Deus vult! Deus vult!" rolled over the fields, and was echoed by the voice of the orator: "Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood.""

"The king set the example by prostrating himself at the feet of the monk and receiving from his hands the badge of the cross. "The cross! the cross!" was the response of thousands who crowded about the platform. Queen Eleanor imitated her husband and was followed by such a host of nobles bishops and knights that Bernard tore his garments into strips to supply the enthusiasts with the insignia of their new devotion. Similar scenes were enacted throughout France wherever the saint appeared. Eye witnesses do not hesitate to tell of miracles wrought by his hands emblazoning his mission with the seals of heaven."

"Not distrustful of the king, but credulous of the heavenly mission of Bernard, the multitude, including the most noted warriors, called for the monk to become their military leader. Only the intervention of the Holy Father, who declared that it was sufficient for the saint to be the trumpet of Heaven without wielding the sword, allayed the universal demand."

"St. Bernard said of Henry, "He comes of the devil and to the devil he shall return.""

"Bernard was the best monk that ever lived, whom I admire beyond all the rest put together."

"Before a vast assembly in 1097 Pope Urban II said: "If you must have blood, bathe your hands In the blood of infidels. ...soldiers of hell become soldiers of the living God." Whereupon the multitude shouted: "It Is the will of God." Bernard, the holiest man of his century, cried out: "...Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." In 1188 the Pope ordered prayers against the Saracens to be said daily."

"Right action is better than knowledge; but in order to do what is right, we must know what is right."

"You nobles, you sons of my leading men, soft and dandified, trusting in your birth and your wealth, paying no attention to my command and your advancement, you neglected the pursuit of learning and indulged yourselves in the sport of pleasure and idleness and foolish pastimes. By the King of the heavens I think nothing of your nobility and your beauty. Others can admire you. Know this without any doubt; unless you rapidly make up for your idleness by eager effort, you will never receive any benefit from Charlemagne."

"If only I could have a dozen churchmen as wise and as well taught in all human knowledge as were Jerome and Augustine!"

"It is not lack of self-restraint but care for others which makes me dine in Lent before the hour of evening."

"Fathers and guardians, bishops of our Church, you ought to minister to the poor, or rather to Christ in them, and not to seek after vanities. But now you act quite contrary to this; and are vainglorious and avaricious beyond all other men."

"Bishops should despise this world and inspire others by their example to seek after heavenly things. But now you are corrupted by ambition beyond all the rest of mankind; and one of them not content with holding the first episcopal see in Germany has dared without my approval to claim my golden scepter, which I carry to signify my royal will, in order that he might use it as his pastoral staff."

"Take care that none of them escapes."

"Nothing of that which was gained by fraud can go to the liberation of his soul. Let his wealth be divided among the workmen of this our building, and the poorer servants of our palace."

"Under this tomb lies the body of Charles, the great and orthodox emperor, who gloriously increased the Kingdom of the Franks and reigned with great success for forty-seven years. He died in his seventies in the year of our Lord 814, in the seventh Indiction, on the twenty-eighth day of January."

"This blond, barbarian giant, who slept with a slate under his pillow, and made the English scholar, Alcuin of York, his chief counsellor and head of his palace school, conceived the tremendous ambition of reuniting the West in a new Roman empire in place of the remote and now almost entirely oriental empire of Byzantium."

"Yet more than to the eastern forests from which his forbears had come, Charlemagne's spirit was drawn to the Roman south. He saw himself as the head of Christendom and its guardian. Like his father, Pepin, he led a Frankish army across the Alps against the Lombard conquerors of north Italy. And on Christmas day 800, as he knelt at mass in St. Peter's, Rome, his ally the pope crowned him with traditional imperial rites as Augustus and emperor of the Romans. To dreamers it appeared as if the hand of time had been set back and the Roman Empire was restored. And it was now, it seemed, a Holy Roman Empire."

"His brief-lived empire, with its capitals and palaces, its artists and scholars, seems to swim out of the night of the Dark Ages and back into historical twilight like a brightly lit port on a Greek island as the steamer that bears us puts in for an hour and moves on."

"The most famous and greatest of men."

"I touch with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded by a respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series, of occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the reformation of manners, the œconomy of his farms, the care of his poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise: the inveterate evils of the times were suspended or mollified by his government; but in his institutions I can seldom discover the general views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who survives himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and stability of his empire depended on the life of a single man: he imitated the dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among his sons; and, after his numerous diets, the whole constitution was left to fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and despotism."

"[T]he encouragement of learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on the character of Charlemagne. The dignity of his person, the length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigour of his government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new æra from his restoration of the Western empire."

"This great empire Charlemagne formed into a systematically organized State, and gave the Frank dominion settled institutions adapted to impart to it strength and consistency. This must however not be understood, as if he first introduced the Constitution of his empire in its whole extent, but as implying that institutions partly already in existence, were developed under his guidance, and attained a more decided and unobstructed efficiency. The King stood at the head of the officers of the empire, and the principle of hereditary monarchy was already recognized."

"Charles was the keenest of all kings to seek out and support wise men so that they might philosophize with all delight. Almost all of the kingdom entrusted to him by God was so foggy and almost blind, but he made it luminous with the new ray of knowledge, almost unknown to this barbarous land, with God lighting the way so it could see. But now studies are growing weak, and the light of wisdom because it is less loved grows rarer among most people."

"Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky."

"Make us eternal truths receive, And practice all that we believe; Give us Thyself that we may see The Father and the Son by Thee."

"Je ameroie mieus que uns Escoz venist d'Escosse et gouvernast le peuple du royaume bien et loyaument, que que tu le gouvernasses mal apertement."

"On se doit assemer en robes et en armes en tel manière que li preudome de cest siècle ne dient que on en face trop, ne les joenes gens de cest siècle ne dient que on en face peu."

"A justices tenir et à droitures soies loiaus et roides à tes sougiez, sans tourner à destre ne à senestre, mais adès à droit, et soustien la querelle dou povre jeusques à tant que la verités soit desclairie."

"Saint Louis represents a return to the idea of the priest-king. He is in harmony with his time, which is that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and characterized by a revival of the Christian faith."

"Up to his time the Capetian house had been prosaic and matter-of-fact. He will glorify that house and give it spiritual grandeur. Though none of his successors will equal him, the spiritual elevation of his life and work will leave an aureole about the family of the Capetians. Most of the other royal or imperial houses of Europe had eagles, lions, leopards, or some sort of carnivorous animal as their emblem, while the house of France had chosen three modest flowers. Saint Louis was the justification of the lilies."

"In internal affairs also, the reign of Saint Louis was one of justice and not of weakness. He was a just judge, but he knew very well how to send even barons to the gallows. Order is heaven's first law, and Louis sought law and order."

"If the figure of Saint Louis was so soon to be idealized in story and legend, it is not only because the king was good, just and charitable; it is because, as his chronicler Joinville says, under his rule through righteous administration France had become more prosperous and the way of life easier and more humane. He will bequeath to the Capetian monarchy and to France enduring renown."

"The voice of history renders a more honourable testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, an hero, and a man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, the friend of his neighbours, and the terror of the infidels. Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence, corrupted his understanding and his heart; his devotion stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic; he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant."

"God could have given us the Redeemer of the human race, and the Founder of the Faiths in another way than through the Virgin, but since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Spirit and bore Him in her womb, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary."

"I was born poor, I have lived poor, I wish to die poor."

"I shall spare myself neither care nor labour nor vigils for the salvation of souls. My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by His divine help; I can do all in Him who strengthened me! His power is infinite, and if I lean on Him it will be mine; His wisdom is infinite, and if I look to Him for counsel I shall not be deceived; His goodness is infinite, and if my trust is stayed on Him I shall not be abandoned. Hope unites me to my God and Him to me. Although I know I am not sufficient for the burden, my strength is in Him. For the salvation of others I must bear weariness, face dangers, suffer offences, confront storms, fight against evil. He is my Hope."

"But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the connexion between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil."

"Let the storm rage and the sky darken — not for that shall we be dismayed. If we trust as we should in Mary, we shall recognize in her, the Virgin Most Powerful "who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent."

"Recourse to God, so infinitely good, is all the more necessary because, far from abating, the struggle grows fiercer and expands unceasingly. It is no longer only the Christian faith that they would uproot at all costs from the hearts of the people; it is any belief which lifting man above the horizon of this world would supernaturally bring back his wearied eyes to heaven. Illusion on the subject is no longer possible. War has been declared against everything supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands God, and because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind and heart of man."

"Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: "There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land" (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man."

"Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be delivered. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist."

"We cannot prevent Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we can never sanction it. Jews have not recognized Our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. They had ample time to acknowledge Christ's divinity without pressure, but they didn't. Should the Jews manage to set foot on the once promised old-new land, the missionaries of the Church would stand prepared to baptize them. Jerusalem cannot be placed in Jewish hands."

"The lust of lucre has done much to make the minds of men so barbarous. But something also is due to the nature of the climate and the situation of these regions. For, as these places are subjected to burning southern sun, which casts a languor into the veins and as it were, destroys the vigor of virtue, and as they are far removed from the habits of religion and the vigilance of the State, and in a measure even from civil society, it easily comes to pass that those who have not already come there with evil morals soon begin to be corrupted, and then, when all bonds of right and duty are broken, they fall away into all hateful vices. Nor in this do they take any pity on the weakness of sex or age, so that we are ashamed to mention the crimes and outrages they commit in seeking out and selling women and children, wherein it may be truly said that they have surpassed the worst examples of pagan iniquity."

"Jesus Christ could have freed Himself from the hands of Pilate and the Jews, but knowing it was His Eternal Father's will that He should suffer and die for our salvation, He voluntarily submitted; nay, He Himself went forth to meet His enemies and freely permitted Himself to be taken and led to death."

"Outside the true Church are: Infidels, Jews, heretics, apostates, schismatics, and the excommunicated."

"The Jews are those who profess the Law of Moses; have not received baptism; and do not believe in Jesus Christ."

"Gerusalemme must not get into the hands of the Jews."

"Do not capitulate before this world, but recapitulate everything in Christ [instaurare omnia in Christo]."

"Ми чекамо Христа, а не боље време."

"Благослови непријатеље моје, Господе, и ја их благосиљам и не кунем."

"I am not dying; I am entering life."

"One day she was playing on the swing when her father passed and called to her, "Come and give me a kiss, my little queen." Dérange-toi, Papa! Thérèse replied pertly — an untranslatable compound of "Come for it yourself" and "If you want it, you'll have to go the trouble of getting it", with perhaps even, "Don't be so lazy." Her father went by with a grave expression, but without a word, while Marie said: "You naughty little thing, how can you be so rude to your father?" I got off the swing at once; I had really learned my lesson, and the whole house echoed with my cries of contrition."

"Since the age of three I have refused God nothing."

"It seems to me that if a little flower could speak, it would tell simply what God has done for it without trying to hide its blessings. It would not say, under the pretext of a false humility, it is not beautiful and without perfume, that the sun has taken away its splendor and the storm has broken its stem when it knows that all this is untrue. The flower about to tell her story rejoices at having to publish the totally gratuitous gifts of Jesus. She knows that nothing in herself was capable of attracting the divine glances, and His mercy alone brought about everything that is good in her."

"My happy disposition completely changed after Mamma's death. I, once so full of life, became timid and retiring, sensitive to an excessive degree. One look was enough to reduce me to tears, and the only way I was content was to be left completely alone. I could not bear the company of strangers and found my joy only within the intimacy of the family."

"I do not have the courage to force myself to search out beautiful prayers in books. There are so many of them it really gives me a headache! and each prayer is more beautiful than the others. I cannot recite them all and not knowing which to choose, I do like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me. For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus."

"Even if I had all the crimes possible on my conscience, I am sure I should lose none of my confidence. Heartbroken with repentance, I would simply throw myself into my Saviour's arms, for I know how much He loves the prodigal son. I have heard what He said to Mary Magdalene, to the woman taken in adultery, and the Samaritan woman. No one can make me frightened any more, because I know what to believe about His mercy and His love; I know that in the twinkling of an eye all those thousands of sins would be consumed as a drop of water cast into a blazing fire."

"I thank Our Lord that He let me find nothing but bitterness in human affections. I should have been caught easily, and had my wings clipped...Our Lord knew that I was far too weak to face temptation; He knew that I would certainly have burnt myself in the bewildering light of earthly things, and so He did not let it shine in my eyes. Where stronger souls find joy but remain detached because they are faithful, I found only misery."

"In spite of everything, I feel that I am filled with courage; I am sure that God is not going to abandon me. [-]Oh. I want to refuse Him [Jesus] nothing, and even though I feel sad and alone on this earth, He still remains with me. And has not St. Teresa said: God alone suffices. ""

"M. Révérony said immediately: "Most Holy Father, this is a child who wants to enter Carmel at fifteen, but the superiors are considering the matter at this moment." (The good pope is so old that one would say he is dead; I would never have pictured him like this.) The Holy Father said simply: "If God wills it, you will enter." [-]I was crying a lot when writing this letter; my heart is heavy. However, God cannot give me trials that are above my strength. He has given me the courage to bear this trial. I am the Child Jesus' little ball;if He wishes to break His toy, He is free. Yes, I will all that He wills."

"I find that trials help very much in detaching us from this earth. They make us look higher than this world. Here below, nothing can satisfy us. We cannot enjoy a little rest except in being ready to do God's will. [-] Truly, life isn't cheerful. It is very difficult to be attached to it. Au revoir, dear Pauline, my Confidante."

"I assure you that God is much better than you believe."

"Saint Thérèse and the followers of the little way seem to perpetuate the words: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 18:3)."

"Lady Aparecida, a son of yours who belongs to you unreservedly – "totus tuus" – called by the mysterious plan of Providence to be the Vicar of your Son on earth, wishes to address you at this moment. He recalls with emotion, because of the brown color of this image of yours, another image of yours, the Black Virgin of Jasna Gora."

"Mother of God and our Mother, protect the Church, the Pope, the bishops, the priests and all the faithful people; welcome under your protecting mantle men and women religious, families, children, young people, and their educations."

"Health of the sick and Consoler of the afflicted, comfort those who are suffering in body and soul; be the light of those who are seeking Christ, the Redeemer of all; show all people that you are the Mother of our confidence."

"Queen of Peace and Mirror of Justice, obtain peace for the world, ensure that Brazil and all countries may have lasting peace, that we will always live together as brothers and sisters and as children of God."

"Our Lady Aparecida, bless all your sons and daughters who pray and sing to you here and elsewhere. Amen."

"Come poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ."

"Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the field, seal Thy truth, and come home to die."

"I have just put my soul as a blank into the hand of Jesus, my Redeemer, and desired Him to write on it what He pleases; I know it will be His image."

"Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?"

"Gabriel before me Raphael behind me Michael to my right Uriel on my left side In the circle of fire."

"I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince."

"At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."

"The archangel Michael took supreme command. He reassured their minds by his serenity. His countenance, wherein his soul was visible, expressed contempt for danger."

"Michael was for the offensive. He, as a consummate soldier, said it was the supreme law. Attack, or be attacked, — there was no middle course. "Moreover," he added, "the offensive attitude is particularly suitable to the ardour of the Thrones and Dominations." Beyond that, it was impossible to obtain a word from the valiant chief, and this silence seemed the mark of a genius sure of himself."

"With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured the extent of the disaster, and his keen intelligence penetrated its causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one of those fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive, and the effect was evident."

"There is in heaven an accuser and a defender of man; the name of the former is Semoel and that of the latter Michael."

"ONCE UPON A TIME when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith. Valentine Michael Smith was as real as taxes but he was a race of one."

"Mike is our Prometheus — but that's all. Mike keeps emphazing this. Thou art God, I am God, he is God — all that groks. Mike is a man like the rest of us. A superior man admittedly — a lesser man taught the things the Martians know, might have set himself up as a pipsqueak god. Mike is above that temptation. Prometheus… but that is all."

"Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves."

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."

"David is the song upon God's lips, And Our Lady is the goblet that He sips: And Gabriel's the breath of His command, But Saint Michael is the sword in God's right hand. The Ivory Tower is fair to see, And may her walls encompass me! But when the Devil comes with the thunder of his might, Saint Michael, show me how to fight!"

"And the angel's body was bared, and he was clothed in light so that eye could not look on him; and his voice grew louder, as though it came not from him but from heaven above. And the angel said: I have learnt that all men live not by care for themselves, but by love. It was not given to the mother to know what her children needed for their life. Nor was it given to the rich man to know what he himself needed. Nor is it given to any man to know whether, when evening comes, he will need boots for his body or slippers for his corpse. I remained alive when I was a man, not by care of myself, but because love was present in a passer-by, and because he and his wife pitied and loved me. The orphans remained alive, not because of their mother's care, but because there was love in the heart of a woman a stranger to them, who pitied and loved them. And all men live not by the thought they spend on their own welfare, but because love exists in man. I knew before that God gave life to men and desires that they should live; now I understood more than that. I understood that God does not wish men to live apart, and therefore he does not reveal to them what each one needs for himself; but he wishes them to live united, and therefore reveals to each of them what is necessary for all. I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love."

"Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting in his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men."

"Let that ancient dragon, Cadalus, take note. Let this disturber of the Church, this destroyer of apostolic discipline, this enemy of man’s salvation understand. Let him beware, I say, this root of all sin, this herald of the devil, this apostle of Antichrist. And what else shall I call him? He is the arrow drawn from the quiver of Satan, the rod of the Assyrian, the son Belial, "the son of perdition, who rises in his pride against every god, so called, ever object of men’s worship" (2 Thess. 2:3-4), the whirlpool of lust, the shipwreck of chastity, the disgrace of Christianity, the ignominy of bishops, the progeny of vipers, the stench or the world, the filth of the ages, the shame of the universe. Still more epithets for Cadalus can be added, a list of darksome names: slippery snake, a twisting serpent, the dung of humanity, the latrine of crime, the dregs of vice, the abomination of heaven the expulsion from paradise, the fodder of hell, the stubble of eternal fire."

"But now, coming to your shameless assertion that ministers of the altar should be allowed to marry, I consider it superfluous to unsheathe the sword of my own words against you, since we see the armed forces of the whole Church and the massed array of all the holy Fathers ready to resist you. And where so great a host of heavenly troops opposes you, one can only wonder that your novel and rash attempt at doctrine does not submit when confronted by such authority."

"But you, my lord and venerable pope, you who take the place of Christ, and the successor to the supreme shepherd in apostolic dignity, do not through sloth allow this pestilence to grow, do not by conniving and dissimulation loosen the reins on this raging impurity. This disease is spreading like a cancer, and its poisonous breed will reach out endlessly unless its evil growth is cut off by the scythe of the gospel."

"But if I have erred in anything, I gladly come before the teaching authority of Peter."

"Sanctum Satanum meum."

"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."

"William Carey's empathy for Indians was expressed in a speech before Lord Wellesley at a public disputation of the college: I, now an old man, have lived for a long series of years among the Hindoos. I have been in the habit of preaching to multitudes daily, of discoursing with the Brahmans on every subject, and of superintending schools for the instruction of the Hindoo youth. Their language is as familiar to me as my own. This close intercourse with the natives for so long a period, and in different parts of our empire, had afforded me opportunities of information not inferior to those which have hitherto been presented to any other person. I may say indeed that their manners, customs, habits, and sentiments are as obvious to me as if I was myself a native."

"As our blessed Lord has required us to pray that his kingdom may come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it becomes us not only to express our desires of that event by words, but to use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of his name. In order to this, it is necessary that we should become, in some measure acquainted with the religious state of the world; and as this is an object we should be prompted to pursue, not only by the gospel of our Redeemer, but even by the feelings of humanity, so an inclination to conscientious activity therein would form one of the strongest proofs that we are the subjects of grace, and partakers of that spirit of universal benevolence and genuine philanthropy, which appear so eminent in the character of God himself."

"In one period the grossest ignorance and barbarism prevailed in the world; and afterwards, in a more enlightened age, the most daring infidelity, and contempt of God; so that the world which was once over-run with ignorance, now by wisdom knew not God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God as much as in the most barbarous ages, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Nay, as they increased in science and politeness, they ran into more abundant and extravagant idolatries."

"Yet God repeatedly made known his intention to prevail finally over all the power of the Devil, and to destroy all his works, and set up his own kingdom and interest among men, and extend it as universally as Satan had extended his. It was for this purpose that the Messiah came and died, that God might be just, and the justifier of all that should believe in him. When he had laid down his life, and taken it up again, he sent forth his disciples to preach the good tidings to every creature, and to endeavour by all possible methods to bring over a lost world to God."

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, a little before his departure, commissioned his apostles to Go, and teach all nations; or, as another evangelist expresses it, Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. This commission was as extensive as possible, and laid them under obligation to disperse themselves into every country of the habitable globe, and preach to all the inhabitants, without exception, or limitation. They accordingly went forth in obedience to the command, and the power of God evidently wrought with them."

"The Missionaries must be men of great piety, prudence, courage, and forbearance; of undoubted orthodoxy in their sentiments, and must enter with all their hearts into the spirit of their mission; they must be willing to leave all the comforts of life behind them, and to encounter all the hardships of a torrid, or a frigid climate, an uncomfortable manner of living, and every other inconvenience that can attend this undertaking. … They must be very careful not to resent injuries which may be offered to them, nor to think highly of themselves, so as to despise the poor heathens, and by those means lay a foundation for their resentment, or rejection of the gospel. They must take every opportunity of doing them good, and labouring, and travelling, night and day, they must instruct, exhort, and rebuke, with all long suffering, and anxious desire for them, and, above all, must be instant in prayer for the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the people of their charge. Let but missionaries of the above description engage in the work, and we shall see that it is not impracticable. It might likewise be of importance, if God should bless their labours, for them to encourage any appearances of gifts amongst the people of their charge; if such should be raised up many advantages would be derived from their knowledge of the language, and customs of their countrymen; and their change of conduct would give great weight to their ministrations."

"If the prophecies concerning the increase of Christ's kingdom be true, and if what has been advanced, concerning the commission given by him to his disciples being obligatory on us, be just, it must be inferred that all Christians ought heartily to concur with God in promoting his glorious designs, for he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. One of the first, and most important of those duties which are incumbent upon us, is fervent and united prayer. However the influence of the Holy Spirit may be set at nought, and run down by many, it will be found upon trial, that all means which we can use, without it, will be ineffectual. If a temple is raised for God in the heathen world, it will not be by might, nor by power, nor by the authority of the magistrate, or the eloquence of the orator; but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

"The most glorious works of grace that have ever took place, have been in answer to prayer; and it is in this way, we have the greatest reason to suppose, that the glorious out-pouring of the Spirit, which we expect at last, will be bestowed."

"Many can do nothing but pray, and prayer is perhaps the only thing in which Christians of all denominations can cordially, and unreservedly unite; but in this we may all be one, and in this the strictest unanimity ought to prevail. Were the whole body thus animated by one soul, with what pleasure would Christians attend on all the duties of religion, and with what delight would their ministers attend on all the business of their calling. We must not be contented however with praying, without exerting ourselves in the use of means for the obtaining of those things we pray for. Were the children of light, but as wise in their generation as the children of this world, they would stretch every nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was to be obtained in any other way."

"Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means."

"When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”"

"As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”"

"Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.)So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick...When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died"."

"Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume."

"There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee."

"The Magdalene, Childlike in ignorance, her thought athirst For that diviner knowledge which the priests Had never taught in her far-distant home, Stood earnest listening to the words that fell From the firm lips of Jesus. Day by day They sank upon her heart like blessed rain, Calling the secret powers that lay within Deep buried, forth to beauty and to life."

"Mary Magdalene is a model for many Christian feminists."

"Not a single one of our ancient sources indicates that Jesus was married, let alone married to Mary Magdalene. All such claims are part of modern fictional reconstructions of Jesus' life, not rooted in the surviving accounts themselves. The historical approach to our sources may not be as exciting and sensationalist as fictional claims about Jesus (he kept a lover! he had sex! he made babies!), but there's something to be said for knowing what really happened in history, even if it is not as titillating as what happens in novels."

"[The Gospel of Mary is an] intriguing glimpse into a kind of Christianity lost for almost fifteen hundred years...[it] presents a radical interpretation of Jesus' teachings as a path to inner spiritual knowledge; it rejects His suffering and death as the path to eternal life; it exposes the erroneous view that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute for what it is—a piece of theological fiction; it presents the most straightforward and convincing argument in any early Christian writing for the legitimacy of women's leadership; it offers a sharp critique of illegitimate power and a utopian vision of spiritual perfection; it challenges our rather romantic views about the harmony and unanimity of the first Christians; and it asks us to rethink the basis for church authority. All written in the name of a woman."

"ἐν τούτῳ νίκα, [transliterated: en toutoi nika]"

"If any Jew has purchased and circumcised a Christian slave or one of any other sect than his own, he shall not keep the circumcised slave in servitude, but the man who has suffered this outrage shall be granted the rights of liberty."

"If a Jew has bought and circumcised a Christian slave or one belonging to any other religious community, he may under no circumstances keep the circumcised person in slavery; rather, whoever suffers such a thing shall obtain the privilege of freedom."

"Some time ago a most salutary sanction of our constitution was promulgated, which we now make doubly noteworthy by the repetition of our law. If any Jew has acquired a Christian slave or one belonging to some other religious community, and has not shrunk from circumcising him, let the circumcised person, according to this decree, attain his freedom and enjoy its privileges. It is not right that a Jew who has circumcised a slave of this kind should keep him in slavery."

"Liberis Mentibus"

"When we, Constantine and , emperors, had an interview at Milan, and conferred together with respect to the good and security of the commonweal, it seemed to us that, amongst those things that are profitable to mankind in general, the reverence paid to the Divinity merited our first and chief attention, and that it was proper that the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best; so that that God, who is seated in heaven, might be benign and propitious to us, and to every one under our government. And therefore we judged it a salutary measure, and one highly consonant to right reason, that no man should be denied leave of attaching himself to the rites of the Christians, or to whatever other religion his mind directed him, that thus the supreme Divinity, to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might continue to vouchsafe His favour and beneficence to us. And accordingly we give you to know that, without regard to any provisos in our former orders to you concerning the Christians, all who choose that religion are to be permitted, freely and absolutely, to remain in it, and not to be disturbed any ways, or molested. And we thought fit to be thus special in the things committed to your charge, that you might understand that the indulgence which we have granted in matters of religion to the Christians is ample and unconditional; and perceive at the same time that the open and free exercise of their respective religions is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians. For it befits the well-ordered state and the tranquillity of our times that each individual be allowed, according to his own choice, to worship the Divinity; and we mean not to derogate aught from the honour due to any religion or its votaries."

"This is certainly the Will of the Supreme God, who is the Author of this world and its Father, (through whose goodness we enjoy life, look up to heaven, and rejoice in the society of our fellow-men), that the whole human race should agree together and be joined in a certain affectionate union by, as it were, a mutual embrace... Let us...my Brothers, follow after the things that are ours, let us walk in the way of the Commandments, let us by good actions keep the Divine Precepts, let us free our life from errors and with the help of the mercy of God, let us direct it along the right path"

"How pleasing to the wise and intelligent portion of mankind is the concord which exists among you! And I myself, brethren, am disposed to love you with an enduring affection, inspired both by religion, and by your own manner of life and zeal on my behalf. It is by the exercise of right understanding and sound discretion, that we are enabled really to enjoy our blessings...Indeed, amongst brethren, whom the selfsame disposition to walk in the ways of truth and righteousness promises, through the favor of God, to register among his pure and holy family, what can be more honorable than gladly to acquiesce in the prosperity of all men?...O holy faith, who givest us in our Saviour's words and precepts a model, as it were, of what our life should be, how hardly wouldst thou thyself resist the sins of men, were it not that thou refusest to subserve the purposes of gain! In my own judgment, he whose first object is the maintenance of peace, seems to be superior to Victory herself; and where a right and honorable course lies open to one's choice, surely no one would hesitate to adopt it. I ask then, brethren, why do we so decide as to inflict an injury on others by our choice? Why do we covet those objects which will destroy the credit of our own reputation?...Lastly, in accordance with your usual sound judgment, do ye exhibit a becoming diligence in selecting the person of whom you stand in need, carefully avoiding all factious and tumultuous clamor; for such clamor is always wrong, and from the collision of discordant elements both sparks and flame will arise. I protest, as I desire to please God and you, and to enjoy a happiness commensurate with your kind wishes, that I love you, and the quiet haven of your gentleness, now that you have cast from you that which defiled, and received in its place at once sound morality and concord, firmly planting in the vessel the sacred standard, and guided, as one may say, by a helm of iron in your course onward to the light of heaven."

"By keeping the Divine faith, I am made a partaker of the light of truth: guided by the light of truth, I advance in the knowledge of the Divine faith. Hence it is that, as my actions themselves evince, I profess the most holy religion; and this worship I declare to be that which teaches me deeper acquaintance with the most holy God; aided by whose Divine power, beginning from the very borders of the ocean, I have aroused each nation of the world in succession to a well-grounded hope of security; so that those which, groaning in servitude to the most cruel tyrants and yielding to the pressure of their daily sufferings, had well nigh been utterly destroyed, have been restored through my agency to a far happier state. This God I confess that I hold in unceasing honor and remembrance; this God I delight to contemplate with pure and guileless thoughts in the height of his glory. THIS God I invoke with bended knees, and recoil with horror from the blood of sacrifices from their foul and detestable odors, and from every earth-born magic fire: for the profane and impious superstitions which are defiled by these rites have cast down and consigned to perdition many, nay, whole nations of the Gentile world. For he who is Lord of all cannot endure that those blessings which, in his own loving-kindness and consideration of the wants of men he has revealed for the rise of all, should be perverted to serve the lusts of any. His only demand from man is purity of mind and an undefiled spirit; and by this standard he weighs the actions of virtue and godliness. For his pleasure is in works of moderation and gentleness: he loves the meek, and hates the turbulent spirit: delighting in faith, he chastises unbelief: by him all presumptuous power is broken down, and he avenges the insolence of the proud. While the arrogant and haughty are utterly overthrown, he requires the humble and forgiving with deserved rewards: even so does he highly honor and strengthen with his special help a kingdom justly governed, and maintains a prudent king in the tranquility of peace. I CANNOT, then, my brother believe that I err in acknowledging this one God, the author and parent of all things: whom many of my predecessors in power, led astray by the madness of error, have ventured to deny... For I myself have witnessed the end of those who lately harassed the worshipers of God by their impious edict. And for this abundant thanksgivings are due to God that through his excellent Providence all men who observe his holy laws are gladdened by the renewed enjoyment of peace. Hence I am fully persuaded that everything is in the best and safest posture, since God is vouchsafing, through the influence of their pure and faithful religious service, and their unity of judgment respecting his Divine character, to gather all men to himself"

"The first person to establish public clinics throughout the Roman Empire where the poor, the injured and the helpless received medical care, was the Emperor Constantine. This great king was the first Roman ruler to champion the Cause of Christ. He spared no efforts, dedicating his life to the promotion of the principles of the Gospel, and he solidly established the Roman government, which in reality had been nothing but a system of unrelieved oppression, on moderation and justice. His blessed name shines out across the dawn of history like the morning star, and his rank and fame among the world's noblest and most highly civilized is still on the tongues of Christians of all denominations."

"Constantine declared his own will equivalent to a canon of the Church. According to Justinian, the Roman people had formally transferred to the emperors the entire plenitude of its authority, and, therefore, the emperor’s pleasure, expressed by edict or by letter, had force of law. Even in the fervent age of its conversion the empire employed its refined civilization, the accumulated wisdom of ancient sages, the reasonableness and subtlety of Roman law, and the entire inheritance of the Jewish, the pagan, and the Christian world, to make the Church serve as a gilded crutch of absolutism."

"Constantine fostered an atmosphere of religious liberty … Since it favored all religions equally, the edict expressed a policy of religious liberty, not toleration. ... All should try to share the benefits of their religious understanding with others, but no one should force his or her truth upon another. … (for according to Constantine)... "It is one thing acting with free will to enter into contest for immortality, another to compel others to do so by force through the fear of punishment. No one should greatly trouble another, rather, everyone should follow what his soul prefers. ... This edict is a paradigmatic statement of concord. … Since Constantine hopes that common fellowship and the persuasion "of those who believe" will lead everyone freely to choose (what he called) the straight path, he indicates his wish that religious unity will ultimately evolve."

"After his victory at the Milvian Bridge, faithful to his promise, Constantine favors the church from which he has received support. Catholic Christianity becomes the state religion and an exchange takes place: the church is invested with political power, and it invests the emperor with religious power. We have here the same perversion, for how can Jesus manifest himself in the power of domination and constraint? We have to say here very forcefully that we see here the perversion of revelation by participation in politics, by the seeking of power. The church lets itself be seduced, invaded, dominated by the ease with which it can now spread the gospel by force (another force than that of God) and use its influence to make the state, too, Christian. It is great acquiescence to the temptation Jesus himself resisted, for when Satan offers to give him all the kingdoms of the earth, Jesus refuses, but the church accepts."

"Constantine may have been a lifelong pagan but he was also a pragmatist and in 325 Anno Domini he decided to unify Rome under a single religion, Christianity.… And to strengthen this new Christian tradition, Constantine held a famous ecumenical gathering known as the Council of Nicaea, and at this council the many sects of Christianity debated and voted on well, everything from the acceptance and rejection of specific gospels to the date for Easter to the ministry of sacrament, and of course, the immortality of Jesus."

"When Constantine assumed the throne in 306, Christianity was little more than an esoteric Eastern sect."

"Naturally, the actual result of the tetrarchy was protracted civil war; but out of this came Christianity’s big break. In the autumn of AD 312, as Constantine was preparing to fight his rival emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over the river Tiber, he looked to the heavens and saw a blazing cross above the sun, accompanied by the Greek words “in this sign, conquer” (ἐν τούτῳ νίκα). He took this to be a message from the god of the Christians: clearly a god more who at that moment appeared to be more interested in battles and politics than in his son Jesus Christ’s programme of charity, forgiveness and reconciliation. In any case, Constantine routed his enemies: Maxentius drowned in the Tiber and was posthumously decapitated. Constantine was now on his way to abolishing the tetrarchy and establishing himself as a single emperor to rule over all. From that moment onwards he heaped all the fruits of imperial patronage on Christian bishops and believers. His soldiers went into battle with the Chi-Rho daubed on their shields. Officials from across the empire were told to enforce a new imperial edict issued in Milan in AD 313, which promised non-discrimination against Christians. In Rome, building works began on what would become St. John Lateran and St. Peter’s. In Jerusalem, the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre was commissioned, to mark the spot where Christ had been crucified and entombed. (Later rumour, which assumed enormous significance during the Middle Ages, had it that Constantine’s mother Helena had found the timber of Christ’s cross during a visit in AD 327.) And in AD 330, Constantine formally founded Constantinople, a new imperial capital in the east at Byznatium (Byzantion, now Istanbul) and filled it with monumental Christian churches."

"Constantine – a hard-headed general whose attempts at preaching to his courtiers were at best stilted and most likely totally inept – was a rather unlikely figure to have launched Christianity on its path, and his reasons for having suddenly cleaved so closely to the faith are still a matter of debate. For generations ordinary Romans continued to balance Christian beliefs with their old fondness for traditional gods and pagan rituals. Yet the power of Constantine’s decision in the early fourth century AD is undeniable. Before him, Christians were hounded, hated, and regarded as fodder for the wild beasts of the arena. After him, Christianity was propelled from an unpopular fringe cult to the central worship system in the empire. It was – perhaps appropriately – miraculous."

"Ever since the day when God revealed to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees until the Creed and the Acts of the Council of Nicea were proclaimed and enforced by an imperial edict of Constantine amidst the horror and protests of three-fourths of the true believing members in A.D. 325, never has the Oneness of God so officially and openly been profaned by those who pretended to be His people as Constantine and his gang of the unbelieving ecclesiastic!"

"In principle he (Constantine) treated religion as a matter of choice and conscience, an arena free of state meddling...Liberis mentibus — "With Free minds" — all are to worship their Gods. It is a remarkable policy, an unexpected one, since it would have been natural for a ruler after his conversion to Christianity to shift all the previous relations. … Most of the apologists who defended the Church in the early centuries advocated freedom of religion...the latin rhetor Lactantius developed a theological arguement for religious freedom. Lactantius was close enough to Constantine later to serve as tutor to the emperor's sons, and his influence is evident in many ways in Constantine's own writings. …He (Lactantius) asked those who believed in compulsion of religion: "What good can you do, then, if you defile the body but cannot break the will?" It is a surprisingly modern statement, arguing, that religious freedom is the "first freedom", rooted in the very nature of religious life as an exercise of free will...Under Constantine's policy of concord, the Church was flooded with new converts, not through coercion but by force of Imperial example...Eventually, Christian Emperors abandoned Constantinian religious policy. ... Constantine favoured the Church but gave serious attention to protecting the rights of non-Christians. One cannot help but muse how European history would have been different if Christians had had the patience to let Constantine's original settlement alone."

"In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto him: "All this power will I give unto thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine." Jesus, as we know, answered and said "Get thee behind me, Satan!" And he really meant it; he would have nothing to do with worldly glory, with "temporal power;" he chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death of a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his church followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian gospel. The early Christians had "all things in common, except women;" they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil. But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest religion."

"It is a bitter thought, how different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine."

"For the early Church, "church" and "world" were visibly distinct yet affirmed in faith to have one and the same lord. This pair of affirmations is what the so-called Constantinian transformation changes (I here use the name of Constantine merely as a label for this transformation, which began before AD200 and took over 200 years; the use of his name does not mean an evaluation of his person or work). The most pertinent fact about the new state of things after Constantine and Augustine is not that Christinas were no longer persecuted and began to be privileged, nor that emperors built churches and presided over ecumenical deliberations about the Trinity; what matters is that the two visible realities, church and world, were fused. There is no longer anything to call "world"; state, economy, art, rhetoric, superstition, and war have all been baptized."

"Posterity remembered him as the founder of the Christian Roman empire. But to his family, he was a ruthless killer. Constantine executed more of his relatives than any other emperor, and set a bloody example for his sons."

"In the relics of the saints the Lord Christ has provided us with saving fountains which in many ways pour out benefactions and gush with fragrant ointment. And let no one disbelieve. For, if by the will of God water poured out of the precipitous living rock in the desert, and for the thirsty Sampson from the jawbone of an ass, is it unbelievable that fragrant ointment should flow from the relics of the martyrs? Certainly not, at least for such as know the power of God and the honor which the saints have from Him."

"Alternate translation: Christ gives us the relics of saints as health-giving springs through which flow blessings and healing. This should not be doubted. For if at God’s word water gushed from hard rock in the wilderness-yes, and from an ass’s jawbone when Samson was thirsty -why should it seem incredible that healing medicine should distill from the relics of saints"

"The Christianocategori, or Accusers of Christians, are such and are so called, because those Christians who worship one living and true God praised in Trinity they accused of worshiping as gods, after the manner of the Greeks, the venerable images of our Lord Jesus Christ, of our immaculate lady, the holy Mother of God, of the holy angels, and of His saints.They are furthermore called Iconoclasts, because they have shown deliberate dishonor to all these same holy and venerable images and have consigned them to be broken up and burnt. Likewise, some of those painted on walls they have scraped off, while others they have obliterated with whitewash and black paint. They are also called Thymoleontes, or Lion-hearted, because, taking advantage of their authority, they have with great heart given strength to their heresy and with torment and torture visited vengeance upon those who approve of the images."

"Images are books for the illiterate and silent heralds of the honor of the saints, teaching those who see with a soundless voice and sanctifying the sight."

"Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam non habet matrem."

"Salus extra ecclesiam non est."

"For the helmsman is recognized in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved."

"It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God. It is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy."

"Since we have Christ as our Advocate with the Father for our sins, when we pray on account of our faults, we use the very words of our Advocate."

"Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion."

"Hence turn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind of spectacle. In the theatres also you will behold what may well cause you grief and shame. It is the tragic buskin which relates in verse the crimes of ancient days. The old horrors of parricide and incest are unfolded in action calculated to express the image of the truth, so that, as the ages pass by, any crime that was formerly committed may not be forgotten. Each generation is reminded by what it hears, that whatever has once been done may be done again. Crimes never die out by the lapse of ages; wickedness is never abolished by process of time; impiety is never buried in oblivion. Things which have now ceased to be actual deeds of vice become examples."

"Think not that you are thus maintaining the Gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ."

"Humi iacent fessa laboribus viscera, sed poena non est cum Christo iacere. Squalent sine balneis membra situ et sorde deformia, sed spiritaliter intus abluitur quod foris carnaliter sordidatur."

"That it has pleased God to make Holy Scripture obscure in certain places lest, if it were perfectly clear to all, it might be vulgarized and subjected to disrespect or be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error."

"Dilexi iustitiam et odi iniquitatem; propterea morior in exilio."

"The importance of status is vividly illustrated by perhaps the most celebrated summit in German history: the meeting at Canossa in 1077 between Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. In German this is known as der Canossagang, the journey to Canossa; more aptly in Italian as l’umiliazione di Canossa, for it was truly a humiliation. In the Investiture Controversy—the power struggle between pope and emperor over the right to appoint bishops—Henry had renounced Gregory as pope, only to find himself excommunicated. This papal edict not only imperilled Henry’s immortal soul, it also laid him open to revolt by the German nobility. He sought a meeting with Gregory who, fearing violence, retreated to the castle of Canossa, in safe territory south of Parma. This forced the emperor to come to him. What exactly happened is shrouded in legend, but supposedly Henry arrived in the depths of winter, barefoot and in a pilgrim’s hair shirt, only to be kept waiting by Gregory for three days. When he was finally admitted to the castle on January 28, 1077, the emperor knelt before the pope and begged forgiveness. He was absolved and the two most powerful figures in Christendom then shared the Mass."

"The reconciliation was short-lived. After being excommunicated a second time Henry crossed the Alps with his army and replaced Gregory with an “antipope” of his own. But the events themselves matter less than the myth that grew up around them. During the German Reformation Henry was lionized as the defender of national rights and the scourge of the Catholic pope, often being dubbed “the first Protestant.” And during Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s struggle to rein in the Catholic church, he famously declared in the Reichstag on May 14, 1872: “We will not go to Canossa, neither in body nor in spirit.” He was voicing the new German Reich’s resolve to accept no outside interference in its affairs—political or religious. As a result Henry IV shivering outside the gates of Canossa became a familiar figure in late-nineteenth-century German art; the phrase “to go to Canossa” (nach Canossa gehen) entered the language as a synonym for craven surrender— almost the equivalent of “Munich” to the British and Americans."

"As a mere constellation of talent in different fields Anselm, Gregory VII and William the Conqueror were the greatest men in Europe during this period... William and Gregory were men of action of a kind rare at any time, but almost unknown in the Middle Ages: they were creators who dealt intuitively with confused situations, having little in precedent or business routine or learned construction to guide them. Gregory had an energy of purpose and clarity of vision in practical affairs for which no parallel can be found in these centuries."

"Religion, and it can merge into nationalism as orthodoxy does with the Serbs and the Russians, offers both a cause worth dying for and the promise of eternal life. The crusaders did not leave their homes all over Europe and make the long and dangerous journey to the Holy Land just to acquire loot and land. There was more and better to be had much closer to home. They were driven by what they thought was a divine mission, to retrieve the land where Christ had once lived for Christendom. Many crusaders – kings such as Richard I of England, the Lionheart, and Philip II of France and great landed magnates – left behind properties, position and families and many never returned. Egged on by religious leaders such as Pope Gregory VII, who reminded the faithful of the passage from the Book of Jeremiah ‘Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood’, they killed indiscriminately those they thought of as infidels. In the massacres in Jerusalem in 1099 the streets were said to have run with blood, in some places up to the knees of the crusaders’ horses. ‘None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared,’ said a contemporary account."

"I encouraged them, each who was able, to serve the Fatherland...I have done this [volunteered] because I believe I must be a good example for my community."

"And now go and serve your fatherland."

"These unfortunate patients must die but rather because, in the opinion of some department, on the testimony of some commission, they have become 'worthless life' because according to this testimony they are 'unproductive national comrades.' The argument goes: they can no longer produce commodities, they are like an old machine that no longer works, they are like an old horse which has become incurably lame, they are like a cow which no longer gives milk."

"What does one do with such an old machine? It is thrown on the scrap heap. What does one do with a lame horse, with such an unproductive cow? No, I do not want to continue the comparison to the end--however fearful the justification for it and the symbolic force of it are. We are not dealing with machines, horses and cows whose only function is to serve mankind, to produce goods for man. One may smash them, one may slaughter them as soon as they no longer fulfil this function. No, we are dealing with human beings, our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters. With poor people, sick people, if you like unproductive people. But have they for that reason forfeited the right to life?"

"Have you, have I the right to live only so long as we are productive, so long as we are recognized by others as productive?"

"If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill 'unproductive' fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill the unproductive people then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one's unproductive fellow human beings then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill 'unproductive' fellow humans--and even if initially it only affects the poor defenseless mentally ill--then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people, in other words for the incurably sick, the people who have become invalids through labor and war, for us all when we become old, frail and therefore unproductive."

"Then, it is only necessary for some secret edict to order that the method developed for the mentally ill should be extended to other 'unproductive' people, that it should be applied to those suffering from incurable lung disease, to the elderly who are frail or invalids, to the severely disabled soldiers. Then none of our lives will be safe any more. Some commission can put us on the list of the 'unproductive,' who in their opinion have become worthless life. And no police force will protect us and no court will investigate our murder and give the murderer the punishment he deserves."

"Who will be able to trust his doctor any more? He may report his patient as 'unproductive' and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed."

"Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment 'Thou shalt not kill,' which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished."

"It is just not true that, in the summer of 1933, when the name Galen was announced as the new Bishop, the whole diocese broke out in rejoicing...Nor is it the case that Galen was immediately recognized as being a great opponent of the despotic regime. On the contrary,the pugnacious pastor of St Lambert's was regarded, to put it bluntly, as a Nazi."

"Learn to commend thy daily acts to God, so shall the dry every-day duties of common life be steps to Heaven, and lift thy heart thither."

"In all adversity, what God takes away He may give us back with increase."

"The Book of Daniel is especially fitted to be a battle-field between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half-way measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write any book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is, in any case, a forgery, dishonest in itself, and destructive of all trustworthiness. But the case as to the Book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far beyond even this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a most frightful scale."

"Human praise and human blame are mostly valueless, because men know not the whole which they praise or blame."

"Never dwell on the morrow. Remember that it is God's, not thine."

"Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch."

"Fix, by God's help, not only to root out this sin, but to set thyself to gain, by that same help, the opposite grace. If thou art tempted to be angry, try hard, by God's grace, to be very meek; if to be proud, seek to be very humble."

"Practice in life whatever thou prayest for, and God will give it thee more abundantly."

"God does not take away trials, or carry us over them, but strengthens us through them."

"Lord, without Thee I can do nothing; with Thee I can do all. Accept, Good Lord, this my desire; help me by Thy grace, that I fall not; help me by Thy strength, to resist mightily the very first beginnings of evil, before it takes hold of me; help me to cast myself at once at Thy sacred Feet, and lie still there, until the storm be overpast; and, if I lose sight of Thee, bring me back quickly to Thee, and grant me to love Thee better, for Thy tender mercy's sake."

"Let me not seek out of Thee what I can find only in Thee, peace and rest and joy and bliss, which abide only in Thy abiding joy. Lift up my soul above the weary round of harassing thoughts to Thy eternal Presence. Lift up my soul to the pure, bright, clear, serene, radiant atmosphere of Thy Presence, that there I may breathe freely, there repose in Thy love, there be at rest from myself, and from all things which weary me; thence return, arrayed with Thy peace, to do and bear what shall please Thee. Amen."

"While Newman's dialectical explanation allows us to follow this very process, we have to look for the most genuine expression of mystical communion with God, not in him, but in the first instance in Pusey. That he is properly the doctor mysticus in earlier Neo-Anglicanism, has scarcely received sufficient notice from its historians. In his biography the multiplicity of trivial daily affairs has partly concealed this deep and genuine well-spring in the soul. But it seems to me of the greatest importance for comprehending the place of sacramental religion in Neo-Anglicanism."

"There is complete unity in Pusey's ecclesiastical work. He believed that the true doctrines of the church of England were enshrined in the writings of the fathers and Anglican divines of the seventeenth century, but that the malign influences of whig indifferentism, deism, and ultra-protestantism, had obscured their significance. To spread among churchmen the conviction that on the doctrines of the fathers and early Anglican divines alone could religion be based was Pusey's main purpose. With this aim he set out in company with Newman and Keble. At its inception the movement occasioned secessions to Rome which seriously weakened the English church, and seemed to justify the storm of adverse criticism which the Oxford reformers encountered. Unmoved by obloquy, Pusey, although after the secession of Newman he stood almost alone, never swerved from his original purpose. He possessed no supreme gifts of rhetoric, of literary persuasiveness, or of social strategy. Yet the movement which he in middle life championed almost single-handed proceeded on its original lines with such energy and success as entirely to change the aspect of the Anglican church. This fact constitutes Pusey's claim to commemoration. Of himself he wrote with characteristic self-effacement when reviewing his life: ‘My life has been spent in a succession of insulated efforts, bearing indeed upon one great end—the growth of catholic truth and piety among us.’"

"At that time indeed (from 1823) I had the intimacy of my dear and true friend Dr. Pusey, and could not fail to admire and revere a soul so devoted to the cause of religion, so full of good works, so faithful in his affection."

"His great learning, his immense diligence, his scholarlike mind, his simple devotion to the cause of religion, overcame me; and great of course was my joy, when in the last days of 1833 he showed a disposition to make common cause with us... He at once gave to us a position and a name. Without him we should have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ Church; he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy relations with University authorities. He was to the Movement all that Mr. Rose might have been, with that indispensable addition, which was wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and the familiar daily society of the persons who had commenced it. And he had that special claim on their attachment, which lies in the living presence of a faithful and loyal affectionateness. There was henceforth a man who could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the country, who were adopting the new opinions; and not only so, but there was one who furnished the Movement with a front to the world, and gained for it a recognition from other parties in the University... Dr. Pusey was, to use the common expression, a host in himself; he was able to give a name, a form, and a personality to what was without him a sort of mob; and when various parties had to meet together in order to resist the liberal acts of the Government, we of the Movement took our place by right among them."

"He was a man of large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual perplexities."

"Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. He saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts and in the whole Movement. It was through him that the character of the Tracts was changed."

"Dr. Pusey was the only member of the Tractarian School to whom the Evangelical party had any kind of attraction. His piety was not only most real, but it was of a popular and impressive character. He had also a way peculiarly his own, and entirely consistent with sincerity and simplicity, of rounding off the sharp edges of the strong and offensive statements of others, and thus presenting them under a far less odious aspect to those who disliked them. Hence Dr. Pusey had a definite and most important place in the movement. While it was Mr. Newman's office to stimulate, and his misfortune to startle, to Dr. Pusey, on the other hand, belonged the work of soothing and the ministry of conciliation. He was the St. Barnabas of the movement."

"For an hour Pusey would wrestle with the argument and the theology of his subject, bringing all his masses of thought and erudition to bear on the establishment of his doctrine. Then his method and attitude would suddenly change. He would lift his eyes from his manuscript to the Undergraduates' Gallery, and, addressing us as "My sons," would give us a quarter of an hour of directly personal appeal; searching the heart's secrets, urging repentance, and exhorting to a way of life more consistent with our Divine vocation. Then indeed we seemed to be listening to the voice of a god."

"Intensely and fearfully as I differed from him in many points of unspeakable importance, I could not but love the man. Had known him for sixty years! Was at college with him. We read Aristotle to each other; but while I formed a correct opinion of his diligence, I had not formed, at that time, a correct one of his powers. He has had a prodigious effect on his generation. I greatly admired his talents, fully acknowledged and wondered at his immense learning, and reverenced his profound piety. His work on Daniel exhibits all the three; and surely he was called and supported by our Lord in that illustrious effort of wisdom, labour, and courage."

"Our third conflict is against covetousness which we can describe as the love of money; a foreign warfare, and one outside of our nature. ... For the rest of the incitements to sin planted in human nature seem to have their commencement as it were congenital with us, and somehow being deeply rooted in our flesh, and almost cœval with our birth, anticipate our powers of discerning good and evil, and although in very early days they attack a man, yet they are overcome with a long struggle.But this disease coming upon us at a later period, and approaching the soul from without, as it can be the more easily guarded against and resisted, so, if it is disregarded and once allowed to gain an entrance into the heart, is the more dangerous to every one, and with the greater difficulty expelled. For it becomes "a root of all evils" [1 Timothy 6:10] and gives rise to a multiplicity of incitements to sin."

"Some faults grow up without any natural occasion giving birth to them, but simply from the free choice of a corrupt and evil will, as envy and this very sin of covetousness; which are caught (so to speak) from without, having no origination in us from natural instincts. But these, in proportion as they are easily guarded against and readily avoided, just so do they make wretched the mind that they have got hold of and seized, and hardly do they suffer it to get at the remedies which would cure it."

"Having laid the foundations badly, they [covetous souls] are unworthy to raise an edifice of virtue and reach the summit of perfection."

"With the increase of wealth the mania of covetousness increases."

"Gold and the love of gain become to him his god, as the belly does to others. Wherefore the blessed Apostle, looking out on the deadly poison of this pest, not only says that it is a root of all kinds of evil, but also calls it the worship of idols, saying "And covetousness (which in Greek is called φιλαργυρία) which is the worship of idols." [Colossians 3:5] You see then to what a downfall this madness step by step leads, so that by the voice of the Apostle it is actually declared to be the worship of idols and false gods, because passing over the image and likeness of God (which one who serves God with devotion ought to preserve undefiled in himself), it chooses to love and care for images stamped on gold instead of God."

"It is an impossibility for him who, overcome in the matter of a small possession, has once admitted into his heart a root of evil desire, not to be inflamed presently with the heat of a still greater desire."

"We must not only guard against the possession of money, but also must expel from our souls the desire for it. For we should not so much avoid the results of covetousness, as cut off by the roots all disposition towards it. For it will do no good not to possess money, if there exists in us the desire for getting it."

"It is possible that those who are in no way pressed down with the weight of money may be condemned with the covetous in disposition and intent. For it was the opportunity of possessing which was wanting in their case, and not the will for it."

"How will he see to cast out the mote from his brother's eye, who has the beam of anger in his own eye?"

"Wrath that is nursed in the heart, although it may not injure men who stand by, yet excludes the splendour of the radiance of the Holy Ghost, equally with wrath that is openly manifested."

"Sometimes when we have been overcome by pride or impatience, and we want to improve our rough and bearish manners, we complain that we require solitude, as if we should find the virtue of patience there where nobody provokes us: and we apologize for our carelessness, and say that the reason of our disturbance does not spring from our own impatience, but from the fault of our brethren. And while we lay the blame of our fault on others, we shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and perfection.The chief part then of our improvement and peace of mind must not be made to depend on another's will, which cannot possibly be subject to our authority, but it lies rather in our own control. And so the fact that we are not angry ought not to result from another's perfection, but from our own virtue, which is acquired, not by somebody else's patience, but by our own long-suffering."

"The holy person ... when, raised up from the earth, he contemplates all present and earthly realities as mere smoke and an empty shadow and disdains them as soon to disappear; when, with ecstatic mind, he not only ardently desires future realities but even sees them with clarity; when he is effectively fed by spiritual theoria; when he sees unlocked to himself the heavenly sacraments in all their brightness; when he sends prayers purely and swiftly to God; and when, inflamed with spiritual ardor, he passes over to invisible and eternal realities with such utter eagerness of soul that he cannot bring himself to believe that he is in the flesh."

"Yet sometimes the mind which advances to that true disposition of purity and has already begun to be rooted in it, conceiving all of these at one and the same time and rushing through them all like a kind of ungraspable and devouring flame, pours out to God wordless prayers of the purest vigor. These the Spirit itself makes to God as it intervenes with unutterable groans, unbeknownst to us, conceiving at that moment and pouring forth in wordless prayer such great things that they not only—I would say— cannot pass through the mouth but are unable even to be remembered by the mind later on."

"This prayer, then, although it seems to contain the utter fullness of perfection inasmuch as it was instituted and established on the authority of the Lord himself, nonetheless raises his familiars to that condition which we characterized previously as more sublime. It leads them by a higher stage to that fiery and, indeed, more properly speaking, wordless prayer which is known and experienced by very few. This transcends all human understanding and is distinguished not, I would say, by a sound of the voice or a movement of the tongue or a pronunciation of words. Rather, the mind is aware of it when it is illuminated by an infusion of heavenly light from it, and not by narrow human words, and once the understanding has been suspended it gushes forth as from a most abundant fountain and speaks ineffably to God, producing more in that very brief moment than the self-conscious mind is able to articulate easily or to reflect upon. Our Lord himself represented this condition in similar fashion in the form of those prayers that he is described as having poured out alone on the mountain and silently, and when he prayed in his agony he even shed drops of blood as an inimitable example of his intense purpose."

"But they alone see his Godhead with purest eyes who, mounting from humble and earthly tasks and thoughts, go off with him to the lofty mountain of the desert which, free from the uproar of every earthly thought and disturbance, removed from every taint of vice, and exalted with the purest faith and with soaring virtue, reveals the glory of his face and the image of his brightness to those who deserve to look upon him with the clean gaze of the soul."

"For the rest, Jesus is also seen by those who dwell in cities and towns and villages—that is, by those who have an active way of life and its obligations—but not with that brightness with which he appears to those who are able to climb with him the aforesaid mount of the virtues—namely, to Peter, James, and John. For it was in the desert that he appeared to Moses and spoke to Elijah."

"This will be the case when every love, every desire, every effort, every undertaking, every thought of ours, everything that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, and when that unity which the Father now has with the Son and which the Son has with the Father will be carried over into our understanding and our mind, so that, just as he loves us with a sincere and pure and indissoluble love, we too may be joined to him with a perpetual and inseparable love and so united with him that whatever we breathe, whatever we understand, whatever we speak, may be God. In him we shall attain, I say, to that end of which we spoke before, which the Lord longed to be fulfilled in us when he prayed: ‘That all may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they themselves may also be made perfect in unity.’ (John 17:22-23)"

"Not without reason has this verse [Psalms 70:1] been selected from out of the whole body of Scripture. ... ‘O God, incline unto my aid.’ ... This verse should be poured out in unceasing prayer so that we may be delivered in adversity and preserved and not puffed up in prosperity. You should, I say, meditate constantly on this verse in your heart. You should not stop repeating it when you are doing any kind of work or performing some service or are on a journey. Meditate on it while sleeping and eating and attending to the least needs of nature. This heart’s reflection, having become a saving formula for you, will not only preserve you unharmed from every attack of the demons but will also purge you of every vice and earthly taint, lead you to the theoria of invisible and heavenly realities, and raise you to that ineffably ardent prayer which is experienced by very few. Let sleep overtake you as you meditate upon this verse until you are formed by having used it ceaselessly and are in the habit of repeating it even while asleep."

"Thus we shall penetrate its meaning not through the written text but with experience leading the way. So it is that our mind will arrive at that incorruptible prayer to which, in the previous discussion, as far as the Lord deigned to grant it, the conference was ordered and directed. This is not only not laid hold of by the sight of some image, but it cannot even be grasped by any word or phrase. Rather, once the mind’s attentiveness has been set ablaze, it is called forth in an unspeakable ecstasy of heart and with an insatiable gladness of spirit, and the mind, having transcended all feelings and visible matter, pours it out to God with unutterable groans and sighs."

"For there is no one who does not know from the vastness of creation itself that the works of God are marvelous. But what he accomplishes in his holy ones by his daily activity and abundantly pours into them by his particular munificence—this no one knows but the soul which enjoys it and which, in the recesses of its conscience, is so uniquely the judge of his benefits that it cannot only not speak of them but cannot even seize them in understanding or thought when, leaving behind its fiery ardor, it falls back to gazing upon material and earthly realities."

"Let me pass over those secret and hidden dispensations of God which each holy person’s mind sees operative in a special way within itself at given moments; over that heavenly inpouring of spiritual gladness by which the downcast mind is uplifted by an inspired joy; over those fiery ecstasies of heart and the joyful consolations at once unspeakable and unheard of, by which those who occasionally fall into a listless torpor are raised as out of the deepest sleep to the most fervent prayer."

"It is inevitable that the mind which does not have a place to turn to or any stable base will undergo change from hour to hour and from minute to minute due to the variety of its distractions, and by the things that come to it from outside it will be continually transformed into whatever occurs to it at any given moment."

"Wherefore a monk's whole attention should thus be fixed on one point, and the rise and circle of all his thoughts be vigorously restricted to it; viz., to the recollection of God, as when a man, who is anxious to raise on high a vault of a round arch, must constantly draw a line round from its exact centre, and in accordance with the sure standard it gives discover by the laws of building all the evenness and roundness required...."

"Hence the most scientific classification is a rough-and-ready business at the best."

"The mystics aim (Union with Reality) is not the suppression of life but it's intensification,"

"No nation is truly defeated which retains its spiritual self-possession. No nation is truly victorious which does not emerge soul unstained."

"The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has realised it he is not a complete human being, he has not entered into possession of all his powers."

"I have merely attempted to put the view of the universe and man's place in it which is common to all mystics in plain and untechnical language: and to suggest the practical conditions under which ordinary persons may participate in their experience."

"Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a person who has attained that union in greater or less degree; or who aims at and believes in such attainment."

"Wisdom is the fruit of communion; ignorance the inevitable portion of those who "keep themselves to themselves," and stand apart, judging, analysing the things which they have truly never known."

"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they represent."

"Even the power which lurks in every coal scuttle, shines in the electric lamp, pants in the motor-omnibus, declares itself in the ineffable wonders of reproduction and growth, is supersensual."

"The visionary is a mystic when his vision mediates to him an actuality beyond the reach of the senses. The philosopher is a mystic when he passes beyond thought to the pure apprehension of truth. The active man is a mystic when he knows his actions to be part of a greater activity."

"As to the most prudent logicians might venture to deduce from a skein of wool the probable existence of a sheep; so you, from the raw stuff of perception, may venture to deduce a universe which transcends the reproductive powers of your loom."

"It is reasonable, even reassuring, that hard work and discipline should be needed for this: that it should demand of you, if not the renunciation of the cloister, at least the virtues of the golf course."

"Recollection, the art which the practical man is now invited to learn, is in essence no more and no less than the subjection of the attention to the control of the will."

"It is a lonely and arduous excursion, a sufficient test of courage and sincerity: for most men prefer to dwell in comfortable ignorance upon the lower slopes, and there to make of their obvious characteristics a drapery which shall veil the naked truth."

"For years your treasure has been in the Stock Exchange, or the House of Commons, or the Salon, or the reviews that "really count" (if they still exist), or the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; and thither your heart perpetually tends to stray. Habit has you in its chains. You are not free."

"Contemplation does not mean abject surrender to every "mystical" impression that comes in. It is no sentimental aestheticism or emotional piety to which you are being invited: nor shall the transcending of reason ever be achieved by way of spiritual silliness."

"True contemplation can only thrive when defended from two opposite exaggerations : quietism on the one hand, and spiritual fuss upon the other."

"The deeper your realisation of the plant in its wonder, the more perfect your union with the world of growth and change, the quicker, the more subtle your response to its countless sugestions; so much more acute will become your craving for Something More."

"As it is not by the methods of the laboratory that we learn to know life, so it is not by the methods of the intellect that we learn to know God."

"Going forth into the bareness and darkness of this unwalled world of high contemplation, you will find stored for you, and at last made real, all the highest values, all the dearest and noblest experiences of the world of growth and change."

"Because of that corporate life, transfusing you, giving to you and taking from you - conditioning you as it does in countless oblique and unapparent ways - you are still compelled to react in to many suggestions which you are no longer able to respect: controlled, to the last moment of your bodily existence and perhaps afterwords, by habit, custom, the good old average way of misunderstanding the world."

"The redeeming character of Franciscan enthusiasm-it's ability to change, brace and expand the most unlikely spirits and impel them to exacting discipline and selfless work-are fully shown in her. (Angela of Fogligno)."

"Francis must rank with those creative personalities to which all the deepest developments of Christian consciousness are due."

"Meekness and temperance or as we may quite properly translate, Humility and Moderation, - the graces of the self forgetful soul - manifest not in some peculiar and supernatural spiritual manner, but in ordinary human nature."

""Of course I thoroughly agree with you that Christianity was from the first essentially a mystical religion; to me, the doctrine of the New Testament is only intelligible from that standpoint."

"The helm went down hard and we just cleared the rocks.Otherwise it would have been the end of this poor craft. Our ancient skipper, who was responsible for the error in pilotage, is now wearing what is called his "stuffed monkey expression!""

"It is excellent news that you found that you had really come out strongly and self committingly for Traditional, Institutional Sacramental, Religion."

"Western civilization is passing through a social revolution unparalleled in history for scope and power. Its coming was inevitable. ...By universal consent this social crisis is the overshadowing problem of our generation."

"The social revolution has been slow in reaching our country. We have been exempt, not because we had solved the problems, but because we had not yet confronted them."

"The vastness and the free sweep of our concentrated wealth on the one side, the independence, intelligence, moral vigor, and political power of the common people on the other side, promise a long-drawn grapple of contesting forces which may well make the heart of every American patriot sink within him."

"The Church, the organized expression of the religious life of the past, is one of the most potent institutions and forces in Western civilization. ...It cannot help throwing its immense weight on one side or the other. If it tries not to act, it thereby acts; and in any case its choice will be decisive for its own future."

"Apart from the organized Church, the religious spirit is a factor of incalculable power in the making of history. In the idealistic spirits that lead and in the masses that follow, the religious spirit always intensifies thought, enlarges hope, unfetters daring, evokes the willingness to sacrifice, and gives coherence in the fight."

"Under the warm breath of religious faith all social institutions become plastic."

"The essential purpose of Christianity was to transform human society into the kingdom of God by regenerating all human relations and reconstituting them in accordance with the will of God. ...I have never met with any previous attempt to give a satisfactory historical explanation of this failure."

"The Church owns property, needs income, employs men, works on human material, and banks on its moral prestige. Its present efficiency and future standing are bound up for weal or woe with the social welfare of the people and with the outcome of the present struggle."

"I can frankly affirm that I have written with malice toward none and with charity for all. ...I have tried—so far as erring human judgment permits—to lift the issues out of the plane of personal selfishness and hate, and to put them where the white light of the just and pitying spirit of Jesus can play upon them. If I have failed in that effort, it is my sin. If others in reading fail to respond in the same spirit, it is their sin."

"In a few years all our restless and angry hearts will be quiet in death, but those who come after us will live in the world which our sins have blighted or which our love of right has redeemed."

"Let us do our thinking on these great questions, not with our eyes fixed on our bank account, but with a wise outlook on the fields of the future and with the consciousness that the spirit of the Eternal is seeking to distil from our lives, some essence of righteousness, before they pass away."

"I have written this book to discharge a debt. For eleven years I was pastor among the working people on the West Side of New York City. ...I have never ceased to feel that I owe help to the plain people who were my friends. If this book in some far-off way helps to ease the pressure that bears them down and increases the forces that bear them up, I shall meet the Master of my life with better confidence."

"History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same. It is always hungry for bread, sweaty with labor, struggling to wrest from nature and hostile men enough to feed its children. The welfare of the mass is always at odds with the selfish force of the strong."

"In so far as men have attempted to use the Old Testament as a code of model laws and institutions and have applied these to modern conditions, regardless of the historical connections, these attempts have left a trail of blunder and disaster. In so far as they have caught the spirit that burned in the hearts of the prophets and breathed in gentle humanity through the Mosaic Law, the influence of the Old Testament has been one of the great permanent forces making for democracy and social justice."

"We shall confine this brief study of the Old Testament to the prophets, because they are the beating heart of the Old Testament."

"To the ceremonial aspects of Jewish religion Jesus was either indifferent or hostile; the thought of the prophets was the spiritual food that he assimilated in his own process of growth. With them he linked his points of view, the convictions which he regarded as axiomatic. ...The real meaning of his life and the real direction of his purposes can be understood only in that historical connection."

"Primitive religions consisted mainly in the worship of the powers of nature. ...the essential thing in religion was not morality, but the ceremonial method of placating the god, securing his gifts, and ascertaining his wishes. He might even be pleased best by immoral actions, by the immolation of human victims, by the sacrifice of woman's chastity, or by the burning of the first born."

"Jehovah was the tribal god of Israel. Fortunately he was stronger and more terrible than the gods of the neighboring tribes, so that he was able to drive them out and give their land to his own people, but he was not fundamentally different from them and they were believed to be quite as real as Jehovah."

"Against this current conception of religion the prophets insisted on a right life as the true worship of God. Morality to them was not merely a prerequisite of effective ceremonial worship. They brushed sacrificial ritual aside altogether as trifling compared with righteousness, nay, as a harmful substitute and a hindrance for ethical religion."

"The Book of Isaiah begins with a description of the disasters which had overtaken the nation and then in impassioned words the prophet spurns the means taken to appease Jehovah's anger. "...Cease to do evil! Learn to do right! Seek justice! Relieve the oppressed! Secure justice for the orphaned and plead for the widow." (Isaiah I. 10-17.)"

"In so far as men believed that the traditional ceremonial was what God wanted of them, they would be indifferent to the reformation of social ethics. If the hydraulic force of religion could be turned toward conduct, there is nothing which it could not accomplish."

"Christian ritual grew up not as the appropriate and aesthetic expression of spiritual emotions, but as the indispensable means of pleasing and appeasing God, and of securing his favors, temporal and eternal, for those who put their heart into these processes. This Christian ceremonial system does not differ essentially from that against which the prophets protested; with a few verbal changes their invectives would still apply."

"The prophets were the heralds of the fundamental truth that religion and ethics are inseparable, and that ethical conduct is the supreme and sufficient religious act. If that principle had been fully adopted in our religious life, it would have turned the full force of the religious impulse into the creation of right moral conduct and would have made the unchecked growth and accumulation of injustice impossible."

"It is important to note, further, that the morality which the prophets had in mind in their strenuous insistence on righteousness was not merely the private morality of the home, but the public morality on which national life is founded. They said less about the pure heart for the individual than of just institutions for the nation."

"The twin-evil against which the prophets launched the condemnation of Jehovah was injustice and oppression."

"The religious ideal of Israel was the theocracy. But the theocracy meant the complete penetration of the national life by religious morality. It meant politics in the name of God."

"The prophets were not religious individualists. ...they always dealt with Israel and Judah as organic totalities. They conceived of their people as a gigantic personality which sinned as one and ought to repent as one. ...it was only when the national life of Israel was crushed by foreign invaders that the prophets began to address themselves to the individual life and lost the large horizon of public life."

"The prophets... interpreted past history, shaped present history, and foretold future history on the basis of the conviction that God rules with righteousness in the affairs of nations, and that only what is just, and not what is expedient and profitable, shall endure."

"Our modern religious horizon and our conception of the character of a religious leader and teacher are so different that it is not easy to understand men who saw the province of religion chiefly in the broad reaches of civic affairs and international relations."

"The words are part of the first chapter of Isaiah to which reference has been made. The prophet throughout the chapter deals with the national condition of the kingdom of Judah and its capital. ...he urges ...the abolition of social oppression and injustice as the only way of regaining God's favor for the nation. If they would vindicate the cause of the helpless and oppressed, then he would freely pardon; then their scarlet and crimson guilt would be washed away. The familiar text is followed by the very material promise of economic prosperity and the threat of continued war: "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword.""

"The sympathy of the prophets, even of the most aristocratic among them, was entirely on the side of the poorer classes. ...The edge of their invectives was turned against the land-hunger of the landed aristocracy who "joined house to house and laid field to field," till a country of sturdy peasants was turned into a series of great estates; against the capitalistic ruthlessness that "sold the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes," thrusting the poor free-man into slavery to collect a trifling debt; against the venality of the judges who took bribes and had a double standard of law for the rich and the poor."

"It became one of the fundamental attributes of their God that he was the husband of the widow, the father of the orphan, and the protector of the stranger. The widows and the fatherless were those who had no concrete power to back their claims, no "influence," no "financial interest," no "pull" with the police, judges and aldermen of that time. The "stranger" was the immigrant who had no part in the blood-kinship of the clan, and hence no share in the land and no voice in the common affairs of the village."

"When the prophets conceived Jehovah as the special vindicator of these voiceless classes it was another way of saying that it is the chief duty in religious morality to stand for the rights of the helpless."

"There is no question on which side the sympathy of the prophets was enlisted. Their protest against injustice and oppression, to the neglect of all other social evils, is almost monotonous."

"To the more judicial and scientific temper of our day their invective would seem overdrawn and their sympathy would seem partisanship. In Jeremiah and in the prophetic psalms the poor as a class are made identical with the meek and godly, and "rich" and "wicked" are almost synonymous terms."

"We are to-day in the midst of a revolutionary epoch fully as thorough as that of the Renaissance and Reformation. It is accompanied by a reinterpretation of nature and of history. The social movement has helped to create the modern study of history. Where we used to see a panorama of wars and strutting kings and court harlots, we now see the struggle of the people to wrest a living from nature and to shake off their oppressors. The new present has created a new past. The French Revolution was the birth of modern democracy, and also of the modern school of history."

"Eminent theologians, like other eminent thinkers, live in the social environment of wealth and to that extent are slow to see. The individualistic conception of religion is so strongly fortified in theological literature and ecclesiastical institutions that its monopoly cannot be broken in a hurry. It will take a generation or two for the new social comprehension of religion to become common property."

"The better we know Jesus, the more social do his thoughts and aims become."

"Men are seizing on Jesus as the exponent of their own social convictions. They all claim him. ...But in truth Jesus was not a social reformer of the modern type... he approached these facts purely from the moral, and not from the economic or historical point of view."

"If the question of the distribution of wealth were solved for all society and all lived in average comfort and without urgent anxiety, the question would still be how many would be at peace with their own souls and have that enduring joy and contentment which alone can make the outward things fair and sweet and rise victorious over change."

"Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master."

"The Christian movement began with John the Baptist. … in his recorded teaching to the people there is not a word about the customary ritual of religion, about increased Sabbath observance, about stricter washings and sacrifices, or the ordinary exercises of piety. He spoke only of repentance, of ceasing from wrongdoing. He hailed the professional exponents of religion who came to hear him, as a brood of snakes wriggling away from the flames of the judgment. ...The way to prepare for the Messianic era and to escape the wrath of the Messiah was to institute a brotherly life and to equalize social inequalities."

"Jesus accepted John as the forerunner of his own work. It was the popular movement created by John which brought Jesus out of the seclusion of Nazareth. He received John's baptism as the badge of the new Messianic hope and repentance. ...He drew his earliest and choicest disciples from the followers of John. When John was dead, some thought Jesus was John risen from the dead. He realized clearly the difference between the stern ascetic spirit of the Baptist and his own sunny trust and simple human love, but to the end of his life he championed John and dared the Pharisees to deny his divine mission. ...In the main he shared John's national and social hope. His aim too was the realization of the theocracy."

"The greatest of all prophets was still one of the prophets, and that large interest in the national and social life which had been inseparable from the religion of the prophets was part of his life too. The presumption is that Jesus shared the fundamental religious purpose of the prophets."

"Like all great minds that do not merely imagine Utopias, but actually advance humanity to a new epoch, he [Jesus] took the situation and material furnished to him by the past and molded that into a fuller approximation to the divine conception within him."

"The Greek world cherished no such national religious hope as the prophets had ingrained in Jewish thought; on the other hand it was intensely interested in the future life for the individual, and in the ascetic triumph over flesh and matter. Thus the idea which had been the centre of Christ's thought was not at all the centre of the Church's thought, and even the comprehension of his meaning was lost and overlaid."

"Ascetic Christianity called the world evil and left it. Humanity is waiting for a revolutionary Christianity which will call the world evil and change it."

"The fundamental purpose of Jesus was the establishment of the kingdom of God, which involved a thorough regeneration and reconstitution of social life."

"Primitive Christianity cherished an ardent hope of a radically new era, and within its limits sought to realize a social life on a new moral basis. Thus Christianity as an historical movement was launched with all the purpose and hope, all the impetus and power, of a great revolutionary movement, pledged to change the world-as-it-is into the world-as-it-ought-to-be."

"The organization in which this movement was embodied, after three centuries of obscurity and oppression, rose triumphant to be the dominant power of the civilized world. Christian churches were scattered broadcast over the Roman Empire. ...Its churches were endowed with the ancient properties and rights of the temples. Its clergy were given immunity from the taxes and exactions which crushed all other classes. Its members filled the civil service. Its great bishops had the ear of the men in power."

"When the machinery of [Roman] imperial administration broke down in the provinces under the invasion of the barbarians in the fifth century the machinery of the Church remained unbroken. ...Ancient families became extinct and the Church became the heir of their lands and slaves and serfs. Small proprietors sought security by committing their lands to the Church and becoming its tenants."

"The landed wealth of the Church alone sufficed to make it a power of the highest rank in the feudal system of the Middle Ages, in which all power finally rested on the possession of the land. Bishops and abbots became feudal dignitaries, sometimes almost sovereign princes in their own domains, and always with a potent voice in the government of their nations."

"The Church was the preserver of the remnants of intellectual culture, the sole schoolmistress of the raw peoples. Her clergy long had almost a monopoly of education, and were the secretaries of the nobles, the chancellors and prime ministers of kings."

"The Church had its own law code and its own courts of law which were supreme over the clergy, and had large rights of jurisdiction even over the laity, so that it could develop and give effect to its own ideas of law and right."

"Throughout the Middle Ages the sway of the Church over the moral and spiritual life of the people, her power to inspire and direct their enthusiasms and energies, her chance for molding their conceptions of life, were amazing and unparalleled by any other force."

"Christianity was rising when the ancient world was breaking down. By the time the Church had gained sufficient power to exercise a controlling influence, the process of social decay, like the breakdown of a physical organism in a wasting disease, was beyond remedy."

"Amid the general anarchy, against the coarse vice and brutality of the barbarians, herself harried by the rapacity of the nobles and weakened by the ignorance and barbarism of her own clergy, the Church did what she could, but a thorough social reconstruction was impossible. In modern life her power is broken by the prevalent doubt and apostasy, and the current of materialism and mammonism is now too great to be stemmed."

"Why has it [the Church] never done what it was sent to do? Others ...will say it has done so. Has it not lifted woman to equality and companionship with man, secured the sanctity and stability of marriage, changed parental despotism to parental service, and eliminated unnatural vice, the abandonment of children, blood revenge, and the robbery of the shipwrecked from the customs of Christian nations? Has it not abolished slavery, mitigated war, covered all lands with a network of charities to uplift the poor and the fallen, fostered the institutions of education, aided the progress of civil liberty and social justice, and diffused a softening tenderness throughout human life? It has done all that, and vastly more."

"The influence of Christianity in taming selfishness and stimulating the sympathetic affections, in creating a resolute sense of duty, a stanch love of liberty and independence, an irrepressible hunger for justice and a belief in the rights of the poor, has been so subtle and penetrating that no one can possibly trace its effects. ...And yet human society has not been reconstituted in accordance with the principles of Jesus Christ."

"We are apt... to forget that the moral force of Christianity was usually only one factor in producing such a change as the abolition of slavery or piracy, and that over against the benign influences of the Church must be set the malign and divisive influences which she created by persecuting zeal, intellectual intolerance, or religious wars. In short, we must soberly face the fact that a good many deductions have to be made from the popular panegyrics, and that the Church has not accomplished all that is often claimed for her."

"The social effects which are usually enumerated do not constitute a reconstruction of society on a Christian basis, but were mainly a suppression of some of the most glaring evils in the social system of the time."

"In general, the Church has often rendered valuable aid by joining the advanced public conscience of any period in its protest against some single intolerable evil, but it has accepted as inevitable the general social system under which the world was living at the time, and has not undertaken any thoroughgoing social reconstruction in accordance with Christian principles."

"The most important effects of Christianity went out from it without the intention of the Church, or even against its will."

"The position of woman has doubtless been elevated through the influence of Christianity, but... it is probably fair to say that most of the great Churches through their teaching and organization have exerted a conservative and retarding influence on the rise of woman to equality with man."

"Christianity has been one of the most powerful causes of democracy, but the conscious influence of the Church has more widely been exerted against democracy than for it."

"It is this diffused spirit of Christianity rather than the conscious purpose of organized Christianity which has been the chief moral force in social changes. It has often taken its finest form in heretics and free-thinkers, and in non-Christian movements. The Church has often been indifferent or hostile to the effects which it had itself produced. The mother has refused to acknowledge her own children."

"It is only when social movements have receded into past history... that the Church with pride turns around to claim that it was she who abolished slavery, aroused the people to liberty, and emancipated woman."

"We who know personal religion by experience know that there is nothing on earth to compare with the moral force exerted by it. It has demonstrated its social efficiency in our own lives."

"All social movements would gain immensely in enthusiasm, persuasiveness, and wisdom if the hearts of their advocates were cleansed and warmed by religious faith."

"But will reënforcement work the other way, also? Religion strengthens the social spirit; will the social spirit strengthen personal religion? When a minister gets hot about child labor and wage slavery, is he not apt to get cold about prayer meetings and evangelistic efforts? When young women become interested in social work, do they not often lose their taste for the culture of the spiritual life and the peace of religious meditation?"

"If this is indeed the alternative, we are in a tragic situation, compelled to choose between social righteousness and communion with God."

"Personal religion has a supreme value for its own sake, not merely as a feeder of social morality, but as the highest unfolding of life itself, as the blossoming of our spiritual nature. Spiritual regeneration is the most important fact in any life history. A living experience of God is the crowning knowledge attainable to a human mind."

"If, therefore, our personal religious life is likely to be sapped by our devotion to social work, it would be a calamity second to none. But is it really likely that this will happen? The great aim underlying to whole social movement is the creation of a free, just, and brotherly social order. This is the greatest moral task conceivable. Its accomplishment is the manifest will of God for this generation. Every Christian motive is calling us to do it. If it is left undone, millions of lives will be condemned to a deepening moral degradation and to spiritual starvation. Does it look probable that we will lose our contact with God if we plunge too deeply into this work? Does it stand to reason that we shall go astray from Jesus Christ if we engage in the unequal conflict with organized wrong? What kind of ‘spirituality’ is it which is likely to get hurt by being put to work for justice and our fellow-men?"

"Some of the anxiety about personal religion is due to a subtle lack of faith in religion. Men think it is a fragile thing that will break up and vanish when the customs and formulas which have hitherto encased and protected it are broken and cast aside. Most of us have known religion in one form, and we suppose it can have no other. But religion is the life of God in the soul of man, and is God really so fragile?"

"Personal religion collapses with some individuals, because in their case it had long been growing hollow and thin. ... In reality there was little personal religion to lose, and that little would probably have been lost in some other way."

"A new factor enters the situation when we encounter the influence of ‘scientific socialism.’ It is true, the party platform declares that ‘religion is a private affair.’ The saving of souls is the only industry that socialism distinctly relegates to private enterprise."

"The socialism of continental Europe, taking it by and large, is actively hostile, not only to bad forms of organized religion, but to religion itself."

"We have to harmonize the two facts, that wealth is good and necessary, and that wealth is a danger to its possessor and to society. On the one hand property is indispensable to personal freedom, to all higher individuality, and to self-realization; the right to property is a corollary of the right to life; without property men are at the mercy of nature and in bondage to those who have property. On the other hand property is used as a means of collecting tribute and private taxes, as a club with which to extort unearned gain from laborers and consumers, and as the fundamental tool of oppression."

"Not until 1948, when I entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, did I begin a serious intellectual quest for a method to eliminate social evil...I came early to Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis, which left an indelible imprint on my thinking by giving me a theological basis for the social concern which had already grown up in me as a result of my early experiences. Of course there were points at which I differed with Rauschenbusch. I felt that he had fallen victim to the nineteenth-century "cult of inevitable progress" which led him to a superficial optimism concerning man's nature. Moreover, he came perilously close to identifying the Kingdom of God with a particular social and economic system-a tendency which should never befall the Church. But in spite of these shortcomings Rauschenbusch had done a great service for the Christian Church by insisting that the gospel deals with the whole man-not only his soul but his body; not only his spiritual well-being but his material well-being. It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion that professes concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried."

"We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work."

"You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here [El Salvador], because they use it only to kill my people."

"For many years, repression, torture and murder were carried on in El Salvador by dictators installed and supported by our government... The story was virtually never covered. By the late 1970s, however, the US government began to be concerned about a couple of things... In El Salvador in the 1970s, there was a growth of what were called "popular organizations"-peasant associations, cooperatives, unions, Church-based Bible study groups that evolved into self-help groups, etc. That raised the threat of democracy. In February 1980, the Archbishop of EI Salvador, Oscar Romero, sent a letter to President Carter in which he begged him not to send military aid to the junta that ran the country. He said such aid would be used to "sharpen injustice and repression against the people’s organizations" which were struggling "for respect for their most basic human rights" (hardly news to Washington, needless to say). A few weeks later, Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying a mass."

"The real lesson of Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny [civil or natural] rights. His government in his time believed that [civil] rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua. Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending [civil] rights. He taught us that those who advocate for [civil or natural] rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them. …Romero wrote that religious persecution happens because “truth is always persecuted,” and that God blesses those who protest and fight for freedom. But they should know they should suffer, because “pain is the money that buys freedom.” …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of [civil or natural] rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case. There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country. Romero’s message is that this is not a valid justification. [Civil or natural] rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around."

"While predicting the future is a rare gift, testifying for the truth is a duty for every woman and man of conscience. …A prophet, Romero added, is one who has an “undisturbed conscience.” This is an interesting statement. Only those who are firmly rooted in conscience as their moral compass may calmly tell the truth about injustice and corruption, no matter the risks. And risks there are since prophets easily make enemies."

"My Lord and my God."

"Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

"We may look a bit more closely into one case which sums it all up: the Saint Thomas church on Mylapore beach in Madras. According to Christian leaders in India, the apostle Thomas came to India in 52 AD, founded the Syrian Christian church, and was killed by the fanatical Brahmins in 72 AD. Near the site of his martyrdom, the Saint Thomas church was built. In fact this apostle never came to India, and the Christian community in South India was founded by a merchant Thomas Cananeus in 345 AD ( a name which readily explains the Thomas legend ). He led 400 refugees who fled persecution in Persia and were given asylum by the Hindu authorities. In Catholic universities in Europe, the myth of the apostle Thomas going to India is no longer taught as history, but in India it is still considered useful. Even many vocal secularists who attack the Hindus for relying on myth in the Ayodhya affair, off-hand profess their belief in the Thomas myth. The important point is that Thomas can be upheld as a martyr and the Brahmins decried as fanatics. In reality, the missionaries were very disgruntled that these damned Hindus refused to give them martyrs (whose blood is welcomed as the seed of the faith), so they had to invent one. Moreover, the church which they claim commemorates Saint Thomas' martyrdom at the hands of Hindu fanaticism, is in fact a monument of Hindu martyrdom at the hands of Christian fanaticism: it is a forcible replacement of two important Hindu temples (Jain and Shaiva), whose existence was insupportable to Christian missionaries. No one knows how many priests and worshippers were killed when the Christian soldiers came to remove the curse of Paganism from Mylapore beach. Hinduism doesn't practise martyr-mongering, but if at all we have to speak of martyrs in this context, the title goes to these Shiva-worshippers and not to the apostle Thomas."

"A similar saying in Luke 12:49 is clearly eschatological. "I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled." Thomas changes future to past and present. The fire has been ignited, and Jesus keeps the world until it burns up; to be near the fire is to be near Jesus and the kingdom (Saying 82)."

"[ W.W. Hunter details how this simple story, which had been in vogue in Christendom, collected an overlay of fraudulent fabrications over time:] Patristic literature clearly declares that St Thomas had suffered martyrdom at Calamina . . . The tradition of the Church is equally distinct that in 394 AD the remains of the Apostle were transferred to Edessa in Mesopotamia. The attempt to localize the death of St Thomas on the south-western coast of India started therefore, under disadvantages. A suitable site was however, found at the Mount near Madras, one of the many hill shrines of ancient India which have formed a joint resort of religious persons of diverse faiths – Buddhist, Muhammadan and Hindu . . . Portuguese zeal, in its first fervours of Indian evangelization felt keenly the want of a sustaining local hagiology. [. . .] A mission from Goa dispatched to the Coromandel coast in 1522 proved itself ignorant of or superior to the well-established legend of the translation of the Saint's remains to Edessa in 394 AD and found his relics at the ancient hill shrine near Madras, side by side those of a king whom he had converted to faith. They were brought with pomp to Goa, the Portuguese capital of India, and there they lie in the Church of St Thomas to this day. The finding of the Pehlvi cross . . . at St Thomas's Mount in 1547 gave a fresh coloring to the legend. So far as its inscription goes, it points to a Persian, and probably to a Manichaean origin. But at the time it was dug up, no one in Madras could decipher its Pehlvi characters. A Brahman impostor, knowing that there was a local demand for martyrs, accordingly came forward with a fictitious interpretation. The simple story of Thomas's accidental death from a stray arrow had, before this grown into a cruel martyrdom by stoning and lance thrust, with each spot in the tragedy fixed at the Greater and Lesser Mount near Madras."

"At that moment, numerous traces of the presence of St Thomas were discovered especially in South America, where circumstances were favourable for the development of the legend. Under the prodding of the first Jesuit missionaries, a remarkable process of amalgamation began . . . it was easy to see ‘Zume’ as a deformation of ‘Tome’ (Thomas) and to transform this native messiah into a Christian apostle. The legend of the journey of St Thomas to the New World was a great success. In the region around Lake Titicaca, it was confused with that of the god Viracocha, which has also left some traces."

"The story that places the Apostle St Thomas in India in 53 CE is a lingering medieval myth. It implicitly includes colonial and racial narratives; for instance, that the peaceful apostle ministered to the dark-skinned Indians, who turned on him and killed him. This myth, however, has no historical basis at all. Nevertheless, it has been shaped by various Christian churches into a powerful tool for the appropriation of Hindu culture in Tamil Nadu, by giving credit to 'Thomas Christianity' for everything positive in the south Indian culture, while blaming Hinduism for whatever is to be denigrated. It further serves as a tool to carve out Tamils from the common body of Indian culture and spirituality."

"Logion 10 has a parallel in Luke xii. 49, but with a change of emphasis. The canonical version looks to the future: "I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" In Thomas the fire has been kindled: "I have cast fire upon the world, and behold, I guard it until it is ablaze." This raises an interesting problem in relation to the common source of Matthew and Luke, since Matthew (x. 34) records a saying, "I came not to cast peace, but a sword." As already observed, something like this appears in logion 16, but in the saying in Thomas "division" and "fire" are paralleled in Luke, "sword" in Matthew. The question is whether in Thomas we have a conflation of the two synoptic versions, or a form of the saying derived from an independent tradition."

"According to these theories, the apostle St Thomas (associated in Mexico with the Indian deity Quetzalcoatl and in Peru with Viracocha, among other legendary pre-Inca culture-bearer deities) had appeared among the Indians not long after Christ’s crucifixion, and initiated the New World’s first age of Christianity. . . . Considerably embellishing sixteenth-century hypotheses, certain clergymen and even devout laymen of the independence-era postulated the splendors of a flourishing native American Christian culture that had been snuffed out at the time of conquest by an Iberian variant of Christianity vitiated by greed, individualism and materialism."

"A number of scholars... have built on slender foundations what can only be called Thomas romances, such as reflect vividness of their imagination rather than the prudence of historical critics. ... The story of the ancient church of the Thomas Christians is of great significance for the whole history of Christianity in India. It is to be regretted that, when all the evidence has been collected and sifted, much remains uncertain and conjectural. ... Millions of Christians in South India are certain that the founder of their church was none other than the apostle Thomas himself. The historian cannot prove to them that they are mistaken in their belief. He may feel it right to warn them that historical research cannot pronounce on the matter with a confidence equal to that which they entertain by faith."

"Thomas was outside his hermitage in the woods, raising his prayers to the Lord his God. All around were many peacocks . . . As St Thomas was saying his prayers, a certain idolater belonging to the race and lineage of Gavi, shot an arrow from his bow, in order to kill one of the peacocks that were gathered round the Saint."

"Gospel of Mark"

"Gospel of Matthew"

"Gospel of Luke"

"Gospel of John"

"In God is my being, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this I that I often call so...in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or the good, or bliss."

"I find in myself by the grace of God a satisfaction without nourishment, love without fear"

"Faith seems to me wholly lost, and hope dead; for it seems to me that I have and hold in the certainty that which I believed and hoped at other times. I no longer see union, for I know nothing more and can see nothing more than him alone without me. I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it."

"I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body."

"Therefore it seems to me that I am no longer of this world, since I can no longer do the work of the world like the others; indeed, every action of others that I see disturbs me, for I do not work as they do, nor as I myself used to do. I feel altogether estranged from earthly affairs, and from my own most of all"

"I cannot work, or walk, or stand, or speak, but all this seems to be a useless thing"

"Many are astonished at this, and since they do not know the reason, they are offended. And truly, if it were not that God stands by me, the world would often consider me mad, and that is because I almost always live outside myself."

"God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God"

"I am so plunged and submerged in the source of his infinite love, as if I were quite underwater in the sea and could not touch, see, feel anything on any side except water"

"I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that the words I first used, perfection, purity, and the like, seem to me now mere lies in the presence of truth. . . . Nor can I any longer say, “My God, my all.” Everything is mine, for all that is God’s seem to be wholly mine. I am mute and lost in God...God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God, and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued"

"So long as anyone can speak of divine things, enjoy and understand them, remember and desire them, he has not yet arrived in port; yet there are ways and means to guide him thither. But the creature can know nothing but what God gives him to know from day today"

"This is the beatitude that the blessed might have, and yet they have it not, except in so far as they are dead to themselves and absorbed in God. They have it not in so far as they remain in themselves and can say: `I am blessed.' Words are wholly inadequate to express my meaning, and I reproach myself for using them. I would that everyone could understand me, and I am sure that if I could breathe on creatures, the fire of love burning within me would inflame them all with divine desire. O thing most marvelous!"

"I do not wish a love which may be described as for God, or in God. I cannot see those words, for and in, without their suggesting to me that something may intervene between God and me; and that is what pure and simple love, by reason of its purity and simplicity, is unable to endure. This purity and simplicity is as great as God is, for it is his own"

"I cannot desire any created love, that is, a love which can be felt, enjoyed, or understood. I do not wish love that can pass through the intellect, memory, or will; because pure love passes all these things and transcends them"

"I shall never rest until I am hidden and enclosed in that divine heart wherein all created forms are lost, and, so lost, remain thereafter all divine; nothing else can satisfy true, pure, and simple love"

"In my soul, therefore, I can see no one but God, since I suffer no one else to enter there, and myself less than any other, because I am my own worst enemy."

"If, however, it happens to be necessary to speak of myself, I do so on account of the world, which would not understand me should I name myself otherwise than as men are named, yet inwardly I say: my I is God, nor is any other self known to me except my God"

"All things which have being, have it from the essence of God by his participation: but pure love cannot stop to contemplate this general participation coming from God, nor to consider whether in itself, considered as a creature, it receives it in the same way as do the other creatures which more or less participate with God. Pure love cannot endure such comparison; on the contrary, it exclaims with a great impetus of love; my being is God, not by participation only but by a true transformation and annihilation of my proper being."

"In God is my being, my me, my strength, my beatitude, my good, and my delight. I say mine at present because it is not possible to speak otherwise, but I do not mean by it any such thing as me or mine, or delight or good, or strength or stability, or beatitude; nor could I possibly turn my eyes to behold such things in heaven or in the earth; and if, notwithstanding, I sometimes use words which may have the likeness of humility and of spirituality, in my interior I do not understand them, I do not feel them. In truth, it astonishes me that I speak at all, or use words so far removed from the truth and from that which I feel. I see clearly that man in this world deceives himself by admiring and esteeming things which are not, and neither sees nor esteems the things which are"

"When God sees the Soul pure as it was in its origins, He tugs at it with a glance, draws it, and binds it to Himself with a fiery love that by itself could annihilate the immortal soul. In so acting, God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued. These rays purify and then annihilate. The soul becomes like gold that becomes purer as it is fired, all dross being cast out. Having come to the point of twenty-four carats, gold cannot be purified any further; and this is what happens to the soul in the fire of God’s love"

"Dear friends, in their experience of union with God, Saints attain such a profound knowledge of the divine mysteries in which love and knowledge interpenetrate, that they are of help to theologians themselves in their commitment to study, to intelligentia fidei, to an intelligentsia of the mysteries of faith, to attain a really deeper knowledge of the mysteries of faith, for example, of what purgatory is. With her life St Catherine teaches us that the more we love God and enter into intimacy with him in prayer the more he makes himself known to us, setting our hearts on fire with his love. In writing about purgatory, the Saint reminds us of a fundamental truth of faith that becomes for us an invitation to pray for the deceased so that they may attain the beatific vision of God in the Communion of Saints (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1032). Moreover, the humble, faithful, and generous service in Pammatone Hospital that the Saint rendered throughout her life is a shining example of charity for all and encouragement, especially for women who, with their precious work enriched by their sensitivity and attention to the poorest and neediest, make a fundamental contribution to society and to the Church."

"One characteristic of Italian spirituality at this period is the theme of divine love. Historically, it can be traced back to St.Catherine of Genoa (+ 1510), the foundress of Italian hospitals. One of her disciples, Ettore Vernazza, founded a religious group under the title, Oratorio del Divino Amore, and it very quickly spread throughout Italy"

"Catherine came from the famous Fieschi family in Genoa, where she received a careful and sound education as befitted her noble status. Her early aspirations to become a nun were frustrated by her relatives when, for political reasons, they married her off at the age of sixteen to a young man, Guiliano Adorno, who was worldly, pleasure-loving, and indulgent. Catherine experienced considerable unhappiness and spent some sorrowful years in seclusion until she was able to free herself from her husband. She then devoted herself to prayer, contemplation and strict discipline. In 1473 she underwent a deep mystical experience marked by close union with God. From now on her life was transformed. She reached great spiritual heights, but balanced ascetic discipline with an active life of service to the ill and poor"

"In the early twentieth century, attention was drawn to Catherine’s remarkable mystical, mental, and at times almost pathological, experiences through the classic study by Baron Friedrich von Hügel, The Mystical Element in Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends (1908). The last ten years of Catherine’s life were marked by violent interior emotions, mentioned in her works. It has been said that in many ways Catherine of Genoa is a “theologian of purgatory,” a purgatory that she herself experienced in a marriage she did not desire, in her care for plague victims, and also in her nervous illness. She also experienced purgatory spiritually as the soul’s realization of its own imperfections, in her search for salvation and purification. Influenced by Plato and Dionysius, the focus of her mysticism was, in spite of her eucharistic devotion, not so much Christ, but above all the infinite God. Her mysticism is primarily theocentric, not Christocentric. She speaks of the absorption into the totality of God as if immersed into an ocean: “I am so…submerged in His immense love, that I seem as though immersed in the sea, and nowhere able to touch, see or feel aught but water.” At the height of her mystical experiences, she could exclaim: “My being is God, not by simple participation but by a true transformation of my being.”"

"Some of the mo[st] daring statements [are] of another Catherine who has been canonized by the Church—Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510). Among the autotheistic sayings of this mystic are the following: "My me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God Himself," and "My being is God, not by some simple participation but by a true transformation of my being.""

"Saint Catherine of Genoa was born in the Vicolo del Filo in that city, in 1447. She was of the great Guelph family of Fiesta, being the daughter of Giacomo Fiesta, at one-time Viceroy of Naples, and granddaughter of Roberto Fiesta, whose brother was Pope Innocent IV...She grew up to be very lovely: "taller than most women, her head well proportioned, her face rather long but singularly beautiful and well-shaped, her complexion fair and in the flower of her youth rubicund, her nose long rather than short, her eyes dark and her forehead high and broad; every part of her body was well-formed." About the time she failed to enter the convent, or a little later, her father died, and his power and possessions passed to her eldest brother Giacomo. Wishing to compose the differences between the factions into which the principal families of Genoa were divided--differences which had long entailed cruel, distracting, and wearing strife--Giacomo Fiesta formed the project of marrying his young sister to Giuliano Adorni, son of the head of a powerful Ghibelline family. He obtained his mother's support for his plan, and found Giuliano willing to accept the beautiful, noble and rich bride proposed to him; as for Catherine herself, she would not refuse this cross laid on her at the command of her mother and eldest brother. On the 13th of January, 1463, at the age of sixteen, she was married to Giuliano Adorni."

"Catherine's states of absorption in prayer, such as we find ever since her conversion, were transparently real and sincere, and were so swift and spontaneous as to appear quasi involuntary. They were evidently, together with, and largely on the occasion of, her reception of the Holy Eucharist, the chief means and the ordinary form of the accessions of strength and growth to her spiritual life... Catherine's teaching, as we have it, is, at first sight, strangely abstract and impersonal. God nowhere appears in it, at least in so many words, either as Father, or as Friend, or as Bridegroom of the soul. This comes to no doubt, in part, from the circumstance that she had never known the joys of maternity, and had never, for one moment, experienced the soul-entrancing power of full conjugal union. It comes, perhaps, even more, from her somewhat abnormal temperament, the (in some respects) exclusive mentality which we have already noted. But it certainly springs at its deepest from one of the central requirements and experiences of her spiritual life; and must be interpreted by the place and the function which this apparently abstract teaching occupies within this large experimental life of hers which stimulates, utilizes, and transcends it all. For here again we are brought back to her rare thirst, her imperious need, for unification; to the fact that she was a living, closely knit, an ever-increasing spiritual organism, if there ever was one."

"The one true divine root-center of her individual soul is ever, at the same time, experienced and conceived as a present, in various degrees and ways, simply everywhere, and in everything. All the world of spirits is thus linked together; and a certain slightest remnant of a union exists even between Heaven and Hell, between the lost and the saved. For there is no absolute or really infinite Evil existent anywhere; whilst everywhere there are some traces of and communications from the Absolute Good, the Source and Creator of the substantial being of all things that are. And to possess even God, and all of God, herself alone exclusively, would have been to her, we can say it boldly, a truly intolerable state, if this state were conceived as accompanied by any consciousness of the existence of other rational creatures entirely excluded from any and every degree or kind of such possession. It is, on the contrary, the apprehension of how she, as but one of the countless creatures of God, is allowed to share in the affluence of the one Light and Life and Love, an effluence which, identical in essential character everywhere, is not entirely absent anywhere: it is the abounding consciousness of this universal bond and brotherhood, this complete freedom from all sectarian exclusiveness and from all exhaustive appropriation of God, the Sun of the Universe, by any or all of the just or unjust, upon all of whom He shines: it is all this that constitutes her element of unity, saneness, and breadth, the one half of her faith, and the greater part of her spiritual joy."

"When the food is pure the Sattva element gets purified, the memory becomes unwavering."

"What an individual pursues as a desirable end depends upon what he conceives himself to be."

"Entities other than Brahman can be objects of such cognitions of the nature of joy only to a finite extent and for limited duration. But Brahman is such that cognizing of him is an infinite and abiding joy. It is for this reason that the shruti [scripture] says, `Brahman is bliss’ ( II.6.) Since the form of cognition as joy is determined by its object, Brahman itself is joy."

"The individual self is subject to beginningless nescience, which has brought about an accumulation of karma, of the nature of both merit and demerit. The flood of such karma causes his entry into four kinds of bodies — heavenly, human, animal and plant beginning with that of Brahma downwards. This ingression into bodies produces the delusion of identity with those respective bodies (and the consequent attachments and aversions). This delusion inevitably brings about all the fears inherent in the state of worldly existence. The entire body of Vedanta aims at the annihilation of these fears. To accomplish their annihilation they teach the following:"

"Men, unacquainted with Vedanta, do not see that all things and all individual selves have Brahman as their self. They think that all terms exhaust their significance by signifying the various objects by themselves, which objects are in reality a part and not the whole of the meaning of terms. Now by the study of Vedanta, they understand that all such objects are the effects of Brahman, that Brahman is the inner ruler of them all and that they are animated by Brahman as their very soul. Therefore they come to understand that all terms signify Brahman itself having as its modes the entities, to which latter alone the terms are applied in common usage."

"Ramanuja wrote nine works in Sanskrit on the philosophy of . Of these, the Vedartha-Sangraha occupies a unique place in as much as this work takes the place of a commentary on the , though not in a conventional sense or form. The work mirrors a total vision of the Upanishads, discussing all the controversial texts in a relevant, coherent manner."

"It may perhaps help us to realize the human side of our Masters if we remember that many of Them in comparatively recent times have been known as historical characters... In these researches into the remote past we have frequently found the disciple Jesus, who in Palestine had the privilege of yielding up His body to the Christ. As a result of that act He received the incarnation of Apollonius of Tyana, and in the eleventh century He appeared in India as the teacher Ramanuja, who revived the devotional element in Hinduism, and raised it to so high a level."

"Rāmānuja (ācārya), the eleventh century South Indian philosopher, is the chief proponent of Vishishtādvaita, which is one of the three main forms of the Orthodox Hindu philosophical school, Vedānta. As the prime philosopher of the Vishishtādvaita tradition, Rāmānuja is one of the Indian philosophical tradition’s most important and influential figures. He was the first Indian philosopher to provide a systematic theistic interpretation of the philosophy of the Vedas, and is famous for arguing for the epistemic and soteriological significance of bhakti, or devotion to a personal God."

"Great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar and saints like Ramanuja Acharya have stressed on need for social unity"

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"Ramanuja is first and last a Master of Vedic personality that is the vital breath of Indian Society from its every birth."

"Wont you draw back the curtain within me, O Lord Venkataramana of Tirupati, Open up this screen of envy."

"What is the use of sangita (music without bhakti)."

"It is impossible to name another person in this world who can be said to be equal to Tyagaraja in Rama Bhakthi."

"If Thyagaraja only once with prema called ‘Rama’ forthwith came the response from Sri Rama. O!Thyagaraja, here I am."

"With...passionate devotion to the ideals of beauty, harmony, freedom, and aspiration… had the strongest impact on society."

"The greatest songster-saint that the world has ever produced...He was full of love and devotion to the lord and he had direct ;;w:Darshan|darsana]] [Vision] of the Lord and had also Cosmic Consciousness."

"It is as a pioneer who has enlarged the possibilities of the art [of Karnataka Music] that Tygayyar is entitled to our fullest admiration...and he is one of the greatest singers of all times whose influence is closely woven into national thought and action. Tirumalya Naidu in his book of Tyagaraja written in 1910."

"Tyagaraja is my Bible; I quote Tyagaraja all the time — as with Shakespeare there is something for any occasion."

"Proverbially, Thyagaraja’s songs are said to be like grapes that is immediately enjoyable"

"Whenever I go to south India, I hear the songs of Saint Thyagaraja."

"Known as the Bethovan of India he occupies a place in South Indian Music in some respects comparable to that of Western Europe, Not only did he compose music that established enduring repertoire and remains at its center. But he also defined a new kind of cultural consciousness. Even today, Tyagaraja’s songs are thought to represent the best of South India’s cultural heritage."

"It is true that all I have ever desired most deeply and what I still most ardently wish is that the great precept of the love of God above all things and of the neighbour as oneself be written in every heart."

"God is not satisfied if we preserve the love we owe our neighbour; we must preserve our neighbour in the love he ought to have for us."

"It seems to me that we do not pay enough attention to prayer, for unless it arises from the heart which ought to be its centre, it is no more than a fruitless dream. Prayer ought to carry over into our thoughts, our words and our actions."

"Teaching is the work most suited to draw down the graces of God if it is done with purity of intention, without distinction between the poor and the rich, between relatives and friends and strangers, between the pretty and the ugly, the gentle and the grumblers, looking upon them all as drops of Our Lord’s blood."

"It seems to me that we are charcoal ready to be kindled and that Holy Communion is entirely suited to set us on fire. But when this charcoal is kindled only on the surface, as soon as it is set aside, it is extinguished. On the contrary, that which is fired all the way to the centre is not extinguished, but is consumed."

"When the heart is open to the sun of grace, we see flowers blossom in their fragrance; these are seen to have profited by the word of God."

"Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.""

"Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended."

"So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of [a]Jonah, do you love Me more than these?"

"ὡς ἀρτιγέννητα βρέφη τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα ἐπιποθήσατε, ἵνα ἐν αὐτῷ αὐξηθῆτε εἰς σωτηρίαν."

"Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing; but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God very precious."

"But Jehovah’s day will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, but the elements being intensely hot will be dissolved, and earth and the works in it will be exposed."

"Saint Peter was up and striding toward the door with his hand out as I was ushered in. I was taught in church history that he was believed to have been about ninety when he died. Or when he was executed (crucified?) by the, Romans, if he was. (Preaching has always been a chancy vocation, but in the days of Peter's ministry it was as chancy as that of a Marine platoon sergeant.) This man looked to be a strong and hearty sixty, or possibly seventy — an outdoor man, with a permanent' suntan and the scars that come from sun damage. His hair and beard were full and seemed never to have been cut, streaked with grey but not white, and (to my surprise) he appeared to have been at one time a redhead. He was well muscled and broad shouldered, and his hands were calloused, as I learned when he gripped my hand. He was dressed in sandals, a brown robe of coarse wool, a halo like mine, and a dinky little skullcap resting in the middle of that fine head of hair. I liked him on sight."

"Pete is a good old Joe, the most perfect Christian in Heaven or on earth. Denied his Boss thrice, been making up for it ever since. Utterly delighted to be on nickname terms with his Master in all three of His conventional Aspects. I like Pete. If he ever has a falling out with My Brother, he's got a job here."

"When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ."

"Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"

"Saint Leo the Great (like other Fathers of the Church) goes so far as to call the two holy Apostles, with a wonderful image, the eyes of the mystical body, of which Christ is the head (Serm. LXXXII, chap. 7 – Migne, P. L., t. 54, col. 427). Bright and splendid eyes, paternal and merciful eyes, kind and watchful eyes, eyes that follow our spiritual journey, eyes that look down to encourage and animate, and up to intercede and implore grace for those who are still weary from the dangerous and harsh storm of life."

"Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like." 'Simon Peter said to Him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said to Him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to Him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like.""

"He questioned them about the Saviour: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us? Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Saviour? Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Saviour said. And when they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

"ἠγάπησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι μᾶλλον τὸ σκότος ἢ τὸ φῶς· ἦν γὰρ αὐτῶν πονηρὰ τὰ ἔργα. πᾶς γὰρ ὁ φαῦλα πράσσων μισεῖ τὸ φῶς καὶ οὐκ ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα μὴ ἐλεγχθῇ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ."

"Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment."

"ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν, ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους. ἐν τούτῳ γνώσονται πάντες ὅτι ἐμοὶ μαθηταί ἐστε, ἐὰν ἀγάπην ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις."

"And I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, 17 the spirit of the truth, which the world cannot receive, because it neither sees it nor knows it. You know it, because it remains with you and is in you."

"This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ."

"Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."

"Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ."

"For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world."

"ὅτι πᾶν τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ νικᾷ τὸν κόσμον· καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ νίκη ἡ νικήσασα τὸν κόσμον, ἡ πίστις ἡμῶν."

"But whoever has the material possessions of this world and sees his brother in need and yet refuses to show him compassion, in what way does the love of God remain in him? Little children, we should love, not in word or with the tongue, but in deed and truth."

"Whoever does not love has not come to know God, because God is love."

"No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

"So we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers in the truth."

"His feet were like fine copper when glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters."

"He laid his right hand on me and said: Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the living one, and I became dead, but look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of the Grave."

"These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God."

"And the fifth angel blew his trumpet. And I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to the earth, and the key of the pit of the abyss was given him. And he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke ascended out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun was darkened, also the air, by the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke locusts came forth upon the earth; and authority was given them, the same authority as the scorpions of the earth have. And they were told to harm no vegetation of the earth nor any green thing nor any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads."

"And a reed like a rod was given to me as he said: “Get up and measure the temple sanctuary of God and the altar and those worshipping in it. But as for the courtyard that is outside the temple sanctuary, leave it out and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city underfoot for 42 months. I will cause my two witnesses to prophesy for 1,260 days dressed in sackcloth.” These are symbolized by the two olive trees and the two lampstands and are standing before the Lord of the earth."

"Another sign was seen in heaven. Look! A great fiery-colored dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and on its heads seven diadems; and its tail drags a third of the stars of heaven, and it hurled them down to the earth. And the dragon kept standing before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth, it might devour her child."

"Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name, because you alone are loyal?"

"And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who sits on the throne and said: “Amen! Praise Jah!” Also, a voice came from the throne and said: “Be praising our God, all you his slaves, who fear him, the small ones and the great.”"

"Christian piety believes that Christ, God and Son of God, has raised His Mother gloriously and exalted her above the heavens; and it is satisfied that blessed John, virgin and Evangelist, who served her on earth, merits a share in her glory in heaven."

"In his Gospel, St. John, through long and deep contemplation, acknowledges Jesus to be the Logos of God. In his epistles he points entirely away from himself toward Christ. Finally, in the Apocalypse, in the vision of the Lamb of God, Old and New Testaments are united, and the whole drama of salvation is summed up."

"I have that honour for him as to believe that he wrote good sense; and therefore take that sense to be his which is the best."

"Non licet tibi habere eam"

"In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”"

"Manda ḏ-Hiia went to Yuhana [John] the Baptist and spoke to him: “Arise Yuhana, baptize me with thy baptism, which thou used to baptize with, and pronounce over me that name that thou used to pronounce.”"

"And Yuhana [John the Baptist] said to Manda ḏ-Hiia: “A thousand thousand people have I brought down into the river, myriads on myriads of souls have I baptized in the waters. A man like thee has yet not passed through my hands.”"

"John . . . was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behavior."

"Quid autem aliud Ioannes nisi honestatem consideravit? ut inhonestas nuptias etiam in rege non posset perpeti, dicens: Non licet tibi illam uxorem habere. Potuit tacere, nisi indecorum sibi iudicasset mortis metu verum non dicere, inclinare regi propheticam auctoritatem, adulationem subtexere. Sciebat utique moriturum se esse, quia regi adversabatur: sed honestatem saluti praetulit. Et tamen quid utilius quam quod passionis viro sancto advexit gloriam?"

"What did you go out into the wilderness to behold?"

"For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."

"Who told Jesus? Who told Jesus Christ, Mary’s son?"

"The Christian movement began with John the Baptist. … In his recorded teaching to the people there is not a word about the customary ritual of religion, about increased Sabbath observance, about stricter washings and sacrifices, or the ordinary exercises of piety. He spoke only of repentance, of ceasing from wrongdoing. He hailed the professional exponents of religion who came to hear him, as a brood of snakes wriggling away from the flames of the judgment. ... The way to prepare for the Messianic era and to escape the wrath of the Messiah was to institute a brotherly life and to equalize social inequalities."

"I started contemplating or doing my Yoga from the age of 4. There was a small chair for me on which I used to sit still, engrossed in my meditation. A very brilliant light would then descend over my head and produce some turmoil inside my brain. Of course I understood nothing, it was not the age for understanding. But gradually I began to feel, "I shall have to do some tremendously great work that nobody yet knows.""

"Yes, indeed, I do feel the weight of the world's miseries pressing upon me!"

"It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether you want to or not — that is quite irrelevant — but to be compelled to act because something pulls you by the strings, something which you do not even see — that is exasperating. … I knew nobody who could help me and I did not have the chance that you have, someone who can tell you: "This is what you have to do!" There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all by myself. And I found it. I started at five."

"Between the ages of 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God, but man's possibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon earth in a life divine. This, along with a practical discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my body's sleep by several teachers, some of whom I met afterwards on the physical plane. Later on, as the interior and exterior development proceeded, the spiritual and psychic relation with one of these Beings became more and more clear and frequent."

"When I was a child of about thirteen, for nearly a year every night as soon as I had gone to bed it seemed to me that I went out of my body and rose straight up above the house, then above the city, very high above. Then I used to see myself clad in a magnificent golden robe, much longer than myself; and as I rose higher, the robe would stretch, spreading out in a circle around me to form a kind of immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women, children, old men, the sick, the unfortunate coming out from every side; they would gather under the outspread robe, begging for help, telling of their miseries, their suffering, their hardships. In reply, the robe, supple and alive, would extend towards each one of them individually, and as soon as they had touched it, they were comforted or healed, and went back into their bodies happier and stronger than they had come out of them."

"Will you shut up now?"

"I knew a painter, a disciple of Gustave Moreau; he was truly a very fine artist, he knew his work quite well, and then … he was starving, he did not know how to make both ends meet and he used to lament. Then one day, a well-wishing friend sent a picture-dealer to his studio. The latter inspected all his works, without discovering anything of interest: the works of the painter were simply not fashionable and therefore without commercial value. But at last the dealer found a canvas with some palette-scrapings in a dusty corner and was suddenly full of enthusiasm: "Here you are! my friend, you are a genius, this is a miracle, it is this you should show! Look at this richness of tones, this variety of forms, and what an imagination."

"It is in accordance with the impression that the plate ought to be painted; it gives you an impact, you translate the impact, and it is this which is truly artistic. It is like this that modern art began. And note that he was right. His plates were not round, but he was right in principle."

"They do not feel bound by the customary rules of conduct and have not yet found an inner law that would replace them."

"Between the age of eighteen and twenty I had attained a conscious and constant union with the divine Presence and … I had done it all alone, with absolutely nobody to help me, not even books, you understand! When I found one — I had in my hands a little later Vivekananda's Raja Yoga — it seemed to me so wonderful a thing, you see, that someone could explain something to me! This made me gain in a few months what would have perhaps taken me years to do."

"The Gita was an important scripture which elucidated an important Truth, and yet one thing was missing in it: the idea of the transformation of the outer nature of man, which is one main object of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga."

"I don't feel that you are sincere, neither you nor your flock. You all went there to fulfill a social duty and social custom, but not at all because you really wanted to enter into communion with God."

"Listen, even before your religion was born not even two thousand years ago the Chinese had a very high philosophy and knew a path leading them to the Divine; and when they think of Westerners, they think of them as barbarians. And you are going there to convert those who know more about it than you? What are you going to teach them? To be insincere, to perform hollow ceremonies instead of following a profound philosophy and a detachment from life which lead them to a more spiritual consciousness?"

"It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance; He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall actually be established upon earth."

"It seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what was once a result is now only a preparation … It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new-born whose whole existence has yet to take shape … An immense gratitude rises from my heart. I seem to have at last arrived at the threshold which I have long sought."

"He (Sri Aurobindo) did not keep me, what could I do? I had to go. But I left my psychic being with him, and in France I was once on the point of death: the doctors had given me Up."

"O Lord, this earth groans and suffers; chaos has made this world its abode. The darkness is so great that Thou alone canst dispel it. Come, manifest Thyself, that Thy work may be accomplished. Solitude, a harsh, intense solitude, and always this strong impression of having been flung headlong into an inferno of darkness! … Sometimes … I cannot prevent my total sub-mission from taking a hue of melancholy, and the calm and mute converse with the Master within is transformed for a moment into an invocation almost suppliant, O Lord, what have I done that Thou throwest me thus into the sombre night?"

"I was lying in an easy-chair, in front of a garden. I saw that the spiritual power was still active in me: I could go on with occult experiments in spite of the illness. I used to concentrate on things and persons and circumstances and wanted to see if the power worked. It worked very well on the mental and vital planes. Then I broadened the field of activity. I could go on doing my work in various parts of France and America and other places. I could clearly see the faces of the persons worked upon. They could be made to do what they by themselves could not. These were controlled experiments … I could see that nothing could stop the work: even without my body the work could go on … Wherever the call was, I could attend."

"For four years, from an artistic point of view, I lived from wonder to wonder."

"Not once do you have the feeling that you are in contact with something other than a marvellously organised mental-physical domain."

"Japan possesses the vitality and concentrated energies of a nation which has not yet reached its zenith. That energy is one of the most striking features of Japan. It is visible everywhere, in everyone; the old and the young, the workmen, the women, the children, the students, all … display in their daily life the most wonderful storage of concentrated energy."

"They know how to remain silent; and though they are possessed of the most acute sensitiveness, they are, among the people I have met, those who express it least. A friend here can give his life with the greatest simplicity to save yours, though he never told you before that he loved you in such a profound and unselfish way."

"At the end of the second day as I was lying all alone, I saw clearly a being, with a part of the head cut off, in a military uniform (or the remains of a military uniform) approaching me and suddenly flinging himself upon my chest, with that half a head to suck my force. I took a good look, then realised that I was about to die. He was drawing all my life out … I was completely nailed to the bed, without movement, in a deep trance. I could no longer stir and he was pulling. I thought: now it is the end. Then I called on my occult power, I gave a big fight and I succeeded in turning him back so that he could not stay there any longer. And I woke up … I know how much knowledge and force were necessary for me to resist. It was irresistible."

"Consciousness, to be sure, is more effective than packets of medicine."

"I was on the boat, at sea, not expecting anything (I was of course busy with the inner life, but I was living physically on the boat), when all of a sudden, abruptly, about two nautical miles from Pondicherry, the quality, I may even say physical quality, of the atmosphere of the air, changed so much that I knew we were entering the aura of Sri Aurobindo. It was a physical experience."

"… after a month's yoga I looked exactly eighteen. And someone who had seen me before, who had lived with me in Japan and came here, found it difficult to recognize me. He asked me, "But really, is it you?" I said, "Of course!""

"I took my little cat-it was really sweet -and put it on a table and called Sri Aurobindo. I told him, "Kiki has been stung by a scorpion, it must be cured." The cat stretched its neck and looked at Sri Aurobindo, its eyes already a little glassy. Sri Aurobindo sat before it and looked at it also. Then we saw this little cat gradually beginning to recover, to come round, and an hour later it jumped to its feet and went away completely healed."

"Suddenly, immediately, things took a certain shape a very brilliant creation was worked out in extraordinary detail, with marvellous experiences, contact with divine beings, and all kinds of manifestations which are considered miraculous; … One day, I went as usual to relate to Sri Aurobindo what had been happening — we had come to something really very interesting, and perhaps I showed a little enthusiasm in my account of what had taken place — then Sri Aurobindo looked at me. ..and said: 'Yes, this is an Overmind creation. It is very interesting, very well done. You will perform miracles which will make you famous throughout the world, you will be able to turn events on earth topsy-turvy, indeed, … ' and then he smiled and said: 'It will be a great success. But it is an Overmind creation. And it is not success that we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality."

"With my inner consciousness I understood immediately; a few hours later the creation was gone … and from that moment we started anew on other bases."

"The life we lead here is as far from ascetic abstinence as from an enervating comfort; simplicity is the rule here, but a simplicity full of variety, a variety of occupations, of activities, tasks, tendencies, natures; each one is free to organise his life as he pleases, the discipline is reduced to a minimum that is indispensable to organize the existence of 110 to 120 people and to avoid the movements which would be detrimental to the achievement of our yogic aim."

"Every morning, at the balcony, after establishing a conscious contact with each of those who are present, I identify myself with the Supreme Lord and merge myself completely in Him. Then my body, completely passive, is nothing but a channel through which the Lord passes freely His forces and pours on all His Light, His Consciousness and His Joy, according to each one's receptivity."

"In the days when Sri Aurobindo used to give Darshan, before he gave it there was always a concentration of certain forces or of a certain realisation which he wanted to give people. And so each Darshan marked a stage forward; each time something was added. But that was at a time when the number of visitors was very limited."

"The Best way to express one's gratitude to the Divine is to feel simply happy."

"Forward, for ever forward! at the end of the tunnel is the light … at the end of the flight is the victory."

"What Sri Aurobindos' represents in the worlds' history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme."

"Who have undertaken to achieve self-mastery, those who want to find the path that leads to the Divine, and those who aspire to consecrate themselves more and more completely to the Divine Work."

"Humanity is not the last rung of the terrestrial creation. Evolution continues and man will be surpassed. It is for each individual to know whether he wants to participate in the advent of this new species."

"I belong to no nation, no civilization, no society, no race, but to the Divine. I obey no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the Divine. To Him I have surrendered all, will, life and self; for Him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His will, with complete joy, and nothing in His service can be sacrifice, for all is perfect delight."

"At the beginning of my present earthly existence I was put into touch with many people who said they had a great inner aspiration, an urge towards something deeper and truer, but were tied down, subjected, slaves of that brutal necessity of earning their living, and that this weighed down upon them so much, took way so much of their time and energy that they could not engage in any other activity, inner or outer. I heard that very often."

"I was very young at that time, and always I used to tell myself that if ever I could do it, I would try to create a little world — Oh! quite a small one, but still — a small world where people would be able to live without having to be preoccupied by problems of food and lodging and clothing and the imperious necessities of life, to see if all the energies freed by this certainty of an assured material living would spontaneously be turned towards the divine life and inner realization."

"If ever I leave my body, my consciousness will remain with you."

"The Mother (Mirra), Richard and I were going somewhere. We saw Richard going down to a place from which rising was impossible, Then we found ourselves sitting in a carriage the driver of which was taking it up and down a hill a number of times, At last he stopped on the highest peak. Its significance was quite clear to us."

"She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo was going upstairs after lunch. Such unearthly beauty I had never seen — she appeared to be about 20 whereas she was more than 43 years old."

"The Mother taught by her manner and speech, and showed us in actual practice what was the meaning of disciple and master. .. It was the Mother who opened our eyes …"

"During those early days, she herself used to prepare a pudding. Of that pudding she would put aside a small quantity in a small dish; she would add a little milk to it and stir it with a spoon till it became liquid and consistent. She showed me how to do it and was particular that no grains should be left unmashed … And do you know for whom this part of the pudding was meant? For cats. Later on I learnt that they were not really cats but something more."

"There were no monks and ascetics here, no idols, recitations, devotional chanting and other forms of traditional Indian Ashram life. When we got into the building, we saw a number of people, all in simple and neat dresses, and some even in pants and coats, but no saints or sannyasis, no monks or mahants, no shaven heads … no preaching or prayers, no siksha or sermons."

"In her gait there was majesty, in her face a glowing grace and her eyes flashed gleams that pierced the darkness below and around. My gaze was fixed at the fairy-like figure whose beautiful face was radiating light and making the whole atmosphere so supernatural that she looked every inch an angel descending from Heaven."

"The Mother does not provide the Sadhaks with comforts because she thinks that the desires, fancies, likings, preferences should be satisfied — in Yoga people have to overcome these things. In any other Ashram they would not get one-tenth of what they get here … The first rule of Yoga is that the Sadhak must be content with what comes to him, much or little; if things are there, he must be able to use them without attachment or desire; if they are not he must be indifferent to their absence."

"… a means by which the sadhak might receive something from the Mother by an interchange in the material consciousness."

"It was a very important function every evening. It impressed me like a snatch of the Ancient Mysteries. The atmosphere was as in some secret temple of Egyptian or Greek times."

"Auroville (City of Dawn) is an experimental township in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India near Puducherry in South India, whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity … this town was a vision of The Mother from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry. She envisioned an international town where unity will be celebrated and all will have a spiritual vocation."

"In 1964 the Mother launched the project of Auroville, the city of human unity, "the City of Dawn" named after Sri Aurobindo. It is a city for 50,000 inhabitants and is hailed by people from all over the world. In 1968, the foundation stone of Auroville was laid and the Mother read out the charter herself."

"Auroville (City of Dawn) is an experimental township in South India whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity. It is a popular tourist destination, and has been described as a New Age metropolis conceived as an alternative exercise in ecological and spiritual living."

"Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity."

"The project of Auroville is to work for the advent of a progressive universal harmony."

"The first condition for living in Auroville is to be convinced of the essential unity of mankind and the will to collaborate in the material realisation of that unity. I believe in a progressive universal harmony and want to work for it."

"The true India resides in its villages."

"After graduation I was offered a post as Vice-Principal at the Jat High School but in that there was the name of a caste and I could not accept that. I have always been opposed to this social system since my childhood."

"Our poverty has to be eliminated and the basic necessities of life made available to every single citizen. Political leadership of the country must remember that nothing mocks our values and our dreams more than the desperate struggle of our people for existence; nothing could therefore be more poignant than the look of despair in the eyes of a starving child. Nothing could therefore be a more patriotic objective for our political leaders than to ensure that no child will go to bed hungry, that no family will fear for its next day's bread and that the future and capacities of not a single Indian will be allowed to be stunted by malnutrition."

"Non-Jats also vote for him. How many districts are there in UP and how many districts are there in which in which this animal of a Jat is found? Is there anything in my life to suggest that I am casteist? In 1954, I wrote a letter to Nehru, it is on record, in which I suggested that all candidates for gazette jobs must marry outside their own caste. And if a man married inside his caste while holding such a job, he would have to resign."

"The first thing our leadership in 1947 should have done was to delegalize all communal bodies. All organizations whose membership was confined to a particular caste or religion should have been disallowed from the political field."

"Political leadership of the country must remember that nothing mocks our values and dreams more than the desperate struggle of our people for existence. Nothing could, therefore be more poignant than the look of despair in the eyes of a starving child. Nothing could therefore, be a more patriotic objective for our political leaders than to ensure that no child will go to bed hungry, that no family will fear for its next day's bread and that the future and capacities of not a dingle Indian will be allowed to be stunted by mal-nutrition."

"The name of the Congress is mud. There is utter lack of leaderdhip in the state."

"The Jat community votes for non-sectarian in lines far greater proportion than any other in Meerut. They are un-educated, live in villages, have no pull in the public, economic or administrative life of the country and yet would not reconcile themselves to an inferior position in society. They would not put with the taunt of being a Jat. Fifty percent of the Hindu Jats within a short period of 40 years (1891-1931) left their old faith to turn Sikhs or Muslims so that nobody could any longer treat them with contempt."

"I am a Jat, born in a Jat family. A Muslim I can become immediately, but I cannot become a Brahmin, I cannot become a Rajput. Nor can I become even a Vaishya. And If I want to become a Harijan, even that is impossible, because the constitution does not permit it. It is better if this sort of caste system is destroyed…"

"That abolition of the privy purse will strengthen and ensure success of democracy is pure bunkum. Advanced countries like Britain and Japan are not less democratic or less progressive for the maintenance of their kings and princes. Royalty was not abolished even by socialist parties when they came to power in these countries."

"...quite a number of Congressmen are disguised as communists. They will go with Mrs Gandhi to the ultimate end. They have always been enemies of democracy. Behind-them is the Right CPI and behind it is Soviet Russia."

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia."

"He became a lawyer and in 1929 joined the Indian National Congress movement. He was jailed several times in the struggle for Indian independence. He served in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) state assembly from 1937 on and was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967–68 and 1970."

"In 1977 he allied his peasant- and agricultural-based Indian Revolutionary Party with the Janata Party of Morarji Desai and subsequently served as minister of home affairs (1977–78) and deputy prime minister (1979) in Desai’s coalition government Factional quarreling broke apart the Janata coalition in 1979, and in July of that year he became prime minister with the support of his former political enemy, Indira Gandhi, who had imprisoned him during the state of emergency of 1975–77. Within a month Gandhi withdrew her support from him, who thenceforth headed a caretaker government until Gandhi was returned to power in the elections of January 1980. He never again held high office."

"I had interviewed him when he was Chief Minister of UP. As a Jat, a member of caste of small farmers, he had expressed practical ideas about helping poor Indians. But a certain slyness seemed to substitute for any sense of moral principle. Indira knew just the man to go when she felt the time was ripe to break up Morarji’s Janata coalition."

"He withdrew his parliamentary support in the summer of 1979 with the aim of becoming prime minister himself, just as he had become Chief Minister of UP by depriving state governments of legislative majorities...He briefly became caretaker prime minister, supported by Congress (I) as part of his deal with Indira, betraying the millions of UP men and women who had voted to get rid of her and Sanjay."

"He studied law, but unlike many Indian leaders who rose to political power as practicing lawyers, he became known not as a lawyer but as a politician."

"Advocating the rights and interests of the farmers against the landlords or zamindars, he rose to prominence ensuring that the Zamindari Abolition Act would contain no loop holes, which would permit the continued dominance of the zamindars in the [[w:Rural economy|rural economy of the state."

"Contrast his uncompromising honesty and unquestionable abilities with his characterization as Jat leader, casteist, windbag, stubborn, opportunist and now obscurantist"

"Born into a culture of familism and casteism, yet critical of the same, Charan Singh lambasted all and sundry in a saintly language which aimed to bridge the chasm between modern aspirations and traditional roots."

"Big leaders , said Niccolo Machiavelli, should inspire both love and fear. He [Chaudhry Charann Singh] had that ability. He was the ‘dictatot’ within the area of his political influence but he also enjoyed a ‘reputation for integrity’"

"He could not check every conductor, but everybody from chaprasi [peon] to the Chief Secretary, from constable to IG [Inspector General of Police] knew that if he is caught he would not be spared. That is the kind of reputation he got."

"The area [Bagpat Parliamentary constituencies and nearby areas where Jats dominate] is also known for the absence of landlordism. It was he who was instrumental in abolishing landlordism which concentrated economic and political power in a few families. Yet, he and his son Ajit Singh have succeeded in muster in sufficient support from Jats and others to be repeatedly elected."

"There have been two most athletic figures in Indian politics, Gulzari Lal Nanda, the Prime-Minister-in-waiting or permanent prime minister pro-tem some times called the “stepney prime minister” and Charan Singh had set his sights on prime minisitership in 1974 and would have sold his soul to the devil for it."

"He was different. He had little taste for the finer side of the politics no interest in political philosophy; and he had hardly any values. In any scheme of things, his one target was personal interest. He was anti-Nehru, anti-Indira, anti-Desai, anti-Ramon carrying it, ignoble. He was also given to anger."

"He decided to appear in public a ‘socialist’ by professing to “nationalize” the sugar industry but, in private, he had gone into a deal with sugar barons...The man whom he had appointed as Receiver was cane inspector Man Singh, his own brother! No Chief Minister in UP had ever indulged in this sort of nepotism."

"Basically a leader of peasant community in the north and had not tackled a broad vision. He cannot be called a true Gandhian because a true Gandhian cannot be for office only."

"No national leader was identified so closely with the interests of the peasantry. He doggedly sought to protect the interests of peasant proprietors against the inexorable juggernaut, as he saw it of collectivism."

"As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."

"I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God."

"Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again."

"Elijah, when he entered into rivalry with the prophets of Baal became one of them, because God is not to be found in such circuses, nor in the murders which go along with them. At the end of his undeceiving, Elijah is more Yahwist, more atheist, less of a shaman, less of a sacrificer, because God is not like the gods, not even so as to show himself superior to them."

"When Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain, Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again; All, all forsook the friendless, guilty mind, But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind. Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare, From Carmel's height, to sweep the fields of air, The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began, Dropt on the world — a sacred gift to man."

"And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook."

"And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah."

"And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth."

"He himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away."

"Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof."

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

"I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity."

"...we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all."

"If, therefore, any one makes the accusation, and furnishes proof that the said men [Christians] do anything contrary to the laws, you shall adjudge punishments in proportion to the offences. And this, by Hercules, you shall give special heed to, that if any man shall, through mere calumny, bring an accusation against any of these persons [Christians], you shall award to him more severe punishments in proportion to his wickedness."

"The demons have always effected that all those who ever so little strived to live by logos and shun vice be hated."

"Virtue, who was of squalid look and dress, said, if you obey me you will adorn yourself not with ornament nor beauty that passes away and perishes, but with everlasting and precious graces. And we are persuaded that everyone who flees from what is superficially good and follows what is reckoned hard and foolish finds happiness awaiting him. For Vice, veiling her actions in the beauties which properly belong to Virtue and are genuine, enslaves groveling people."

"But yet, since He knew that it would be good, He created both angels and men free to do that which is righteous, and He appointed periods of time during which He knew it would be good for them to have the exercise of free-will; and because He likewise knew it would be good, He made general and particular judgments; each one’s freedom of will, however, being guarded."

"For there is not one single race of men, whether barbarians, or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, nomads, or vagrants, or herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus."

"The Jews were behind all the persecutions of the Christians. They wandered through the country everywhere hating and undermining the Christian faith."

"The Lord has taught with very great fulness, that souls not only continue to exist, not by passing from body to body, but that they preserve the same form [in their separate state] as the body had to which they were adapted, and that they remember the deeds which they did in this state of existence, and from which they have now ceased, - in that narrative which is recorded respecting the rich man and that Lazarus who found repose in the bosom of Abraham [Luke 16:19ff]."

"Polycarp replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Do you know me?" "I do know thee, first-born of Satan." Such was the horror of the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth."

"It is not necessary to seek truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church."

"Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith."

"Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei."

"This expression [of our Lord], "How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not," [Matt 23:37] set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God.... And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment.... [4:37:5 p519f] And not merely in works, but also in faith, has God preserved the will of man free and under his own control, saying, "According to thy faith be it unto thee;" [Matt 9:29] thus showing that there is a faith specially belonging to man, since he has an opinion specially his own. And again, "All things are possible to him that believeth;" [Mark 9:23] and, "Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." [Matt 8:13] Now all such expressions demonstrate that man is in his own power with respect to faith. And for this reason, "he that believeth in Him has eternal life while he who believeth not the Son hath not eternal life, but the wrath of God shall remain upon him." [John 3:36]"

"Esaias says: “The wolf also shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall take his rest with the kid; the calf also, and the bull, and the lion shall eat together; and a little boy shall lead them. …” I am quite aware that some persons endeavour to refer these words to the case of savage men, both of different nations and various habits, who come to believe, and when they have believed, act in harmony with the righteous. But although this is [true] now with regard to some men coming from various nations to the harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resurrection of the just [the words shall also apply] to those animals mentioned. For God is rich in all things. And it is right that when the creation is restored, all the animals should … revert to the food originally given by God … that is, the productions of the earth."

"The business of the Christian is nothing else than to be ever preparing for death"

"[A] feature in the Valentinian account of creation is instructive regarding the much-debated question of the "" of the Gnostics. The world was created after the image of the invisible world of the by a carrying out unwittingly his mother's intention. His ignorance, however, was not complete, as is shown in the following...When the Demiurge further wanted to imitate the timeless nature of the upper Ogdoad (the original eight Aeons in the Pleroma), but could not express their immutable eternity, being as he was a fruit of defect, he embodied their eternity in the times, epochs, and great numbers of years, under the delusion that by the quantity of times he could represent their infinity. Thus truth escaped him and he followed the lie. Therefore his work shall pass away when the times are fulfilled. (Iren. I. 17. 2)This of course is a parody of the famous passage in the Timaeus (37 C ff.) where Plato describes the creation of time as "the moving image of eternity." The vast gulf that divides the spirit of this imitation will be evident to anyone who takes the trouble to compare the two passages."

"For the one who does not practice mercy will have his judgment without mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment."

"Of what benefit is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he does not have works? That faith cannot save him, can it? If a brother or a sister is lacking clothing and enough food for the day, yet one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but you do not give them what they need for their body, of what benefit is it? So, too, faith by itself, without works, is dead."

"Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell."

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."

"Come, now, you rich men, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothing has become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted away, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh. What you have stored up will be like a fire in the last days. Look! The wages you have withheld from the workers who harvested your fields keep crying out, and the cries for help of the reapers have reached the ears of Jehovah of armies. You have lived in luxury and for self-gratification on the earth. You have fattened your hearts on the day of slaughter."

"[When he saw animals being conveyed to his kitchen] Poor little innocent creatures, if you were reasoning beings and could speak, how you would curse us! For we are the cause of your death, and what have you done to deserve it?"

"What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts … for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals … [He is] … moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God."

"In the measure that love for the flesh prevails in you,"

"There is nothing so capable of banishing the inveterate habits of licentiousness from our soul,"

"If the heart is not occupied with study,"

"Be peaceful within yourself,"

"The soul that loves God finds rest only in God."

"But what need is there to speak of the ascetics,"

"Moreover, from time to time they [the angels] appeared to them to teach them how they ought to lead their lives."

"If you are truly merciful, do not grieve inwardly when you are unjustly deprived of something you possess,"

"The man whose tongue is inclined to silence will acquire a humble discipline in all his habits"

"O, how evil for hesychasts is the sight of men and intercourse with them!"

"If you wish to hold fast to stillness,"

"Abba Arsenius for God’s sake conversed with no one,"

"The sweetness of prayer is one thing,"

"On pure prayer:"

"At this time (when we make our petitions and our supplications to God, and we speak with Him)"

"Therefore, as I have said, one must not call this gift and grace spiritual prayer,"

"Love is the offspring of knowledge of the truth which, as is commonly confessed, is given to all."

"Thus you will discover that the mind’s wings sprout up in the womb of chastity,"

"As it is not possible to cross over the great ocean without a ship,"

"Fire that has flared up in dry wood is difficult to put out,"

"When a sailor voyages in the midst of the sea, he watches the stars,"

"As grass and fire cannot co-exist in one place,"

"True is the word of the Lord which declares"

"Question Whence does a man perceive that he has attained to humility?"

"Life in the world is like a manuscript of writings that is still in rough draft."

"The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregations of men."

"Let us then love stillness, my brethren,"

"When the power of stillness overshadows you on account of prolonged abiding in your cell,"

"Once an elder was asked, ‘What is repentance?’"

"The whole length of the night is as the day to them,"

"... how they departed and hid themselves in mountains, caves, and in solitary, secluded places,"

"Hence He continually separated Himself for prayer, and not indiscriminately, but He chose the night for this, and as a place, the desert. Hereby [He taught] us to withdraw from all clamor and tumult, so that we could pray in stillness, as is proper."

"Prayer offered up at night possesses a great power, more than the prayer of the day-time. Therefore all the righteous prayed during the night, while combatting the heaviness of the body and the sweetness of sleep and repelling corporeal nature."

"But when his mind progresses in subtle reflection upon the world to come,"

"Again he was asked, ‘How can a man acquire humility?’"

"Just as presumption dissipates the soul through imaginings that distract her,"

"A humble man is never pleased to see gatherings, confused crowds, tumult, shouts and cries, opulence, adornment, and luxury, the cause of insobriety;"

"A humble man is never rash, hasty, or perturbed,"

"Prayer does not consist only of the repeating ,"

"Accordingly, as I have said above, when—"

"The non-intellectual light is the light that belongs to the elements."

"The light of contemplation proceeds along"

"Let the following prayer not cease from your heart night or day:"

"Wonder of mind follows on from a solitary abode,"

"What watering is to plants, exactly the same is continual silence for the growth of knowledge."

"The “noetic cloud” is the intellect that is smitten with wonder"

"The aim of psalmody should be serene conversation with God"

"The aim of contemplation of the world to come is to be seen in the coming into being of the holy angels—"

"How feeble is the power of ink and the traces of the letters to indicate in writing the precise nature of action,"

"Solitude lets us share in the divine Mind, and brings us close to limpidity of mind in a short time, without any hindrance."

"At the time of the sinking of the light and the atmosphere is suffocating,"

"A desolate place, because of the great barrenness that reigns there, causes us to acquire a deadness of heart ,"

"The state in the soul for truth is the stillness of the intellect,"

"Every reflection that exists is set in motion by the object of the reflection:"

"Wherever you are, be a solitary in your way of thinking—alone and a stranger in heart, not involved ."

"Do not reckon the entire mode of life"

"When the intellect has received an awareness of the beauty of its nature,"

"The first delight of the spiritual revelation of the mind is the contemplation of the care of God,"

"There was when that there was no name for God, and there is going to be when he will not have one."

"Some rational beings are without any appellations, and some have many names;"

"Just as the non-rational light was entrusted for the distinction of bodies,"

"If the light-giving elements were made for things corporeal for the use of bodies and the discernment of the senses,"

"Just as all namings and appellations that concern God were with him at the beginning of creation,"

"That the intellect should standing during the office or in prayer continually, again and again,"

"My brothers, the time of our lives is short,"

"None of those things by which God is now made known through nature"

"To the extent to which a person is distanced from the settled world,"

"Just as the sight of someone standing beside smoke cannot become clear"

"When the solitary has passed on to another"

"Once a person has, through divine assistance, become recollected from external concerns,"

"There is a spiritual perception which is born out of meditation;"

"It can also happen that from time to time a certain stillness, without any insights, can fall upon a person,"

"Luminous meditation on God is the goal of prayer;"

"There are times when a person is transported from prayer to a wondrous meditation on God."

"Blessed is God who uses corporeal objects continually"

"In the case of a person who has attained to this converse of contemplation in his ascetic way of life,"

"The mode of conduct of this (present) life provides (an opening) for the functioning of the senses,"

"When in these matters you receive the power which stems from grace to be bound firmly to their continual stirrings,"

"On the sequence of ways by which the mind is steered towards the glorious things pertaining to God."

"And when, again, he departs from these things,"

"Again, there is the person who has reached perfection on the level of the soul,"

"Just as there is nothing which resembles God,"

"What is conversation with God?"

"Thus, as I have said, there are many paths for this converse which exists with God in stillness,"

"Prayer, however, is lower in rank than being stirred in spirit: on this there is no dispute, for prayer is inferior to this mystery."

"For every event, natural being and utterance in this creation there is a Sanctuary and a Holy of Holies."

"So these are the different kinds of paths which discerning solitaries follow,"

"When it sometimes happens that a person is held worthy of prayer of fervour as a result of the surging of grace,"

"When he is held worthy of the prayer of understanding,"

"Or maybe there is someone who imagines that the level and the stirring of spiritual prayer consists in one of these things."

"What then shall we say?"

"There are times when a person sits in a stillness that is guarded and wakeful,"

"When someone reaches insights into creation on the path of his ascetic life,"

"By prayer I do not mean only the fixed Hours, the Hullale of the psalter and the liturgical hymns."

"When someone receives all the time an awareness of these mysteries,"

"This is the consummation of the (ascetic) life in the body (that takes place) on the level of the soul,"

"It is a matter for even more astonishment in the case of those who,"

"Now when the intellect has been illumined, even just a little,"

"So then, let us not attribute to God's actions and His dealings with us any idea of requital."

"By saying that He will even hand us over to burning for the sake of sufferings, torment and all sorts of ills,"

"And it is clear that He does not abandon them the moment they fall,"

"No part belonging to any single one of (all) rational beings will be lost,"

"Let us beware in ourselves, my beloved,"

"The life of solitaries is higher than this world"

"converse and not working with any of the realities here below,"

"Mysteries are revealed,"

"By stillness of the body and ceasing from this world,"

"When the soul has become limpid,"

"Even if there was a time when creation did not exist,"

"Now is there yet another place above where creation has ascended?"

"At night when all sounds are still,"

"In the night which calms all the efforts"

"All of these realities are within the light of the mind."

"For he says:"

"Many times a day,"

"If all the writings of the desert fathers which teach us concerning watchfulness and prayer were lost and the writings of Abba Isaac the Syrian alone survived, they would suffice to teach one from beginning to end concerning the life of stillness and prayer. They are the Alpha and Omega of the life of watchfulness and interior prayer, and alone suffice to guide one from his first steps to perfection."

"Forsake not Isaac."

"I am reading St Isaac the Syrian. I find something true, heroic, spiritual in him; something which transcends space and time. I feel that here, for the first time, is a voice which resonates in the deepest parts of my being, hitherto closed and unknown to me. Although he is so far removed from me in time and space, he has come right into the house of my soul. In a moment of quiet he has spoken to me, sat down beside me. Although I have read so many other things, although I have met so many other people, and though today there are others living around me, no one else has been so discerning. To no one else have I opened the door of my soul in this way. Or to put it better, no one else has shown me in such a brotherly, friendly way that, within myself, within human nature, there is such a door, a door which opens onto a space which is open and unlimited. And no one else has told me this unexpected and ineffable truth, that the whole of this inner world belongs to man."

"Never think of anyone as inferior to you. Open the inner Eye and you will see the One Glory shining in all creatures."

"The Sufi's love to God goes with God's love towards him. Sufis are folk who have preferred God to everything, so that God has preferred them to everything."

"God gives his servant no source of strength more powerful for him than when He leads him to humiliate himself."

"Knowledge of God comprises three kind: Theological, philosophical and mystical. Theological knowledge concerns with tawhid or unification. Philosophical knowledge deals with the concept of Ultimate Truth, reached through reason. Mystical knowledge is the knowledge of the Essence of God. It is attained by the saints after mushahada or the contemplation on God in their illuminated hearts."

"Knowledge of the Divine Attributes or Godhead is the most perfect knowledge since it is realized through the soul's communion with God."

"The gnostic is the knower without knowledge, without sight, without information without apprehension, without description, without manifestation and without veil. If they are in themselves at all, they exist but in God, Their actions are held by God and their words are the words of God uttered by their tongues and their sight is the sight of God penetrated into their eyes."

"We cannot describe it. We cannot reveal it. And when we do, we disappear."

"When a person realizes peace inside by doing yoga, he will not smoke and get peace disturbed. The peace obtained by yoga is much higher than the pleasure of smoking."

"The ashram [religious hermitage] protects man from the world. Man must protect himself from the ashram."

"Religion of your upbringing is like a cloak - you must know how it is made in order to take it off."

"Q: Did you start life like us with lots of demands, and what spurred you to give it up? A: When I was six or seven, I would feel I was inside a box of earth and sky, and I would weep. Once I asked my mother: "Take me out of this box of earth and sky." She said, "I can't." Then I said, "I'm going.""

"Using siddhis (powers) is not good for those who possess them. It can also trap the mind into desires. By being pure in mind siddhis will come by itself, and a yogi should not try to show his powers. First thing is to have siddhis and then not to get trapped in siddhis."

"Teach to learn. Watch yourself before you teach."

"Pleasure has desire in it. Desire is pain. There is no satisfaction. So pleasure is pain."

"Your body is the temple of your soul. Your soul is God's temple."

"How many teachers did you have? A: Myself."

"..it was well known to people (in Kumoan villages) that Babaji Maharaj's (Hariakhan Baba) age was several thousand years and that he was present at the War of Mahabharata at the time of Krishna."

"In 1929, for the first time, I paid attention to the stories being told by older people about Sombari Maharaj and Hariakhan Maharaj."

"When I was building Kenchi Ashram, which is in Nainital District, I was told by the villagers that Hariakhan Maharaj used to live in a cave there. I preserved that cave, which is behind Hanuman Temple at Kenchi."

"Q: Is life a dream or a meditation? A: Life is a meditation when you know it is a dream."

"God is the only lover and He loves in different forms - parents, husband, wife, friend, children, animals. All are His forms and He, Himself, has no form."

"Without watching ourselves we can't be aware of the tricks the mind plays. So a yogi should be alert all the time."

"What is mind? A heap of thoughts."

"Q: How do you define ego? A: Ego is life. To keep the body's existence is ego. It is the part of the mind which identifies a creature with the world. Ego self tells you, “This is my body,” and also tells you, “This is my Self.” It connects the two."

"Q: Can intellect aid understanding? A: It helps in the beginning but cannot give full enlightenment. The mind is the main instrument to gain enlightenment, but enlightenment is only reached when the mind stops."

"Q: How can we stop the mind? A: Not hitting it with a hammer. Stop the mind by the mind."

"Q: What can I do to overcome my fear of death? A: Attachment to the body causes fear of death. It is the strongest attachment. Even a newborn infant has this attachment. To overcome the fear of death it is necessary to accept that we all have to die."

"Q: What is silence? A: Silence is an austerity. You control your desire to talk. By talking, people try to impress others, which you can't do if you are in silence. In silence you have to develop tolerance. At first it is difficult to do because you separate yourself from others by not expressing yourself. But gradually the mind reduces that ego and an aspirant accepts the situation, which develops tolerance and reduces anger."

"Don't think that you are carrying the whole world; make it easy. Make it play, make it a prayer."

"The aim of life is to attain peace. No one can give us peace. We can't buy or borrow it. We have to cultivate it by practicing yama and niyama (yoga restraints and observances)."

"All sadhanas or methods are for simply tricking the mind. The trick is to not let the mind spread out in a form of thoughts."

"Within the physical body every human being has a subtle body made up of invisible structures and energies (kundalini, nadis, and chakras); and within the subtle is the causal body out of which the subtle and physical bodies are formed."

"The world is an abstract art. We see it as we want to see it. It is a garden of roses and it is also a forest of thorny bushes and poison oak."

"Faith and devotion are the foundation on which meditation is built."

"Contentment, compassion, and tolerance are the pillars of peace."

"Work honestly, meditate every day, meet people without fear, and play."

"Creation is the product of bliss, and bliss is its sustainer; to bliss it returns."

"Anything that exists will never be destroyed; its disappearance is simply a transformation."

"The Self is beyond birth, death, gender, class, and religion - only the body wears those labels."

"A person knows what he knows. An animal knows, but doesn't know what he knows. In Yoga, "I" consciousness is called asmita klesha. It is classified as an affliction and a hindrance to attaining higher consciousness."

"There is always a chance for a person to break out of the cycle, but there is no such chance for an animal unless it incarnates as a human and develops "I" consciousness."

"A wise person is one who sees the effect of an action before he acts."

"The embodied soul has two purposes to fulfill: Experience the world, and get liberation from all experiences. If the self were not in bondage then the two purposes would not be fulfilled."

"A prisoner never stops thinking about getting out of the prison. Life in the world is like sitting in a prison. One who doesn't realize that doesn't think of getting liberation."

"Everything can be a trap. A hermit goes to a cave to get out of all worldly attachments and then gets attach to the cave. If we miss the point, then everything becomes a trap."

"Making separate groups is human nature. No matter how much we talk about universal unity, we end up making another group."

"Greed is a sickness of the mind. The more one hoards, the more greed increases. Giving with no expectation eliminates greed."

"Household is a chariot. The parents are its two wheels. If the wheels don't move equally, the chariot cannot run straight."

"Just like pure water poured in a dirty cup becomes dirty, similarly the pure ego rooted in the impure mind becomes impure ego."

"The ego has no form and no particular center of existence. It pervades the mind, intellect, senses, and the body as 'I am'."

"Yoga is defined as a method – the process of nirodha (mental control) – by which union (the goal of yoga) is achieved. Yoga is therefore both the process of nirodha and the unqualified state of niruddha (the perfection of that process). The word yoga (union) implies duality (as in joining of two things or principles); the result of yoga is the nondual state..., or as the union of the lower self and higher Self. The nondual state is characterized by the absence of individuality; it can be described as eternal peace, pure love, Self-realization, or liberation."

"You have everything and you want more. It's natural in human beings. You don't need to give away your house, money, and car, and leave your family to find God. The only thing necessary is to understand attachment."

"Human birth is the highest. It is for attaining liberation. If we don't consciously try for liberation, then we are misusing our human birth.Every action, thought, and word should be spiritual. It happens only when the mind is purified by sadhana (spiritual practice)."

"The ego rules the mind because it links the “I” with the mind and body. If the “I,” which is another name for the self, were not identified with the mind and body, the ego would have no power. Self-study, svadhyaya, therefore, is the set of practices that investigates the nature of the self to discover its origin. When the origin is found to be separate from the body, the ego loses the battle and peace is attain."

"Samyama, which is the application of concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and superconscious trance (samadhi) in lightning succession, is practiced with the intent to gain specific knowledge of the object of concentration. The object is seen from all sides, in all its aspects, with full depth and breadth. As such, this complete absorption of the mind using the process of samyama brings complete and specific knowledge of the object. This power of knowing is vibhuti."

"Having made pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat the same, you engage in battle for the sake of battle; thus you shell win and not incur sin. (Bhagavad Gita, Ch II, verse 38) Here, Sri Krishna is saying that if Arjuna has neither desire for heaven nor for sovereignty over the earth, then he should achieve equanimity of the mind. With equanimity of the mind one can achieve success in the war of life. Without it, one cannot remain unaffected by the pairs of opposites and will be continually tossed about by the waves of egocentric likes and dislikes."

"Among creations I am the beginning, the middle, and also the end, O Arjuna, I am the science of the Self, and I am the logic of all arguments."

"I am the logic of all arguments - Arguments are of three kinds: 1) jalpa (arrogant argument) – In this type of argument one tries to establish one's point of view by contradicting the opponent's argument without considering whether the opponent's argument is right or wrong. 2) vitanda (destructive criticism) – In this type of argument the person simply destroys the opponent's viewpoint by misleading argument. 3) vada (logical argument) – In this type of argument one uses a method of discussion with reasoning with an aim to find out what is truth and what is untruth. Reasoning is the best method of discussion to achieve the truth. This is why the Lord says, “Among arguments, I am vada or logical argument.”"

"Knowledge, action, and actor are declared in the science of the gunas to be of three kinds only, according to distinctions of gunas; hear them also duly."

"Q: How are peace and happiness related? Is peace the only real happiness? A: When happiness moves beyond the mind, that is happiness."

"Q: I understand that to walk the path one must do it alone. Why is it so much easier to do a yoga class in a group rather than to have the discipline of doing it alone? A: In the modern system, Yoga is becoming a group thing. I did not grow up with this kind of system. In my discipline, doing Yoga in front of anyone was forbidden. Because it's a personal thing. That is why yogis chose to live in seclusion."

"Q: At the time of death when the elements are changing rapidly and there is confusion and fear, what is the method to fix the mind in positivity? A: It depends on regular practice. It can't be done without prior practice of concentration. At the time of death, people lose control over the mind. Only a few keep awareness of God at that moment."

"To get out of the rut is not one day's job or one hour in a day or going to temples, churches or mosques on particular days. We have to reflect on all our thoughts all the time and turn the outgoing mind inward in every second of life."

"Control of the mind can be achieved by understanding yourself, the aim and the energy which is blocking us from progressing. Between God and the Self, the blocking energy is the ego."

"If the ego is pulled toward the world, it makes a wall. If the same ego is pulled toward God, it makes a ladder."

"No religion can grant enlightenment or salvation. Your own faith, devotion, and love for God can bring about enlightenment. Your spiritual practices and your desire to attain God are the main thing."

"Q: Babji, if you had only two words to say to the people of the world, what would they be? A: Attain Peace."

"Hari Dass Baba – this little 90 pound fellow – architecturally designed all of the temples and schools, supervised all the buildings and grounds, had many followers of his own, slept two hours a night. His food intake for the last 15 years had been 2 glasses of milk a day. That's it. His feces are like two small marbles each day. His arms are about this big around, tiny, but when the workmen can't lift a particularly heavy rock, they call for 'Chota Maharaji' – the little great king. As in a comic strip, he goes over and lifts the rock, just with one-pointedness of mind."

"The aphasia has introduced silence into my conversation...I had training for this kind of thing when I was with Baba Hari Dass in India (1967). I was mauna (in silence) for a period of time, and he and I wrote to each other on tiny slates that we wore around our necks."

"Each morning around 11:30 Hari Dass Baba would come from Hanuman Garh sixteen kilometers away to give me lessons in yoga, asanas and pranayama, for about twenty minutes..."

"He was very loving and very demanding. He told me Hindu stories like those of Ramayana. He kept silence, so he would write on a chalkboard, things likem “Desire is the creator, desire is the destroyer, desire is the universe.”"

"In early 1971 I received preliminary copies of the book [Be Here Now] in India. When it was read to Maharaji-ji (Neem Karoli), he told me to change some of the parts about Hari Dass Baba, who had been my sadhana tutor while I lived in Kainchi that first year."

"Haridas [Baba Hari Dass] with his band of enthusiastic and active associates, was managing the affairs of the temples and ashram at Hanumanghar [near Nainital]. He was well-versed in pujas and rituals, as well as in pranayama and meditation, and an experienced practitioner of hatha yoga... he also looked after the devotees who who would come there. Those staying there were sometimes taught the preliminaries of yoga, especially hatha yoga. Ram Dass stayed there in 1967 and Lawerie in 1964, among others."

"Haridas was also very active in building the Kainchi temples and purchasing materials for them. His associates, mostly from Nainital, were his friends and companions... Some of them were so attached to him that they parted from Babaji [Neem Karoli] when Haridas left in 1968. The work ran smoothly under Haridas's leadership, with the full cooperation of his associates."

"Be cheerful, do good, and let the sparrows chirp."

"If young people are educated properly, we have moral order; if not, vice and disorder prevail. Religion alone can initiate and achieve a true education."

"I'll wait for all my young people in heaven."

"Kindness of speech, in word, in advising conquers everything and all."

"Not with violence, but with words."

"Serve the Lord joyfully! [Servite Domino in laetitia!]"

"Those who pray take care of the most important of all."

"With the works of charity we closed the doors of hell and open ourselves to the sky."

"You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you."

"You experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. ... Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

"What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight."

"All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need."

"We must obey God rather than men."

"προφυλάσσω δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῶν ἀνθρωπομόρφων."

"τόπος μηδένα φυσιούτω· τὸ γὰρ ὅλον ἐστὶν πίστις καὶ ἀγάπη, ὧν οὐδὲν προκέκριται."

"καταμάθετε δὲ τοὺς ἑτεροδοξοῦντας εἰς τὴν χάριν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τὴν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐλθοῦσαν, πῶς ἐναντίοι εἰσὶν τῇ γνώμῃ τοῦ θεοῦ. περὶ ἀγάπης οὐ μέλει αὐτοῖς, οὐ περὶ χήρας, οὐ περὶ ὀρφανοῦ, οὐ περὶ θλιβομένου, οὐ περὶ δεδεμένου ἢ λελυμένου,οὐ περὶ πεινῶντος ἢ διψῶντος."

"At roughly the same time, on the other end of the Roman world in Syria, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was considering and writing about the same topics as Clement. Ignatius had been a disciple of John, and tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church holds that Ignatius was personally appointed by Peter to be the bishop of Antioch. Like Clement, Ignatius's concern for orthodoxy dominates his writings. Many of the most recognizable features of Christianity are described therein. Ignatius functioned as the most prolific link between the apostles and the early church, and in the words of one scholar, "his testimony must necessarily carry with it the greatest weight and demand the most serious consideration." All of Ignatius's surviving letters were written on a journey to Rome, where he would meet death by being torn to pieces by lions. Consequently, his letters to the churches around the Roman world are wrought with a desperate love and concern for his brothers and sisters. One of Ignatius's main themes is a pleading that the churches would reject the heresies that were creeping into the church. "I entreat you... not to nourish yourselves on anything but Christian fare, and have no truck with the alien barbs of heresy," he wrote. Rejection of heresy included shunning those who claimed to be Christians but adhered to false teaching: "You must keep away from these men as you would from a pack of savage animals, they are rabid curs who snap at peoples unawares, and you need to be on guard against their bites, because they are by no means easy to heal." Ignatius also emphasized the importance of the Eucharist (the Lord's Supper), declaring it the "medicine of immortality." As one who was personally instructed by at least one of the apostles, he had much to say on the subject."

"The first-century Christian writer Ignatius called for an abolition of warfare. This would happen, according to him and other Christian writers, once the world embraced the teachings of Jesus Christ—to love one's enemies, to do good even to those who do evil, to respond to evil with goodness. Such determined love and goodness was not meant to be pacifistic but a program for actively fighting evil. Given their stance against soldiers and soldiering, even against police work, it is striking that Christians sought and got converts among the Roman Legion. Some historians believe that it was converted Roman soldiers who first brought Christianity to Britain."

"Every holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know. It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the holy Sacrifice of the Mass."

"Bless the hand that strikes you, for it is always the hand of a father."

"(About Giacomo Gaglione) With Jesus on the Cross, with Jesus in holy Paradise."

"Where there is more sacrifice, there is more generosity."

"Circumstances make the hero, but everyday courage makes the righteous man."

"Better a mouse between two cats than a sick man between two doctors."

"Is he a saint? Giacomino is a great saint!"

"The most beautiful creed is the one that bursts from your lips in the darkness, in sacrifice, in pain, in the supreme effort of an infallible will for good; it is the one that, like a bolt of lightning, pierces the darkness of your soul; it is the one that, in the flash of the storm, lifts you up and leads you to God."

"Blasphemy brings God's curse upon your home and is the surest way to go to hell."

"God's omnipotence is not limited to planet Earth alone. On other planets there are creatures and other beings who have not sinned as we have and who pray to God."

"(At the beginning of Giacomo Gaglione‘s book, ’'Allo specchio della mia anima'‘ (In the Mirror of My Soul)) Never let the Passion of Christ leave your mind if you want to share in his triumphs."

"Before coming here to see me... go to Monte Sant'Angelo and invoke the help and protection of the Archangel Michael."

"(About the wife of the champion, when they went to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1953; a week later, as widely predicted by journalists at the time, Coppi left his wife to go and live with Giulia Occhini) Mrs. Coppi, be careful not to get hit on."

"I will never tire of praying to Jesus. It is true that my prayers are more deserving of punishment than reward, because I have disgusted Jesus too much with my countless sins; but in the end, he will take pity on me. (209, 1995)"

"I no longer understand anything. I do not know if my prayers are such, or if they are strong resentments that my heart directs toward its God in the fullness of its pain. (1029, 1995)"

"Even at the altar, my father, God alone knows how much violence I must do to myself to avoid further sins. (278, 1995)"

"I want to suffer. This is my desire. (1051, 1995)"

"Patience!... I suffer, it is true, but I enjoy it very much. (206, 1995)"

"Jesus tells me that in love it is he who delights me; in pain, however, it is I who delight him. (335, 1995)"

"I seek God, but where can I find him? (1028, 1995)"

"But what torments me most are those strong and sharp pains in my chest. At times they cause me such great discomfort that it seems as if they want to break my back and chest. (107, 1995)"

"Oh, how sweet was the conversation I had with heaven this morning! It was such that, even if I wanted to try to tell you everything, I could not; there were things that cannot be translated into human language without losing their profound and heavenly meaning. The Heart of Jesus and mine, if I may say so, merged. There were no longer two hearts beating, but only one. My heart had disappeared, like a drop of water lost in the sea. Jesus was paradise, the king. The joy within me was so intense and profound that I could no longer contain myself; the most delightful tears flooded my face. (273, 1995)"

"I am not worthy to tell you what happened during this period of superlative martyrdom. I was confessing our boys on the evening of the fifth, when all of a sudden he was filled with extreme terror at the sight of a heavenly figure who appeared before my mind's eye. He was holding a kind of tool, similar to a very long iron blade with a sharp point, from which fire seemed to be coming out. Seeing all this and watching this figure violently hurl the aforementioned tool into my soul was all one and the same thing. I barely uttered a moan; I felt like I was dying. I told the boy to leave, because I felt ill and no longer had the strength to continue. (1065, 1995)"

"Poor my dear Mum, how much you love me! (276, 1995)"

"Here, finally, is the return of the month of beautiful Mommy. (357, 1995)"

"The sight of Jesus in distress caused me great pain, so I wanted to ask him why he was suffering so much. I received no answer. However, his gaze returned to those priests. But shortly afterwards, almost horrified and as if tired of looking, he withdrew his gaze and when he raised it towards me, to my great horror, I saw two tears running down his cheeks. He moved away from that crowd of priests, with a great expression of disgust on his face, shouting: Butchers! (350, 1995)"

"Vainglory is an enemy of souls who have consecrated themselves to the Lord and given themselves to the spiritual life. (396, 1995)"

"My God! What martyrdom is the temptation of vainglory. (314, 1995)"

"This blessed war will be a salutary purge for our Italy, for the Church of God; it will reawaken in the Italian heart the faith that lay there hidden, as if asleep and suffocated by evil desires; it will cause beautiful flowers to bloom in the Church of God, from soil that was almost parched and dry. But, my God, before this happens, what a harsh trial awaits us. We must go through an entire night covered in the thickest darkness, the likes of which our homeland has never seen before. (583, 1995)"

"Only one thing remains my friend: death. (767, 1995)"

"Keep the crucified Jesus in your heart and all the crosses of the world will seem like roses to you. Those who have felt the pricks of the crown of thorns of the Savior, who is our head, do not feel the other wounds in any way. (III, 827)"

"And with animals, if we approach them in a rational way we shall find a trace of the intelligible in them which is a not unworthy imitation of what is above reason. For if we look at those beings that naturally care for their offspring, we are encouraged to define for ourselves reverently and with godly boldness that God exercises providence in his sovereign uniqueness over all beings."

"In Maximus all the streams of the Greek patristic tradition flow together in synthesis. At the same time, with real originality, there is much from within that tradition that he takes to a higher level. But the course of this saint's life impressed me even more than his teaching. Once again, like Athanasius, one man was able to defend orthodox Christology against a whole empire. A Byzantine joins forces with Pope St. Martin I in Rome and finally suffers martyrdom for the true faith. This is the summit of that unity of doctrine and life which marks the whole patristic age; speculation and mysticism of the greatest subtlety are wedded to a soberly and consciously grasped martyrdom. In St. Maximus we can see in the Catholica what Kierkegaard found within the individual."

"[For Maximus], through accomplishing all the stages of the spiritual life, the human person achieves, not simply union with God, but also fulfils what is the essentially human role of being the natural bond of all being, drawing the whole created order into harmony with itself, and into union with God."

"And I heard a man's voice between [the banks of] Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this [man] to understand the vision."

"Yea, whiles I [was] speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation."

"And the Lord said to Gabriel: "'Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle: for length of days shall they not have.""

"Gabriel, one of the holy angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim."

"'This first is Michael, the merciful and long-suffering: and the second, who is set over all the diseases and all the wounds of the children of men, is Raphael: and the third, who is set over all the powers, is Gabriel: and the fourth, who is set over the repentance unto hope of those who inherit eternal life, is named Phanuel.' And these are the four angels of the Lord of Spirits and the four voices I heard in those days."

"And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season."

"And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her."

"Betwixt these rockie pillars Gabriel sat Chief of the Angelic guards (IV.545f)... He ended, and the Son gave signal high To the bright minister that watch'd, he blew His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps When God descended, and perhaps once more To sound at general doom. (XI.72ff)."

"Say: Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel — for surely he revealed it to thy heart by Allah’s command, verifying that which is before it and a guidance and glad tidings for the believers."

"قل من كان عدوا لجبريل فانه نزله على قلبك باذن الله مصدقا لما بين يديه وهدى وبشرى للمؤمنين"

"Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and His messengers and Gabriel and Michael, then surely Allah is an enemy to disbelievers."

"من كان عدوا لله وملائكته ورسله وجبريل وميكال فان الله عدو للكافرين"

"This is naught but a revelation revealed, taught him by one mighty in power, very strong; he stood poised being on the higher horizon, then drew near and suspended hung, two bows'-length away, or nearer, then revealed to His servant that he revealed."

"If you both turn to Allah, then indeed your hearts are inclined (to this); and if you back up one another against him, then surely Allah is his Patron, and Gabriel and the righteous believers, and the angels after that are the aiders."

"What we know is as nothing, if we do not love God properly in all things."

"Being the source of goodness, God, even after our failures, calls us anew, not effacing entirely from our mind the knowledge of good, even if we have turned away from virtue through sin. This is what God, at present, also does for Adam in calling him although he has hidden himself, saying to him: 'Adam, where art thou?' Adam, in fact, had been placed there by God for the purpose of working and guarding Paradise; he had received this place from Him to be his own. Having distanced himself from there by disobedience, it is proper that he should hear from God: 'Where art thou?"

"When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”"

"The twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying:"

"Patmos, that infamous island, place of banishment, place of punishment, place of lonely wanderings, became a place of revelation, of discovery, of empowerment. Instead of teetering on the brink of mad isolation, John finds himself drawn to the heart of God and miraculously, wondrously, into the heartbeat of the church, not only of Asia Minor but of the world, not only of that time but of all times to come."

"Maurice is equally opposed to the sacerdotalism which makes the essence of religion consist in a magical removal of penalties instead of a 'regeneration' of the nature. He takes what may be vaguely called the 'subjective' view of religion, and sympathises with Schleiermacher's statement that piety is 'neither a knowing nor a doing, but an inclination and determination of the feeling.'"

"Unhappily, a love of walls has seized you; unhappily, the Church of God which you venerate exists in houses and buildings; unhappily, under these you find the name of peace. Is it doubtful that in these Antichrist will have his seat? Safer to me are mountains, and woods, and lakes, and dungeons, and whirlpools; since in these prophets, dwelling or immersed, did prophesy."

"The Son of God is nailed to the cross; but on the cross God conquers human death. Christ, the Son of God, dies; but all flesh is made alive in Christ. The Son of God is in hell; but man is carried back to heaven."

"Many are kept within the pale of the church by the fear of God; yet they are tempted all the while to worldly faults by the allurements of the world. They pray, because they are afraid; they sin, because it is their will. The fair hope of future life makes them call themselves Christians; the allurements of present pleasure make them act like heathen. They do not abide in ungodliness, because they hold the name of God in honour; they are not godly because they follow after things contrary to godliness. ... These, then, are they whom the judgment awaits which unbelievers have already had passed upon them and believers do not need... and their judgment arises from the fact that, though they loved Christ, they yet loved darkness more. (John 3:18-19)"

"The divine Nature feels no pain. ... although He underwent the sufferings in all the fullness of their force, which necessarily causes pain to the sufferers, yet He never so abandoned the powers of His Nature as to feel pain."

"Saint Hilary was a Christian who bowed not to the power of the world, but to the Kingdom of God."

"It is a horrid abomination to see in Christian temples a painted image either of Christ or of any saint."

"“It happened that Mahmud had long been planning an expedition into Bhardana, and Gujarat, to destroy the idol temple of Somnat, a place of great sanctity to all Hindus. So as soon as he had returned to Ghazni from his Khurasan business, he issued a farman to the General of the army, ordering him to leave a confidential officer in charge of the fort of Kabuliz, and himself to join the court with his son Salar Mas‘ud… “It is related in the Tarikh-i Mahmudi that the Sultan shortly after reached Ghazni, and laid down the image of Somnat at the threshold of the Mosque of Ghazni, so that the Musulmans might tread upon the breast of the idol on their way to and from their devotions. As soon as the unbelievers heard of this, they sent an embassy to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi, stating that the idol was of stone and useless to the Musulmans, and offered to give twice its weight in gold as a ransom, if it might be returned to them. Khwaja Hasan Maimandi represented to the Sultan that the unbelievers had offered twice the weight of the idol in gold, and had agreed to be subject to him. He added, that the best policy would be to take the gold and restore the image, thereby attaching die people to his Government. The Sultan yielded to the advice of the Khwaja, and the unbelievers paid the gold into the treasury. “One day, when the Sultan was seated on his throne, the ambassadors of the unbelievers came, and humbly petitioned thus: ‘Oh, Lord of the world! we have paid the gold to your Government in ransom, but have not yet received our purchase, the idol Somnat.’ The Sultan was wroth at their words, and, falling into reflection, broke up the assembly and retired, with his dear Salar Mas‘ud, into his private apartments. He then asked his opinion as to whether the image ought to be restored, or not? Salar Mas‘ud, who was perfect in goodness, said quickly, ‘In the day of the resurrection, when the Almighty shall call for Ãzar, the idol-destroyer, and Mahmud, the idol-seller, Sire! what will you say?’ This speech deeply affected the Sultan, he was full of grief, and answered, ‘I have given my word; it will be a breach of promise.’ Salar Mas‘ud begged him to make over the idol to him, and tell the unbelievers to get it from him. The Sultan agreed; and Salar Mas‘ud took it to his house, and, breaking off its nose and ears, ground them to powder. “When Khwaja Hasan introduced the unbelievers, and asked the Sultan to give orders to restore the image to them, his majesty replied that Salar Mas‘ud had carried it off to his house, and that he might send them to get it from him. Khwaja Hasan, bowing his head, repeated these words in Arabic, ‘No easy matter is it to recover anything which has fallen into the hands of a lion.’ He then told the unbelievers that the idol was with Salar Mas‘ud, and that they were at liberty to go and fetch it. So they went to Mas‘ud’s door and demanded their god. “That prince commanded Malik Nekbakht to treat them courteously, and make them be seated; then to mix the dust of the nose and ears of the idol with sandal and the lime eaten with betel-nut, and present it to them. The unbelievers were delighted, and smeared themselves with sandal, and ate the betel-leaf. After a while they asked for the idol, when Salar Mas‘ud said he had given it to them. They inquired, with astonishment, what he meant by saying that they had received the idol? And Malik Nekbakht explained that it was mixed with the sandal and betel-lime. Some began to vomit, while others went weeping and lamenting to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi and told him what had occurred…” “Afterwards the image of Somnat was divided into four parts, as is described in the Tawarikh-i-Mahmudi. Mahmud’s first exploit is said to have been conquering the Hindu rebels, destroying the forts and the idol temples of the Rai Ajipal (Jaipal), and subduing the country of India. His second, the expedition into Harradawa and Guzerat, the carrying off the idol of Somnat, and dividing it into four pieces, one of which he is reported to have placed on the threshold of the Imperial Palace, while he sent two others to Mecca and Medina respectively. Both these exploits were performed at the suggestion, and by the advice, of the General and Salar Mas‘ud; but India was conquered by the efforts of Salar Mas‘ud alone, and the idol of Somnat was broken in pieces by his sold advice, as has been related. Salar Sahu was Sultan of the army and General of the forces in Iran…"

"“…Mas‘ud hunted through the country around Bahraich, and whenever he passed by the idol temple of Suraj-kund, he was wont to say that he wanted that piece of ground for a dwelling-place. This Suraj-kund was a sacred shrine of all the unbelievers of India. They had carved an image of the sun in stone on the banks of the tank there. This image they called Balarukh, and through its fame Bahraich had attained its flourishing condition. When there was an eclipse of the sun, the unbelievers would come from east and west to worship it, and every Sunday the heathen of Bahraich and its environs, male and female, used to assemble in thousands to rub their heads under that stone, and do it reverence as an object of peculiar sanctity. Mas‘ud was distressed at this idolatry, and often said that, with God’s will and assistance, he would destroy that mine of unbelief, and set up a chamber for the worship of the Nourisher of the Universe in its place, rooting out unbelief from those parts… “Meanwhile, the Rai Sahar Deo and Har Deo, with several other chiefs, who had kept their troops in reserve, seeing that the army of Islam was reduced to nothing, unitedly attacked the body-guard of the Prince. The few forces that remained to that loved one of the Lord of the Universe were ranged round him in the garden. The unbelievers, surrounding them in dense numbers, showered arrows upon them. It was then, on Sunday, the 14th of the month Rajab, in the aforesaid year 424 (14th June, 1033) as the time of evening prayer came on, that a chance arrow pierced the main artery in the arm of the Prince of the Faithful…"

"After the death of Masud.... The unbelievers drove his descendants from Ajmer, and re-established there idols and idolatry again reigned over the land of India."

"To the Hindus who considered him (Salar Masud Ghazi, who offered only the sword or the Quran to lakhs of Hindus), a saint of miraculous powers, the number of their brethren he killed or Islamised was then, as it is now, meaningless."

"“It is said that in ancient days Trichila, an execrable monster with three heads, who was a brother of Rawan, with ten heads, had the sway over this country. No human being could oppose him. But as per the saying of the Prophet, ‘Islam will be elevated and cannot be subdued’, the Faith took root by the efforts of Hazarat Natthar Wali. The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head was separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of the Wali, shedding rediance till this day.”"

"The court scribe pays fulsome homage to the sufis who “planted firmly the Faith of Islam” in this region. The pride of place goes to Hazrat Natthar Wali who took over by force the main temple at Tiruchirapalli and converted it into his khãnqãh. Referring to the destruction of the Sivalinga in the temple, he observes: “The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of Wali shedding rediance till this day.” Another sufi, Qãyim Shãh, who came to the same place at a later stage, “was the cause of the destruction of twelve temples.”"

"Shariat can be fostered through the sword."

"[The observance of certain Hindu customs by Muslim women filled Sirhindi with grief. He observed,] “There would hardly be any women who does not perform one or the other ceremony of Shirk (polytheism) ... Showing respect to the sacred days of Hindus and performing the ceremonies prevalent amongst them are nothing but kufr. For instance, during the Dewali of the kafirs, the ignorant ones amongst Muslims, particularly women, perform the ceremonies of kufr. They celebrate it like their own Jd and send presents to their daughters and sisters like the hafirs and Mushriks ... They attach much importance and weight to this season. All this is Shirk and kufr’."

"The spread of the illustrious Sharia depends according to 'the shar is under the sword' upon the assistance and care of the great Sultans. ... The Indian infidels fearlessly destroy temples and erect temples in their place. In Tanesar, in the pool of Kurkhet, there was a mosque and a tomb of a saint. .They destroyed these and erected a big idol temple in their stead. The infidels publicly observe the customs of infedility..."

"“Fighting the unbelievers and treating them harshly is one of the requirements of religion.”"

"Whenever a Jew is killed it is to the benefit of Islam.”"

"“The honor of Islam is in the degradation of unbelief and the people of unbelief.”"

"“The original aim of taking the jizya from [unbelievers] is for their degradation and this degradation [ought to be] to the extent that they cannot wear nice clothing for fear of the jizya ... and that they are always fearful and trembling ....”"

"These days the accursed infidel of Gobindwal was very fortunately killed. It is a cause of great defeat for the reprobate Hindus. With whatever intention and purpose they are killed – the humiliation of infidels is for Muslims, life itself. Before this Kafir (Infidel) was killed, I had seen in a dream that the Emperor of the day had destroyed the crown of the head of Shirk or infidelity. It is true that this infidel [Guru Arjun] was the chief of the infidels and a leader of the Kafirs. The object of levying Jizya (tax on non-Muslims) on them is to humiliate and insult the Kafirs, and Jihad against them and hostility towards them are the necessities of the Mohammedan faith."

"Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam."

"It is therefore enjoined upon every Muslim to wage a regular crusade against all innovations."

"Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs [Hindus] may probably agree to pay jizya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice…. The real purpose in levying jizya on them [Hindus] is to humiliate then to such an extent that, on account of fear of jizya, they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honor and might of Islam."

"Kufr and Islam are opposed to each other. The progress of one is possible only at the expense of the other and co-existence between these two contradictory faiths is unthinkable."

"The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects kafirs, dishonours the Muslims. To respect them does not merely mean honouring them and assigning them a seat of honour in any assembly, but it also implies keeping company with them or showing considerations to them. They should be kept at an arm's length like dogs.... If some worldly business cannot be performed without them, in that case only a minimum of contact should be established with them but without taking them into confidence. The highest Islamic sentiment asserts that it is better to forego that worldly business and that no relationship should be established with the kafirs."

"The real purpose in levying jizya on them (the non-Muslims) is to humiliate then to such an extent that, on account of fear of jizva, they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It in intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam."

"[To Lala Beg he wrote] Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs may probably agree to pay jizva but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice."

"The execution of the accursed kafir of Gobindwal [Sikh leader] is an important achievement and is the cause of great defeat of the accursed Hindus.' Whatever might have been the motive behind the execution, the dishonour of the kafirs is an act of highest grace for the Muslims. Before the execution of the kafirs I had seen in a vision that the Emperor had destroyed the crown of the head of Shirk. Verily he was the chief of the Mushriks and the leader of the kafirs."

"It is said that the Shariat prospers under the shadow of the sword (al-Shara‘ tahat al-saif). And the glory of the holy Shariat depends on the kings of Islam…"

"Islam and infidelity (kufr) contradict one another. To establish the one means eradicating the other, the coming together of these contradictories being impossible. Therefore, Allah has commanded his Prophet to wage war (jihad) against the infidels, and be harsh with them. The glory is Islam consists in the humiliation and degradation of infidels and infidelity. He who honours the infidels, insults Islam. Honouring (the infidels) does not mean that they are accorded dignity, and made to sit in high places. It means allowing them to be in our company, to sit with them, and talk to them. They should be kept away like dogs. If there is some worldly purpose or work which depends upon them, and cannot be served without their help, they may be contacted while keeping in mind all the time that they are not worthy of respect. The best course according to Islam is that they should not be contacted even for worldly purposes. Allah has proclaimed in his Holy Word (Quran) that they are his and his Prophet’s enemies. And mixing with these enemies of Allah and his Prophet or showing affection for them, is one of the greatest crimes… …The abolition of jizyah in Hindustan is a result of friendship which (Hindus) have acquired with the rulers of this land… What right have the rulers to stop exacting jizyah? Allah himself has commanded imposition of jizyah for their (infidels’) humiliation and degradation. What is required is their disgrace, and the prestige and power of Muslims. The slaughter of non-Muslims means gain for Islam… To consult them (the kafirs) and then act according to their advice means honouring the enemies (of Islam), which is strictly forbidden… The prayer (=goodwill) of these enemies of Islam is false and fruitless. It should never be called for because it can only add to their numbers. If the infidels pray, they will surely seek the intercession of their idols, which is taking things too far… A wise man has said that unless you become a maniac (diwanah) you cannot attain Islam. The state of this mania means going beyond considerations of profit and loss. Whatever one gains in the service of Islam should suffice…"

"Ram and Kirshan whom Hindus worship are insignificant creatures, and have been begotten by their parents… Ram could not protect his wife whom Ravan took away by force. How can he (Ram) help others?… It is thousands of times shameful that some people should think of Ram and Kirshan as rulers of all the worlds… To think that Ram and Rahman are the same, is extremely foolish. The creator and the creature can never be one… The controller of the Cosmos was never called Ram and Kirshan before the latter were born. What has happened after their birth that they have come to be equated with Allah, and the worship of Ram and Kirshan is described as the worship of Allah? May Allah save us! Our prophets who number one lakh and twenty-four thousand have encouraged the created ones to worship the Creator… The gods of the Hindus (on the other hand) have encouraged the people to worship them (the gods) instead… They are themselves misguided, and are leading others astray… See, how the (two) ways are different!"

"Before that kafir [Guru Arjun Deva] was executed this recluse [meaning himself] had seen in a dream that the reigning king had smashed the skull of idolatry. Indeed, he was a great idolater, and the leader of the idolaters, and the chief of unbelievers. May Allah blast him! The Holy Prophet who is the ruler of religion as well as the world, has cursed the idolaters as follows in some of his prayers – “O Allah, demean their society, create divisions in their ranks, destroy their homes, and get at them like the mighty one.” It is required by religion [Islam] that jihad should be waged against the unbelievers, and that they should be dealt with harshly… It is obligatory on Muslims to acquaint the king of Islam with the evil customs of false religions… Maybe the king has no knowledge of these evil customs… Some Ulama of Islam should come forward, and proclaim the evils present in their (unbelievers’) ways… It will be no excuse on the Day of Judgment that they did not proclaim the tenets of the Shariat because they were not called upon (to do so)…"

"The Shariat prevails under the shadow of the sword (al Shara‘ tahat al-saif) - according to this (saying), the Shariat can triumph only with the help of mighty kings and their good administration. But for some time past this saying has been languishing, which means inevitably that Islam has become weak. The unbelievers (Hindus) of Hindustan are demolishing mosques, and erecting their own places of worship on the same sites. There was a mosque in the tank of Kurukhet (Kurukshetra) at Thanesar, as also the tomb of some (Muslim) saint. These have been demolished, and a huge gurudwara has been constructed on the same sites. Besides, the kafirs are holding many celebrations of kufr… It is a thousand pities that the reigning king is a Mussalman, and we recluses find ourselves helpless. There was a time when Islam stood glorified due to the might and prestige of its kings, and the Ulama and the Sufis were honoured and held in high regard. It was with their help that the kings made the Shariat prevail. I have heard that one day Amir Taimur was passing through the bazar at Bukhara when, by chance, the inmates of Khwaja Naqshbandi’s khanqah were beating the dust out of the mats used in that place. Because Islam was intact in Amir Taimur, he stopped at that spot and regarded the dust of the khanqah as musk and sandal. He met a good end."

"Therefore, it is necessary that infidelity should be cursed in order to serve the faith (Islam). Cursing unbelief in the heart is the lesser way. The greater way is to curse it in the heart as well as with the body. In short, cursing means to nourish enmity towards enemies of the true faith, whether that enmity is harboured in the heart when there is fear of injury from them (infidels), or it is harboured in the heart as well as served with the body when there is no fear of injury from them. In the opinion of this recluse, there is no greater way to obtain the blessings of Allah than to curse the enemies of the faith (be impatient with them). For Allah himself harbours enmity towards the infidels and infidelity… Once I went to visit a sick man who was close to death. When I meditated on him, I saw that his heart was layered with darknesses. I intended to remove those darknesses. But he was not yet ready for it… When I meditated more deeply, I discovered that those darknesses had gathered due to his friendship with the infidels. They could not be dispersed easily. He had to suffer torments of hell before he could get purged of them…"

"Every person cherishes some longing in his heart. The only longing which this recluse (meaning himself) cherishes is that the enemies of Allah and his Prophet should be roughed up. The accursed ones should be humiliated, and their false gods disgraced and defiled. I know that Allah likes and loves no other act more than this. That is why I have been encouraging you again and again to act in this way. Now that you have yourself arrived at that place, and have been appointed to defile and insult that dirty spot and its inhabitants, I feel grateful for this grace (from Allah). There are many who go to this place for pilgrimage. Allah in his kindness has not inflicted this punishment on us. After giving thanks to Allah, you should do your best to ruin that place and their false gods… whether the idols are carved or uncarved. Let us hope that you will not act slow. Physical weakness and severity of the cold weather, comes in my way. Otherwise, I would have presented myself, and helped you in doing the job. I would have liked to participate in the ceremony and mutilate the stones…"

"A few specimens should suffice to show the quality of this man’s mind. In letter No. 163 he wrote: “The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects the kafirs dishonours the Muslims… The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam.” In Letter No. 81 he said: “Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs may probably agree to pay jiziya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice.” After Guru Arjun Deva had been tortured and done to death by Jahangir, he wrote in letter No. 193 that “the execution of the accursed kafir of Gobindwal is an important achievement and is the cause of the great defeat of the Hindus.”"

"“It was the sufi saints who initiated the struggle for the establishment of an Islamic state in India. Khwaja Muinuddin Chisti, Khwaja Nizamuddin Aulia and Bakhtiyar Kaki opposed the secularist policies of the kings of the slave dynasty of medieval India. Mujadid al-Thani Ahmed Sirhindi organized a resistance movement against the Mughal Emperor Akbar and his attempts to establish a secular Indian polity. The Mujidid’s disciples and devotees included Akbar’s great-grandson, the dervish Prince Aurangzeb Alamgeer.”"

"As Ayesha Jalal points out, he was “a firm believer in the need to use state power to enforce Islam”."

"Sirhindi follows up his utter rejection of the beliefs and practices of Hinduism with an equally outspoken statement of his attitude regarding the position of the Hindus in the Mughul empire. The honour of Islam demands the humiliation of the infidels and their false religion. To achieve this objective, jizyah should be mercilessly levied upon them, and they should be treated like dogs. Cows should be slaughtered to demonstrate the supremacy of Islam. The performance of this rite is, in India, the most important symbol of Islamic domination. One should refrain from dealing with the infidels unless absolutely necessary, and even then treat then with contempt. Islam and infidelity are two irreconcilable opposites. One thrives upon the degradation of the other. Sirhindi's deep-seated hatred of the non-Muslims can be best illustrated by his rejoicing at the execution in 1606 of Arjun, the fifth guru of the Sikhs."

"Although Sirhindi wrote a number of treatises on Sufi themes, he is best known for his letters ( maktubat ) to various Sufi shaykhs and Mughal dignitaries, which have been regarded as a turning point in the development of Indo-Muslim religious thought. Sirhindi’s insistence on strict adherence to the sharia was at least partially responsible for inspiring the Mughal emperor, Awrangzib, to carry out orthodox reforms that reversed the heretical developments of his prede- cessor, Akbar’s rule. ... Sirhindi also wrote a number of letters concern- ing the martial jihad and relations with non-Muslims under Muslim rule. In these letters, Sirhindi consistently advocates a harsh and uncompromis- ing stance toward the Hindus under Mughal rule."

"Sirhindi’s harsh stance with regard to the martial jihad and the subjugation of those who refuse to embrace Islam is no less uncompromising than that of his Sufi spiritual predecessors al-Jilani, al-Ghazali, and Ibn ‘Arabi. Like the other Sufi s whose writings we have examined thus far, Sirhindi exemplifi es the Sufi synthesis of the spiritual path with outward doctrinal concerns in that in his writings he addresses esoteric spiritual topics (e.g. the aforementioned prophetic and saintly ways) as well as practical matters concerning the Muslim conduct of state with regard to non-Muslims."

"His is perhaps the most distinct contribution of Indian Islam to the religio-mystical thought of Islam in general. But, on the other hand his easy victory, especially the one against the rationalists, gave to Indian Islam the rigid and conservative stamp it bears today. In a way he was the pioneer ot what modern Islam is today in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent—isolationist, self-confident, conservative, deeply conscious of the need of a reformation but distrustful of innovations, accepting speculation in theory but dreading it in practice, and insular in its contact with other civilizations. This is not surprising because at one time or other the intellectual leaders of modern Muslim India, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Iqbal and Abu’l Kalam Azad, widely different though their religious and political solutions have been, had come under the influence of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi."

"Thus long before British rule and long before modern political notions of Muslim nationhood, the consensus of the Muslim community Tn India had rejected the eclectisim of Akbar and Dara Shukoh for the purified Islamic teachings of Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhindi and Shah Wall-Ullah. Cultural apartheid was the dominant ideal In medieval Muslim India, in default of cultural victory."

"No one can possibly underestimate the great influence exerted on the life and activities of Aurangzib by the orthodox reform movement in Indian Islam started by Mujaddid Alf-i-SanI Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (1563-16241, the aims of which were regeneration and rejuvenation of Islam in strict accord with the shar'iyat and “the establishment of a true Islamic State conforming to Islamic ideas and practices in all its activities. While a prince, Aurangzib came into contact with Khvaja Muhammad M'asum, -son of Mujaddid Ahmad Sirhindi. He held him in high esteem and sought his advice on important matters of Muslim theology. After his accession to the throne also, he maintained his contact with the Khvaja and his son Muhammad Saifuddin as well, and their influence had much to do in bringing him within the fold of the orthodox .school and shaping his puritanic state policy."

"When the Mughal emperor Akbar manifested general tolerance of all religions, the Muslim religious class, the ‘ulamā’, were not at all amused. As a result, there were a number of Islamic Revivalist Movements, some of which included a belief in the coming of a Messiah, who would sweep away all the corruption and inaugurate an era of piousness, a true, pristine Islam. One of the first to launch such a revival movement was Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī5 [1564-1624], later known as Mujaddidi Alf-i Thānī (the Renovator of Islam). For Sirhindi, the sunna and Sharī‘a remain the most important components of Islamic culture."

"Despite being a member of the Naqshbandi order of the Sufis, Sirhindi insists that Sufi experience is inferior to the Sharī‘a, because Sharī‘a “is based on incontrovertible proof, while Sufi experience is a result of fallible speculation only….Any Sufi experience that is rejected by the Sharī‘a is heresy.” Sirhindi denounces all innovations, even so-called good innovations (bid‘a hasanah). He does not approve of certain customs introduced by some Sufi orders, such as music (samā‘), dancing (raqs) singing (naghmah), and ecstatic sessions (wajd, tawājud). Sirhindi also attacked the Shi‘a in a most violent and bitter manner in his Epistle on the Refutation of the Shi‘is, arguing that it was his duty to denounce heretical ideas wherever they appear."

"Like many fundamentalists, Sirhindi has no tolerance for philosophers, since he believed that “the human intellect is incapable of understanding properly the nature of God without prophetic assistance.” But this rejection of the philosophers also “leads him to an equally indignant rejection of their [the philosophers] natural sciences. Their geometry, astronomy, logic, and mathematics are useless as far as the hereafter is concerned and fall therefore within the category of ‘inconsequential things’ [mā lā ya‘nī].”"

"Sirhindi also launched a vicious attack on Hinduism, and believes all Hindus, since they were guilty of shirk, must be humiliated whenever possible. Sirhindi stood for a ruthless suppression of innovations..."

"Sirhindi argues one should adhere to the Prophet’s sunna and to the sharī‘a, which was most comprehensive and “the essence of all heavenly books was included in the Koran. Hence all those who pinned their faith on the Sharī‘a were superior to all peoples and nations who did not. He condemned the study of philosophy and the beliefs of the Mutazilas and their followers, in most emphatic terms.”"

"To a considerable extent the shape of Xavier's missionary work was determined by this threefold authority. Personally the most modest of men, his imagination was fired by the progress of Portuguese discovery and by the thought of lands and empires to be brought within the kingdom of Christ. He had not gone out to be the supervisor of a little handful of Jesuits in a small corner of India. His own temperament may have been restless; but there is a certain magnificence in a restlessness which led him to contain within a single glance India and the Moluccas, Japan, and, even beyond Japan, China."

"Almost from the time of Xavier's actual presence on the Coast, the work of legend-building began, and it came to be firmly believed that he possessed miraculous powers, which extended even to the raising of the dead. Xavier never made such extravagant claims for himself."

"Everyone who came in contact with Xavier seems to have agreed that he was a saint. Men might disagree with him; but in all the extensive records there is not a single word that runs contrary to the general verdict as to his saintliness. There are many references to the long hours that he spent in prayer and in rapt contemplation of his Lord. He disclaimed anything in the way of miraculous powers; in his devotions there was nothing that could be called mystical in any strict sense of that term. He seems to have followed the broad lines of medieval devotional practice, profoundly influenced by the Spiritual Exercises of his master Ignatius. Xavier, like Ignatius, was in all things a medieval man, untouched by any of the new currents of thought in theology or in the daily affairs of life. It is probable that, in the ten years of his sojourn in the East, he never possessed a Bible or even a New Testament. Apart from his breviary and his missal, his sole companion seems to have been the work of Marcus Marulus, Opus de religiose vivendi institutione, a thick book of 680 pages, published at Cologne in 1531. He seems rarely to have based his discourses directly on the Bible..."

"Following the baptisms, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn prepared for baptism. After all had been baptised, I order that the temples of the false Gods be pulled down and idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them."

"According to my experience, the only effective way to spread religion in India is for the King to proclaim by means of an edict to all his officials in India that he shall put trust only in those who will exert themselves to extend the reign of religion by every means in their power. The King must definitely order them to exert themselves with zeal to multiply the number of Christians in Cape Comorin [Kanyakumari] in order to attract to the faith of Jesus Christ the island of Ceylon, and to muster all the pious people, be they members of our Society [the Jesuits] or other that may seem fit for propagating religion.... If the King publishes such an edict and treats severely those who disobey it, a great number of natives will embrace the faith of Jesus Christ; otherwise no success can be expected."

"The second necessity for the Christians is that your Majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish law, and according to the Mahomedan sect, without any fear of God or shame of the world. And since there are many spread all over the fortresses, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition and of many preachers. Your Majesty should provide such necessary things for your loyal and faithful subjects in India."

"St Xavier had come to the East representing both the Pope ‑ as a Legate ‑ and the King as an inspector of missions. As missionary work was a State enterprise charged to the Crown's revenues in Portugal, this identification of national, interests with religious activity should not be a matter of surprise."

"Xavier lived up to this tradition of the Church on the Coromandel Coast. He discovered that, though baptised in 1534, the Parava fisherman could hardly be called Christians in practice. Some of them still made their living by making images of Hindu deities. All of them were worshipping these “evil spirits”. According to the History of Christianity in India published by the United Theological Seminary, Bangalore, in 1982: “When the boys informed him that someone had made an idol, he went with them and had it broken into a thousand pieces. In spite of all his advice someone persisted in making idols, he would have them punished by the patangatis (heads of Parava villages) or banished to another village. One day when he heard that idols had been worshipped in the house of a Christian, he ordered the hut to be burned down as a warning to others (ref. Volume 1)."

"Later on, he mounted the same iconoclastic campaign on the Malabar Coast. According to the same History, “When the whole village was baptised, Xavier would get them to pull down their village temple and break into small pieces the idols it contained.” He did this at a time the Tiruvadi Raja of Quilon had given him 2000 fanams to build churches. The poor fishermen were in no position to resist him because the Portuguese pirates were always at hand to assist the missionary. Xavier took great delight in what he had done in Malabar. On February 8, 1545, he wrote to the Society of Jesus: “Following the baptisms, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn prepared for baptism. After all had been baptised, I order that the temples of the false Gods be pulled down and idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them.”"

"One of Xavier's colleagues in this mission of christianising the Hindus was Miguel Vaz, the Vicar General of India appointed by Rome. In consultation with Xavier he wrote a long letter to the King of Portugal in November 1545. The letter outlined a forty­one point plan for spreading the “light of Christianity.” Point No. 3 reads as follows: “Since idolatry is so great an offence against God, as is manifest to all, it is just that your Majesty should not permit it within your territories and an order should be promulgated in Goa to the effect that in the whole island there should not be any temple public or secret; contravention thereof should entail grave penalties; that no official should make idols in any form, neither of stone, nor of wood, nor of copper, nor of any other metal; ... and that persons who are in charge of St. Paul's should have the power to search the houses of the Brahmins and other Hindus, in case there exists a presumption or suspicion of the existence of idols there.” On March 8, 1547 the King ordered his Viceroy at Goa that all Hindu temples should be destroyed forthwith."

"The impatient Xavier, still dissatisfied with the result of his labour wrote to the King of Portugal that the only hope of increasing the number of Christians was by the use of the secular power of the State. As a result of this note, the King issued orders that in Goa and other Portuguese settlements, “all idols shall be sought out and destroyed, and severe penalties shall be laid upon all such as shall dare to make an idol or shall shelter or hide a Brahmin”."

"He, however, soon realized that without State aid it was not possible to spread Christian religion in India. Writing to Father Rodrigues he said: “According to my experience the only effective way to spread religion India is for the King to proclaim by means of an edict to all his officials in India that he shall put trust only in those who will exert themselves to extend the reign of religion by every means in their power.” To King Joao III he wrote as follows: “To your servants you must declare as plainly as possible…… that the only way of escaping your wrath and of obtaining your favour Is to make as many Christians as Possible in the countries over which they rule.” (P. 382, Asia and Western Dominance)"

"But it was St. Xavier who made anti-Brahminism the central theme of his missionary thrust. “These are,” he wrote, “the most perverse people in the world...they never tell the truth, but think of nothing but how to tell subtle lies and to deceive the simple and ignorant people...the poor simple people do exactly what the Brahmins tell them...If there were no Brahmins in the area, all Hindus would accept conversion to our faith.”"

"All the heathen are filled with admiration at the holiness of the law of God, and express the greatest shame at having lived so long in ignorance of the true God. They willingly hear about the mysteries and rules of the Christian religion, and treat me, poor sinner as I am, with the greatest respect. Many, however, put away from them with hardness of heart the truth which they well know. When I have done my instruction, I ask one by one all those who desire baptism if they believe without hesitation in each of the articles of the faith. All immediately, holding their arms in the form of the cross, declare with one voice that they believe all entirely. Then at last I baptize them in due form, and I give to each his name written on a ticket. After their baptism the new Christians go back to their houses and bring me their wives and families for baptism. When all are baptized I order the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken in pieces. I can give you an idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done, witnessing the destruction of the idols by the very people who but lately adored them. In all the towns and villages I leave the Christian doctrine in writing in the language of the country. I prescribe at the same time the manner in which it is to taught in the morning and evening schools."

"By the aid of the vice-regal troops he pulled down the heathen temples in the neighbourhood of Goa, and appropriated their very considerable property for the use and benefit of the new College." (Page 89)"

"He took along with him a bell, armed with which he ran about the streets ringing it in broad middday, until he succeeded in drawing after him a troop of boys and others, attracted by curiosity, who greeted him with j ears and laughter. When he had thus got together a considerable auditory, placing himself on some large stone, he forth with began his sermon, which was delivered in the language of the country interladed with fragments of Latin, Spanish, Italian and French, to which , he added much gesticulation with both hands and feet. He then finally produced a large cross, which he piously kissed, and required , the crowd to do likewise, presenting each one who complied with a beautiful rosary, thousands of which he had brought from Portugal. This, however, was only the first part of his method. The second was much more effectual and consisted in pulling down, with the assistance of the Portuguese troops, which he called into requisition, the native temples, and breaking in pieces the idols found therein, not, however, without replacing them by Christian chapels with the image of the crucified Jesus, and erecting in the neighbourhood a handsome building constructed of bamboo canes, for the instruction of the young..... far from making them acquainted with the principles of Christianity, he merely contented himself in teaching them to say the Lord’s prayer, along with the creed, and causing them to understand the same, as also to cross the arms with humility." (Pages 89 & 90)."

""Some time now elapsed before any other missionary attempted to show himself. The Brahmins, however, did not by airy means improve their position by their strenuous resistance, but, on the contrary, made it worse, for Francis Xavior took occassion on this account to institute in Goa a religious tribunal, after the pattern of the Spanish Inquisition, over which he ruled without opposition, and being aided by the Portuguese arms, he proceeded, with the most frightful saverity, against all those who offered any hinderance to the spread of Christianity, or who also dared to take, the baptised natives back again to their old idol-worship. In this way, then, innumerable Brahmins, and more particularly "the richest among them lost their lives by the executioner’s hands, or, at least, were expelled from their country in order that their property might be seized for the benefit of the society As a matter of course, the effeminate Hindus now pressed forword to have themselves baptised, ‘rather than make acquaintance with the prisons of the Inquisition, or run the risk of being roasted alive over a slow fire !. . . ."the consequence was that Jesuit colleges sprang up in all suitable places, being enriched by the property of the slaughtered and banished heretics. And still more numerous were the churches which were erected, as they no longer hesitated to destroy, with fire and sword, all the heathen temples which they were able to get at, and, indeed, it almost seemed as if the Jesuits had taken for their example the cruel conduct of Charles the great against the Saxons.*" (page 92)"

"We have is in these parts a class of men among the pagans who are called Brahmins. They keep up the worship of the gods, the superstitious rites of religion, frequenting the temples and taking care of the idols. They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found, and I always apply to them the words of the holy David, “From an unholy race and a wicked and crafty man deliver me, O Lord.” They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people…All the time I have been here in this country I have only converted one Brahmin…"

"If it were not for the Brahmins, we should have all the heathens embracing our faith."

"The fruit that is reaped by the baptism of infants, as well as by the instruction of children and others, is quite incredible. These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show«,n ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount"

"When all are baptized I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken in pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done, witnessing the destruction of the idols by the very people who but lately adored them."

"They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is, how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people"

"I would gather all the boys of the village, and go to the place where they had made and worshipped the idols; and then the dishonour heaped on the devil was greater than the honour paid to him by the parents and relations of the boys at the time when they made and venerated the idols. For the boys would take the idols and break them into tiny pieces, and then they would spit on them and trample them under foot and do other things which perhaps it is better not to record in detail, thus showing their contempt for the one who had the impertinence to demand the veneration of their fathers."

"After the sermon, I asked all, both older and younger, whether they sincerely believed each article of the faith, to which they replied that they did believe [...] So I then baptized them, giving to each one a written note of his name. After the men, it was the turn of the women and girls. When the baptisms were over, the Christians took much pleasure in tearing down the idol-temples, and breaking the idols into small pieces."

"The second necessity which obtains in India, if those who live there are to be good Christians, is that your highness should introduce the holy Inquisition [...]"

"Ah lady! ah lady! hear a word, At length having seen (him) I have come again; Looking, looking, (my) pain increased, Whatever was done profited not. He binds not his hair, he girds not his waist, He eats not food, he drinks not water. The colour of gold Šyâm has become, Constantly remembering thy name. He does not recognize any one, his eye does not wink, He remains with fixed look like a doll of wood. I placed a piece of wool to his nose, Then only I perceived that he breathed, There is breath, but there remains no life, Delay not, my happiness depends on it! Cha.n.dî Dâs saith (it is) the anguish of separation In his heart, the only medicine is Radha."

"Chandidas celebrates the divine love by singing the love of Radha and Krishna. His poetry is one of the best in India's devotional literature. In his poems, he celebrates soul's love for God,... with a matchless purity of feeling and diction."

"Musalmans are separate from Hindus; they cannot unite with the Hindus. After bloody wars the Musalmans conquered India, and the English took India from them. The Musalmans are one united nation and they alone will be masters of India. They will never give up their individuality. They have ruled India for hundreds of years, and hence they have a prescriptive right over the country. The Hindus are a minor community in the world. They are never free from internecine quarrels; they believe in Gandhi and worship the cow; they are polluted by taking other people's water. The Hindus do not care for self-government; they have no time to spare for it; let them go on with their internal squabbles. What capacity have they for ruling over men? The Musalmans did rule, and the Musalmans will rule."

"The Urdu pamphlet Daî Islâm by Khwaja Hasan Nizami came into his hands. He immediately wrote in answer a pamphlet, the title of which clearly expressed his violent reaction: ‘The Hour of Danger: Hindus, be on your guard! The order has been given to attack and destroy the fortress of your religion in the hidden dead of night!’ (…) The Swami found out that the pamphlet was in fact only the introduction to a larger volume called Fâtamî Dawat-i-Islâm, which had been published as early as 1920, years before the shuddhi of the Malkanas started. In this the Swami saw proof that the Muslim reaction of the day was not merely against the shuddhi and sangathan movements, but rather was part of a sinister plot hatched years earlier. In his pamphlet the Swami went on to show how Nizami in his own introduction referred to his consultations with many Muslim leaders, including the Aga Khan, and how all had agreed that the publication of his work should remain a carefully kept secret within the Muslim community. The single purpose of the pamphlet was to describe all the means, fair and foul, by which Hindus could be induced to become Muslims. (…) In the conclusion of his own booklet, the Swami suggested some ways in which the Muslim threat could be countered. The openness and ethics of his methods stood in strong contrast with Nizami’s tactics.”"

"Swamiji had written a pamphlet, The Hour of Danger, in which he had warned Hindu society to be on its guard against mischievous Muslim machinations. According to his biographer, J.T.F. Jordens, “In his pamphlet the Swami went on to show how Nizami in his own introduction referred to his consultations with many Muslim leaders, including the Agha Khan, and how all had agreed that the publication of his work should remain a carefully kept secret, within the Muslim community. The single purpose of the pamphlet was to describe all the means, fair and foul, by which Hindus could be induced to become Muslims.... The Swami felt that he had uncovered a giant conspiracy. His pamphlet consisted practically entirely of quotations from Nizami’s work, showing how all Muslims should be involved in the fight for the spread of Islam: how pirs, fakirs, politicians, peasants, zamindars, hakims, etc. could be used and what their allotted task should be. It also stressed the need for secrecy and for an extensive spy network.’"

"In the meanwhile Khwaja Hasan Nizami of Delhi had brought forth a sensational book which purported to teach the Musalmans the quickest and most comprehensive ways of converting Kafirs to Islam. He sketched out how every Musalman from the lowest to the highest, from the fallen prostitute to the Vab'l, the Doctor, the Zamindar and the great Nawab could help the cause of Islam, i. e, the conv^sion of non- Muslims to Islam. the prostitute was required to exert her influence on her Hindu paramours for bringing them round to Islam, the bangle-seller was required to seduce Hindu girls, the Ekka driver to seduce away Hindu ladies and orphans, the Vakil and Doctor to influence their Hindu clients, the Zamindar and Nawab by their various influences to bring round the Hindu tenants under them to the cause of Islam. Strange to say, this mischievous book with its most wretched and fallen devices of propagating Islam which should have been torn to shreds, denounced and discountenanced by the sensible Muslim leaders, found silently the largest sale in the Muslim community for it fitted in with the mentality of the high and the low alike amongst the Musalmans,’who had already begun to work on the lines enunciated by it. The shrewd Khwaja was now an apostle of Islam and was seated high in the hearts of the Muslim community. The Nizam of Hyderabad fixed an allowance for him and other Muslim States and Zamindars follower! suit. Instances after instances of MohameHan Deputy Magistrates, Police and Excise Inspectors, Zamindars and Nawabs acting on these lines were discovered soon after. It was only when a translation of this book was incidently published that the eyes of the Hindu com- munity were opened and they soon found that secret kidnapping, abduction and seduction of Hindu girls and orphans by Muslim in almost every town of Northern Hindasthan had become the order of the day. Hindus individually and through their Hindu Sabhas now began to exercise vigilance, detect such dirty attempts, rescue Hindu widows, girls and orphans and bring the offenders to book."

"Of the many pamphlets and brochures in Urdu instructing Muslims in the ways of converting Hindus, only one may be examined to give an idea of the stuff contained in such literature. It is the Daiye Islam (Propagation of Islam) by Khwaja Hasan Nizami. Hasan Nizami was a sufi divine connected with the dargah of Nizamuddin Awliya of Delhi. The pamphlet teaches the Muslims the quickest and comprehensive way of converting Kafirs to Islam. The Khwaja exhorted Muslims of all categories from the highest to the lowest, to serve the cause of Islam by helping in the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. In this missionary endeavour Zamindars and Nawabs, doctors and prostitutes, ekka players and bangle sellers were all invited to make their contribution. Muslim lawyers and doctors were to influence their Hindu clients to convert. Nawabs and Zamindars were to pressurize Hindu tenants under them to become Musalman. The prostitute was required to exert her influence on her Hindu visitors and admirers into becoming Muslims. The bangle seller was to seduce young Hindu girls and the ekka driver was to seduce away Hindu ladies and children. Such a recipe was neither spiritual nor edifying but it fitted with the Muslim mentality. The pamphlet recorded wide sale among Muslims. The Nizam of Hyderabad fixed an allowance for the Khwaja and other Muslims Chiefs and Zamindars followed suit. Muslim magistrates, police and excise inspectors and other influential officials were found working according to the plan laid out by this sufi devotee of Islam."

"We have seen how the sufi divine Khwaja Hasan Nizami in his Daiye Islam had instructed the Muslims on the ways to convert Hindus to Islam. His over-enthusiasm cautioned the Hindus. The instructions did not remain a secret, the book was translated and the Hindus found out how and why secret kidnappings, abductions and seductions of Hindu girls by Muslims in almost every town and city of northern India had become the order of the day. Hindus, individually and through their organisations, began to exercise vigilance. They began to undo such dirty attempts by rescuing Hindu girls, widows and orphans and bringing the offenders to book."

"A new type of wisdom, though within the four walls of Islamic fanaticism and day-dreaming, dawned upon Khwaja Hasan Nizami in the early years of the 20th century. He was no ordinary pen-pusher or paid mullah in some suburban mosque. On the contrary, he was a highly placed ‘divine’ in the hierarchy of Nizamuddin Auliya’s prestigious silsilã, and widely honoured in the Muslim world. He published in 1920 a big book, Fãtami Dãwat-i-Islam, in which he advocated all means, fair and foul, by which Hindus were to be converted to Islam. He advised the mullahs to concentrate on Hindu ‘untouchables’, and convert them en masse so that Muslims could achieve parity of population with the Hindus. He disclosed in the introduction to his book that he had consulted many Muslim leaders including the Agha Khan regarding the soundness of his scheme, and that all of them had agreed with the caution that the scheme should be kept a closely guarded secret. Unfortunately for the Khwaja, the scheme came to the notice of Swami Shraddhananda who exposed it, fought it tooth and nail, and frustrated it completely by means of his Shuddhi Movement."

"I offer this gift to my God, I dedicate this gift to Him. Only this remains to me as my treasure. I gave up everything else at the command of the Spirit. I gave all that I had to obtain the pearl of great price. Only in words do I master it, as a servant of the Word. I would never intentionally wish to disdain this wealth. I esteem it, I set value by it, I am comforted by it more than others are comforted by all the treasures of the world. It is the companion of all my life, a good counselor and converser; a guide on the way to Heaven and a fervent co-ascetic."

"I am an organ of the Lord, and sweetly... do I glorify the King, all atremble before Him."

"Let me be as the Prophet Jonah! I was responsible for the storm, but I would sacrifice myself for the salvation of the ship. Seize me and throw me... I was not happy when I ascended the throne, and gladly would I descend it."

"It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe."

"Philosophize about the world or worlds; about matter; about soul; about natures endowed with reason, good or bad; about resurrection, about judgment, about reward, or the Sufferings of Christ. For in these subjects to hit the mark is not useless, and to miss it is not dangerous."

"For my sake He was called a curse, who destroyed my curse (Gal 3:13); and sin, who taketh away the sin of the world (2 Cor 5:21)... Of the same kind, it appears to me, is the expression, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ (Mat 27:46) It was not He who was forsaken either by the Father, or by His own Godhead... He was in His own Person representing us. For we were the forsaken and despised before, but now by the Sufferings of Him Who could not suffer, we were taken up and saved."

"Since we are double-made, I mean of body and soul, and the one part is visible, the other invisible, so the cleansing also is twofold, by water and the spirit; the one received visibly in the body, the other concurring with it invisibly and apart from the body; the one typical, the other real and cleansing the depths."

"I know of three classes among the saved; the slaves, the hired servants, the sons. If you are a slave, be afraid of the whip; if you are a hired servant, look only to receive your hire; if you are more than this, a son, revere Him as a Father, and work that which is good, because it is good to obey a Father; and even though no reward should come of it for you, this is itself a reward, that you please your Father."

"They who have lost the Gift [of baptism] through ignorance or tyranny... will be neither glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge, as unsealed and yet not wicked, but persons who have suffered rather than done wrong. For not every one who is not bad enough to be punished is good enough to be honoured; just as not every one who is not good enough to be honoured is bad enough to be punished."

"He will come again with His glorious Presence to judge the quick and the dead; no longer flesh, nor yet without a body, according to the laws which He alone knows of a more godlike body."

"The Judgment and the Reward according to the righteous scales of God... will be Light to those whose mind is purified (that is, God — seen and known) proportionate to their degree of purity, which we call the Kingdom of heaven; but to those who suffer from blindness of their ruling faculty, darkness, that is estrangement from God, proportionate to their blindness here."

"As the old confusion of tongues was laudable, when men who were of one language in wickedness and impiety, even as some now venture to be, were building the Tower; for by the confusion of their language the unity of their intention was broken up, and their undertaking destroyed; so much more worthy of praise is the present miraculous one. For being poured from One Spirit upon many men, it brings them again into harmony."

"I myself hold my friend the great Basil in high regard for his seriousness of character and the maturity and prudence of his discourse."

"Friends, this body is so impermanent, fragile, unworthy of confidence, and feeble. It is so insubstantial, perishable, short-lived, painful, filled with diseases, and subject to changes. Thus, my friends, as this body is only a vessel of many sicknesses, wise men do not rely on it. This body is like a ball of foam, unable to bear any pressure. It is like a water bubble, not remaining very long. It is like a mirage, born from the appetites of the passions. It is like the trunk of the plantain tree, having no core. Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications. It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions. It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution. It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable, and decaying every moment. The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions."

"Therefore, you should be revulsed by such a body. You should despair of it and should arouse your admiration for the body of the Tathagata. Friends, the body of a Tathagata is the body of Dharma, born of gnosis. The body of a Tathagata is born of the stores of merit and wisdom. It is born of morality, of meditation, of wisdom, of the liberations, and of the knowledge and vision of liberation. It is born of love, compassion, joy, and impartiality. It is born of charity, discipline, and self-control. It is born of the path of ten virtues. It is born of patience and gentleness. It is born of the roots of virtue planted by solid efforts. It is born of the concentrations, the liberations, the meditations, and the absorptions. It is born of learning, wisdom, and liberative technique. It is born of the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment. It is born of mental quiescence and transcendental analysis. It is born of the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, and the eighteen special qualities. It is born of all the transcendences. It is born from sciences and superknowledges. It is born of the abandonment of all evil qualities, and of the collection of all good qualities. It is born of truth. It is born of reality. It is born of conscious awareness. Friends, the body of a Tathagata is born of innumerable good works. Toward such a body you should turn your aspirations, and, in order to eliminate the sicknesses of the passions of all living beings, you should conceive the spirit of unexcelled, perfect enlightenment."

"Good people, this body is impermanent, without durability, without strength, without firmness, a thing that decays in a moment, not to be relied on. It suffers, it is tormented, a meeting place of manifold ills. Good people, no person of enlightened wisdom could depend on a thing like this body This body is like a cluster of foam, nothing you can grasp or handle. This body is like a bubble that cannot continue for long. This body is like a flame born of longing and desire. This body is like the plantain that has no firmness in its trunk. This body is like a phantom, the product of error and confusion. This body is like a dream, compounded of false and empty visions. This body is like a shadow, appearing through karma causes. This body is like an echo, tied to causes and conditions. This body is like a drifting cloud, changing and vanishing in an instant. This body is like lightning, barely lasting from moment to moment. This body is like earth that has no subjective being. This body is like fire, devoid of ego. This body is like wind that has no set life span. This body is like water, devoid of individuality. This body has no reality but makes these four elements its lodging. This body is void, removed from self and self's possessions. This body is without understanding, like plants or trees, tiles or pebbles. This body is without positive action, blown about by the wind. This body is impure, crammed with defilement and evil. This body is empty and unreal; though for a time you may bathe and cleanse, clothe and feed it, in the end it must crumble and fade. This body is plague-ridden, beset by a hundred and one ills and anxieties. This body is like the abandoned well on the hillside, old age pressing in on it. This body has no fixity, but is destined for certain death. This body is like poisonous snakes, vengeful bandits, or an empty village, a mere coming together of components, realms, and sense-fields. Good people, a thing like this is irksome and hateful, and therefore you should seek the Buddha body. Why? Because the Buddha body is the Dharma body. It is born from immeasurable merits and wisdom. It is born from precepts, meditation, wisdom, emancipation, and the insight of emancipation. It is born from pity, compassion, joy, and indifference. It is born of the various paramitas such as almsgiving, keeping of the precepts, forbearance and gentleness, assiduousness in religious practice, meditation, emancipation and samadhi, wide knowledge and wisdom. It is born of expedient means, born of the six transcendental powers, born of the three understandings, born of the thirty-seven elements of the Way, born of concentration and insight, born of the ten powers, the four kinds of fearlessness, and the eighteen unshared properties. It is born of the cutting off of all things not good and the gathering in of all good things, born of the truth, born of the avoidance of indulgence and laxity. The body of the Thus Come One is born of immeasurable numbers of pure and spotless things such as these. Good people, if you wish to gain the Buddha body and do away with the ills that afflict all living beings, then you must set your minds on attaining anuttara-samyak-sambodhi."

"At that time, there lived in the great city of Vaisali a certain Licchavi, Vimalakirti by name. Having served the ancient Buddhas, he had generated the roots of virtue by honoring them and making offerings to them. He had attained tolerance as well as eloquence. He played with the great superknowledges. He had attained the power of incantations and the fearlessnesses. He had conquered all demons and opponents. He had penetrated the profound way of the Dharma. He was liberated through the transcendence of wisdom. Having integrated his realization with skill in liberative technique, he was expert in knowing the thoughts and actions of living beings. Knowing the strength or weakness of their faculties, and being gifted with unrivaled eloquence, he taught the Dharma appropriately to each. Having applied himself energetically to the Mahayana, he understood it and accomplished his tasks with great finesse. He lived with the deportment of a Buddha, and his superior intelligence was as wide as an ocean. He was praised, honored, and commended by all the Buddhas and was respected by Indra, Brahma, and all the s. In order to develop living beings with his skill in liberative technique, he lived in the great city of Vaisali."

"At that time in the great city of Vaishali there was a rich man named Vimalakirti. Already in the past he had offered alms to immeasurable numbers of Buddhas, had deeply planted the roots of goodness, and had grasped the truth of birthlessness. Unhindered in his eloquence, able to disport himself with transcendental powers, he commanded full retention of the teachings and had attained the state of fearlessness. He had overcome the torments and ill will of the devil and entered deeply into the doctrine of the Law, proficient in the paramita of wisdom and a master in the employing of expedient means. He had successfully fulfilled his great vow and could clearly discern how the minds of others were tending. Moreover, he could distinguish whether their capacities were keen or obtuse. His mind was cleansed and purified through long practice of the Buddha Way, firm in its grasp of the Great Vehicle, and all his actions were well thought out and planned. He maintained the dignity and authority of a Buddha, and his mind was vast as the sea. All the Buddhas sighed with admiration, and he commanded the respect of the disciplies, of Indra, Brahma, and the ."

"Desiring to save others, he employed the excellent expedient of residing in Vaishali. His immeasurable riches he used to relieve the poor, his faultless observation of the precepts served as a reproach to those who would violate prohibitions. Through his restraint and forbearance he warned others against rage and anger, and his great assiduousness discouraged all thought of sloth and indolence. Concentrating his single mind in quiet meditation, he suppressed disordered thoughts; through firm and unwavering wisdom he overcame all that was not wise. Though dressed in the white robes of a layman, he observed all the rules of pure conduct laid down for monks, and though he lived at home, he felt no attachment to the threefold world. One could see he had a wife and children, yet he was at all times chaste in action; obviously he had kin and household attendants, yet he always delighted in withdrawing from them. Although he wore jewels and finery, his real adornment was the auspicious marks; although he ate and drank like others, what he truly savored was the joy of meditation."

"If he visited the gambling parlors, it was solely to bring enlightenment to those there; if he listened to the doctrines of other religions, he did not allow them to impinge on the true faith. Though well versed in secular writings, his constant delight was in the Buddhist Law. Respected by everyone, he was looked on as foremost among those deserving of alms; embracing and upholding the correct Dharma, he gave guidance to old and young. In a spirit of trust and harmony he conducted all kinds of business enterprises, but though he reaped worldly profits, he took no delight in these."

"He frequented the busy crossroads in order to bring benefit to others, entered the government offices and courts of law so as to aid and rescue all those he could. He visited the places of debate in order to guide others to the Great Vehicle, visited the schools and study halls to further the instruction of the pupils. He entered houses of ill fame to teach the folly of fleshly desire, entered wine shops in order to encourage those with a will to quit them."

"If he was among rich men, they honored him as foremost among them because he preached the superior Law for them. If he was among lay believers, they honored him as foremost because he freed them from greed and attachment. Among Kshatriyas he was most highly honored because he taught them forbearance. Among Brahmans he was most highly honored because he rid them of their self-conceit. The great ministers honored him as foremost because he taught the correct Law. The princes honored him as foremost because he showed them how to be loyal and filial. Within the women's quarters he was most honored because he converted and brought refinement to the women of the harem."

"The common people honored him as first among them because he helped them to gain wealth and power. The Brahma deities honored him as first among them because he revealed the superiority of wisdom. The Indras honored him as first among them because he demonstrated the truth of impermanence. The Four Heavenly Kings, guardians of the world, honored him as foremost because he guarded all living beings."

"Now though in nature the Commonwealth go first; first men, before religious and faithful men; and the Church can have no being but in the Commonwealth: yet in grace the Church goes first; religious and godly men, better than men; and the Commonwealth can have no blessed and happy being, but by the Church. For true religion ever blesses a State: provided that they which profess it do not in their lives dishonour both God and it."

"So the Church and the Commonwealth, God's house, "the Temple," and the King's house, "the house of David," are met in my text. And they would ever meet, and in love, no question, did not some distempered spirits breathe sour upon them. For the Church cannot dwell but in the State. You never read that she "fled" out of the State "into the wilderness," but when some "dragon" persecuted her. And the Commonwealth cannot flourish without the Church: for where the Church is not to teach true religion, States are enforced, out of necessity of some, to embrace a false; and a false is not a help to make a kingdom flourish. But when they dwell together, when the Church, the house of grace, is a welcome inmate to the State, which is a wise fabric of nature, then in the Temple there is meeting; "the people go up to bless and praise the name of the Lord." And then in the State there is meeting, to settle the "thrones of judgment," to make firm "the house of David." And then, and never but then, "Jerusalem," that is, both State and Church, "is as a city that is at unity in itself.""

"And one thing more I will be bold to speak out of a like duty to the Church of England, and the "house of David." They, whoever they be, that would overthrow sedes Ecclesiæ, the "seats of ecclesiastical government," will not spare, if ever they get power, to have a pluck at the "throne of David." And there is not a man that is for "parity," all fellows in the Church,—but he is not for monarchy in the State."

"[T]he King is God's immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God's by ordinance, and the King's by execution. And the power which resides in the King is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God's power, as well in, as over, him."

"I had a serious offer made me again to be a Cardinal. ... But my answer again was, that something dwelt within me which would not suffer that, till Rome were other than it is."

"I do not deny but that Calvin's Institutions may profitably be read, and as one of their first books for divinity, when they are well grounded in other learning; but to begin with it so soon, I am afraid doth not only hinder them from all grounds of judicious learning, but also too much possess their judgments before they are able to judge, and makes many of them humourous in, if not against the Church."

"Whereas it hath been alleged before our well-beloved Sir Nathaniel Brent, knight, our vicar-general, that your said parish being very great and populous, divers of your parishioners have no seats in the church appointed to them, and that others that have been placed in seats are often disturbed, thronged, and sometimes kept quite out of their own seats by others that unmannerly and rudely thrust them selves in contrary to all good order, for the reforming of which disorder petition hath been made to our said vicar-general, that by our authority a commission might be granted to four particular persons to reform this disorder, and to place and displace the parishioners of the said parish according as upon examination of this business they shall in their discretion find to be agreeable to reason and equity, so as men and women may be placed in the church according to their conditions, qualities, and degrees."

"For my care of this Church, the reducing of it into order, the upholding of the external worship of God in it, and the settling of it to the rules of its first reformation, are the causes (and the sole causes, whatever are pretended) of all this malicious storm, which hath lowered so black upon me, and some of my brethren."

"[I]t is versus altare, 'towards His altar', as the greatest place of God's residence upon earth. I say the greatest, yea, greater than the pulpit; for there 'tis Hoc est corpus meum, 'This is My body'; but in the pulpit 'tis at most but Hoc est verbum meum, 'This is My word'. And a greater reverence, no doubt, is due to the body than to the word of our Lord."

"I know the Jesuits are very cunning at these tricks; but if you have no more hold of your printers, than that the press must lie thus open to their corruption."

"[T]he ship-money, the most necessary and most honourable business both for the King and the kingdom, that ever was set on foot in my memory; and I am clear of opinion that if it be so carried that the conformable party be scorned by the refractory, the most orderly men will be disheartened, and the business itself miscarry."

"The tumults in Scotland, about the Service-Book offered to be brought in, began Julii 23, 1637, and continued increasing by fits, and hath now brought that kingdom in danger. No question, but there's a great concurrence between them [the Covenanters] and the Puritan party in England. A great aim there to destroy me in the King's opinion."

"[W]e find, that besides articles and canons and rubrics, &c., the Church of Christ had ever certain customs which prevailed in her practice, and had no canon for them; and if all such may be kicked out, you may bid farewell to all decency and order. In the mean time I will acquaint his majesty with this distemper growing, that the blame may not be cast upon me."

"You cannot have a greater desire to conform Ireland to the Church of England, than I (and this with as seeming great a desire of the King) to conform Scotland to the Church of England."

"Never were there more gross absurdities, nor half so many in so short a time, committed in any public meeting; and for a National Assembly never did the Church of Christ see the like."

"Mr. Alex. Henderson, who went all this while for a quiet and well-spirited man, hath showed himself a most violent and passionate man, and a Moderator without moderation. Truly, my Lord, never did I see any man of that humour yet, but he was deep dyed in some violence or other; and it would have been a wonder to me if Henderson had held free. Good my Lord, since you are good in the active part, in the commixture of wisdom and patience, hold it out till the people may see the violence and injustice of them that would be their leaders, and suffer not a rupture till there be no remedy."

"Wednesday, Coronation-day, King Charles took his journey northward, against the Scottish covenanting rebels. God of His infinite mercy bless him with health and success."

"I have been informed that some masters come to St. Mary's, and stand or sit there bare in sermon time, not out of any devotion, but only to hide their hats... [R]equire every of them to look strictly to their several charges, and to assist you in all things according to the statutes in the university; in which if any man shall fail, I shall take it so much the worse from him, as there is greater necessity to hold up good order in the brokenness of these times."

"[N]o man can set a better state of the question between Scripture and tradition, than Hooker doth. His words are these: "The Scripture is the ground of our belief; the authority of man (that is the name he gives to tradition) is the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture." ... [W]e resolve our faith into Scripture as the ground; and we will never deny that tradition is the key that lets us in."

"The time was, before this miserable rent in the Church of Christ—which I think no true Christian can look upon but with a bleeding heart—that you and we were all of one belief. That belief was tainted, in tract and corruption of times, very deeply."

"There is a great deal of difference, especially as Romanists handle the question of the Church, between the Church and a Church; and there is some between a true Church and a right Church, which is the word you use, but no man else that I know: I am sure not I. For “the Church” may import in our language “the only true Church;” and, perhaps, as some of you seem to make it, “the root and the ground of the Catholic.” And this I never did grant of the Roman Church, nor ever mean to do. But “a Church” can imply no more than that it is a member of the whole. And this I never did nor ever will deny, if it fall not absolutely away from Christ. That it is a “true Church,” I granted also; but not a “right,” as you impose upon me."

"[P]rivate spirits are too giddy to rest upon Scripture, and too heady and shallow to be acquainted with demonstrative arguments."

"Why, but the Roman Church and the Church of England are but two distinct members of that Catholic Church which is spread over the face of the earth. Therefore Rome is not the house where the Church dwells; but Rome itself, as well as other particular churches, dwells in this great universal house."

"Thus I said, and thus I say still; for though the foundation be one and the same in all, yet a "latitude" there is, and a large one too, when you come to consider, not the foundation common to all, but things necessary to many particular men's salvation."

"As for that in which he is quite mistaken, it is his inference, which is this: "That I should therefore consider carefully, whether it be not more Christian, and less brain-sick, to think that the pope, being S. Peter's successor, with a General Council, should be judge of controversies, &c., and that the pastoral judgment of him should be accounted infallible, rather than to make every man that can read the Scripture interpreter of Scripture, decider of controversies, controller of General Councils, and judge of his judges: or to have no judge at all of controversies of faith, but permit every man to believe as he list; as if there were no infallible certainty of faith to be expected on earth; which were, instead of one saving faith, to induce a Babylonical confusion of so many faiths as fancies, or no true Christian faith at all. From which evils, sweet Jesus, deliver us!" I have considered of this very carefully; but this inference supposes that which I never granted, nor any Protestant that I yet know—namely, that if I deny the pope to be judge of controversies, I must by and by either leave this supreme judicature in the hands and power of every private man, that can but read the Scripture, or else allow no judge at all, and so let in all manner of confusion. No, God forbid that I should grant either: for I have expressly declared, "That the Scripture, interpreted by the Primitive Church, and a lawful and free General Council determining according to these, is judge of controversies: and that no private man whatsoever is or can be judge of these.""

"Tuesday, Simon and Jude's eve, I went into my upper study, to see some manuscripts, which I was sending to Oxford. In that study hung my picture, taken by the life. And coming in, I found it fallen down upon the face, and lying on the floor. The string being broken, by which it was hanged against the wall. I am almost every day threatened with my ruin in Parliament. God grant this be no omen."

"Psal. cx. the people are said 'to offer their freewill offerings with an holy worship,' or 'in the beauties of holiness:' and though, perhaps, his Lordship will not allow of this translation, yet so far he may as to see the use of the phrase. And 'in the beauties of holiness,' (which keeps close to the original,) will please him less; since a barn with them is as good as a church; and no church holy with them, but that which is slovenly even to nastiness; but then 'tis void of all superstition."

"For preaching is a speech to man for his edification and instruction in faith and good life. But prayer is a speech to God, to honour and worship Him, in the acknowledgment of His dominion over, and His bounty and goodness towards all creatures, but mankind especially. And therefore, though a man cannot take too much pains in that which he is to speak from God to man, lest he be proved a false relater; yet of the two, there should be more care had, what prayers he puts up for himself and the whole congregation, unto God; lest he be not only a false worshipper, but also, lest he suddenly and unadvisedly ask that, which may be hurtful unto all."

"So that ill praying in public contains almost all the mischiefs that ill preaching hath in it, over and above all the ill that is proper to itself: and so is the more dangerous sin: and therefore the Church cannot be too careful for a set and known form for public prayer; yea, and that enjoined too, so it be well weighed beforehand; though for preaching she leave a greater latitude. So upon consideration, I think there is more difference between a set form of prayer, and a set form of preaching, than that we are invited to the one, and not to the other."

"[A]lmost all of them say that God from all eternity reprobates by far the greater part of mankind to eternal fire, without any eye at all to their sin. Which opinion my very soul abominates. For it makes God, the God of all mercies, to be the most fierce and unreasonable tyrant in the world. For the question is not here, what God may do by an absolute act of power, would He so use it upon the creature which He made of nothing: but what He hath done, and what stands with His wisdom, justice, and goodness to do."

"Ever since I came in place, I laboured nothing more, than that the external public worship of God (too much slighted in most parts of this kingdom) might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be; being still of opinion, that unity cannot long continue in the Church, where uniformity is shut out at the church door."

"[M]y care was against all underminings, both at home and abroad, of the established doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, for which I am now like to suffer. And I pray God that point of Arminianism, libertas prophetandi [the right to proclaim different opinions], do not more mischief in short time, than is expressible by me."

"I have nothing to do to defend Arminianism, no man having yet charged me with the abetting any point of it... [F]or the peace of Christendom, and the strengthening of the reformed religion, I do heartily wish these differences were not pursued with such heat and animosity, in regard that all the Lutheran Protestants are of the very same opinions, or with very little difference from those which are now called Arminianism."

"For the other stuff which fills up this argument, that these 'changes and supplements are taken from the Mass-book, and other Romish rituals, and that by these the book is made to vary from the Book of England;' I cannot hold it worth an answer, till I see some particulars named... I would have them remember that we live in a Church reformed, not in one made new. Now all reformation that is good and orderly takes away nothing from the old, but that which is faulty and erroneous. If anything be good, it leaves that standing. So that if these changes from the Book of England be good, 'tis no matter whence they be taken. For every line in the Mass-book, or other popish rituals, are not all evil and corruptions. There are many good prayers in them; nor is anything evil in them, only because 'tis there. Nay, the less alteration is made in the public ancient service of the Church, the better it is, provided that nothing superstitious or evil in itself be admitted or retained."

"Shall I be accounted an enemy by one part for opposing the papist, and accused for a traitor by the other for favouring and complying with them? Well, if I do suffer thus, 'tis but because truth usually lies between two extremes, and is beaten by both (as the poor Church of England is, at this day, by the papist and the separatist). But in this, and all things else, in despite of all malice, truth shall be either my protection from suffering, or my comfort while I suffer; and by God's gracious assistance I shall never depart from it, but continue at the Apostle's ward, 2 Cor. xiii. Nihil possum contra veritatem, I can do nothing against the truth; and for it, I hope God will enable me patiently to suffer anything."

"I was borne and baptized in the bosome of the Church of England established by Law; in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that I come now to dye; This is no time to dissemble with God, least of all in matter of Religion; and therefore I desire it may be remembred, I have alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion, established in England, and in that I come now to dye. What Clamours and Slanders I have endured for labouring to keepe a Uniformity in the externall service of God, according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church, all men know, and I have abundautly felt."

"He was the last of the great ecclesiastical statesmen, perhaps because his example acted as a deterrent to any future aspirants to that position."

"[H]e did court persons too little; nor cared to make his designs and purposes appear as candid as they were, by showing them in any other dress than their own natural beauty and roughness, and did not consider enough what men said or were like to say of him."

"[T]he Commemoration called forth a number of anonymous communications (mostly on postcards) which strangely recall the kind of thing with which Archbishop Laud had to deal; and show that the spirit which animated the fanatic of his day is by no means extinct... and nobody who is acquainted with such "libels" as are preserved in the Record Office or in Lambeth Palace Library will have any difficulty in recognising the resemblance:—... "You are doing the work of the great Whore of Babylon and leading them to the Pope as your Laud did. And you deserve the same recompense as he received from his righteous judges. Curse you.""

"The greatest calamity ever visited upon the Church of England."

"His book against the Jesuit will be his lasting epitaph."

"Do you know whom I find the most tolerant churchman of that time? Laud! Laud got Davenant made Bishop of Salisbury, and he zealously befriended Chillingworth and Hales. (There was some other case, which I forget.)"

"From these two volumes [Laud's Diary and The History of his Troubles and Trial] it may be said that the great Tory and Church movement which was so striking a feature of the age of Anne received no inconsiderable part of its strength. The great figure round whom the later Caroline divines, the eminent writers of the reign of Charles II and the learned and chivalrous non-jurors, clustered, was undoubtedly William Laud, in whom the Church principles which they held dear seemed to be personified and hallowed. The publication of Laud's Works, and particularly his Devotions, exercised on Church feeling a parallel influence to that exercised on politics by the immortal history of Clarendon."

"I have been entreated by Mr. Governor and the rest of the merchants of Exon, to make known unto yourself and the merchants of the towne how far I have waded in the prosecution of the suit unto the King and the Lords, for some course to be taken to suppress the Turks and secure the trades. I have, therefore, sent you herewith enclosed the copies of all the petitions which have been preferred... Unto this my Lord Archbishop (Laud) hee gave this answer, striking his hands upon his breast, that while he hath breth in his bodie he would, to the uttermost of his power, advance a business so necessarie and consequentiall, and has assured me that his Majestie would take such course as that within this twelve months not a Turkish ship should be able to putt to sea; and at the Board his Grace was exceeding heartie in the business."

"Doctor Young the Lord Bishop of Rochester that Ordained him, finding his study raised above the Systems and Opinions of the age, upon the nobler foundation of the Fathers, Councils, and the Ecclesiastical Historians, easily presaged, "That if he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and private principles of modern times, to the more free, large, and publick sentiments of the purest and first Ages.""

"The Parliament was certainly far from faultless. We fully agree with Mr. Hallam in reprobating their treatment of Laud. For the individual, indeed, we entertain a more unmitigated contempt than for any other character in our history. The fondness with which a portion of the church regards his memory, can be compared only to that perversity of affection which sometimes leads a mother to select the monster or the idiot of the family as the object of her especial favour."

"That we have our Prayer-Book, our altar, even our Episcopacy itself, we may, humanly speaking, thank Laud... That our Articles have not a Genevan sense tied to them, and are not an intolerable burden to the Church, is owing to Laud. He rescued them from the fast tightening Calvinistic grasp, and left them, by his prefixed "Declaration", open. Laud saved the English Church... The English Church in her Catholic aspect is a memorial of Laud."

"I saw that the English Church had a theological idea or theory as such, and I took it up. I read Laud on Tradition, and thought it (as I still think it) very masterly."

"He is an excellent man, for he is very just, incorrupt, and above all, mistaken by the erring world."

"[H]e remains the Reformer par excellence of his own day, the Chief Advocate of the Working Classes, the Defender of the Poor, the Leader of the Educational Movement, an Administrator who endeavoured to exterminate the corruptions in the Civil Service, and an Ecclesiastic who proposed to widen the boundaries of the English Church."

"His little grace the Bishop of Canterbury, that great enemy of God and his people, his head was cut off on a scaffold on Tower Hill."

"For eight thousand years he will live the household life in four palaces Sirivaddha, Vaddhamāna, Siddhattha and Candaka - his chief wife being Candamukhī and his son Brahmavaddhana. Having seen the four signs while on his way to the park, he will be dissatisfied with household life and will spend one week in practicing austerities. Then he will leave home, travelling in his palace and accompanied by a fourfold army, at the head of which will be eighty-four thousand brahmins and eighty four thousand Khattiya maidens. Among his followers will be Isidatta and Pūrana, two brothers, Jātimitta, Vijaya, Suddhika and Suddhanā, Sangha and Sanghā, Saddhara, Sudatta, Yasavatī and Visākhā, each with eighty four thousand companions. Together they will leave the household and arrive on the same day at the Bodhi tree."

"The World Teacher is that Great Being Whom the Christian calls the Christ; He is known also in the Orient as the Bodhisattva, and as the Lord Maitreya, and is the One looked for by the devout Mohammedan, under the name of the Iman Mahdi. He it is Who has presided over the destinies of life since about 600 B.C. and He it is Who has come out among men before, and Who is again looked for. He is the Great Lord of Love and of Compassion, just as His predecessor, the Buddha, was the Lord of Wisdom. . . . He is the World Teacher, the Master of the Masters, and the Instructor of the Angels, and to Him is committed the guidance of the spiritual destinies of men, and the development of the realisation within each human being that he is a child of God and a son of the Most High."

"He has been for two thousand years the supreme Head of the Church Invisible, the Spiritual Hierarchy, composed of the disciples of all faiths. He recognises and loves those who are not Christian but who retain their allegiance to their Founders – the Buddha, Mohammed and others. He cares not what the faith is, if the objective is love of God and of humanity. If men look for the Christ Who left His disciples centuries ago, they will fail to recognise the Christ Who is in the process of returning. The Christ has no religious barriers in His consciousness. It matters not to Him of what faith a man may call himself."

"Profoundly interesting is this world-tragedy of conflict to those who see in it a necessary preparation, a clearing of the ground, for the coming of the World-Teacher and for the new civilisation... The terrible lesson now being taught, the widespread suffering, the devastation by sword and fire, the poverty caused by the dislocation of trade, the tension, the bankruptcies... But through this Armageddon the world will pass into a realm of peace, of brotherhood, of co-operation, and will forget the darkness and the terrors of the night in the joy that cometh in the morning..."

"And so, looking over the world at the moment, there seems little likelihood that when He comes He will be welcome. A few will recognise Him as they ever have done, and maybe, as the characteristics of the coming race are those of spirituality, there will be more to welcome Him, for the spiritual life is spreading to-day, and those who are of the Spirit will know the law of the Spirit; and I would fain leave you with the thought tonight that that is a truth, that the Supreme Teacher will again ere very long be incarnate upon earth, again made manifest as Teacher, again walking and living amongst us as last He walked in Palestine. Splendid as is the hope, mighty as is the inspiration, there is nothing too glorious to be possible for the ever-unfolding Spirit in man, and the hope of to-day is that that spirit is spreading, despite the characteristics of our time; that men are becoming more liberal, more tolerant, more ready to recognise that which is true and just."

"Now in those days, brethren, there shall arise in the world an Exalted One by name Maitreya (the Kindly One) an Arhat, a Fully Enlightened One, endowed with wisdom and righteousness, a Happy One, a World-knower, the Peerless Charioteer of men to be tamed, a teacher of the devas (angels) and mankind, an Exalted One, a Buddha like myself. He of His own abnormal powers shall realize and make known the world, and the worlds of the devas, with their Maras, their Brahmas, the host of recluses and brahmins, of devas and mankind alike, even as I do now. He shall proclaim the norm, lovely in its beginning, lovely in its middle, and lovely in the end thereof. He shall make known the wholly perfect life of righteousness in all its purity, both in the spirit and in the letter of it, even as I do now. He shall lead an Order of Brethren numbering many thousands, even as I do now lead an order of Brethren numbering many hundreds."

"And in that time of the people with an eighty thousand-year life-span, there will arise in the world a Blessed Lord, an Arahant fully-enlightened Buddha named Metteyya, (Maitreya) endowed with wisdom and conduct, a Well-Farer, Knower of the worlds, incomparable Trainer of men to be tamed. Teacher of gods and humans, enlightened and blessed, just as I am now. He will thoroughly know by his own super-knowledge, and proclaim, this universe with its devas and maras and Brahmas, its ascetics and Brahmins, and this generation with its princes and people, just as I do now. He will teach the Dhamma, lovely in its beginning, lovely in its middle, lovely in its ending, in the spirit and in the letter, and proclaim, just as I do now, the holy life in its fullness and purity. He will be attended by a company of thousands of monks, just as I am attended by a company of hundreds. (25)"

"At the beginning and end of the discourse, the Buddha exhorts his monks to 'keep to their own preserves' by the practice of mindfulness. Then he tells of a 'wheel-turning monarch' (a righteous ruler) who had the sacred Wheel Treasure, which had to be carefully guarded. He was followed by a line of righteous kings, but eventually they degenerated, and society went from bad to worse, while the human life-span sank to ten years and all sense of morality was lost. After a brief but dreadful 'sword-interval' things improved, and finally another Buddha, Metteyya (Sanskrit: Maitreya) will appear. (26)"

"The Buddha of the present time is the Lord Gautama, who took his last birth in India about two thousand five hundred years ago...Seven Buddhas appear in succession during a world-period, one for each race, and each in turn takes charge of the special work of the Second Ray for the whole world, devoting himself to that part of it which lies in the higher worlds, while he entrusts to his assistant and representative, the Bodhisattva (Maitreya), the office of World-Teacher for the lower planes. For One who attains this position Oriental writers think no praise too high, no devotion too deep, and just as we regard those Masters to whom we look up as all but divine in goodness and wisdom, so to an even greater degree do they regard the Buddha."

"Now at this time in the remote past to which we have referred, humanity should have begun to provide its own Teachers; but we are told that no one had quite reached the level required for the incurring of so tremendous a responsibility. The first-fruits of Humanity at this period were two Brothers who stood equal in occult development; one being he whom we now call the Lord Gautama Buddha, and the other our present World-Teacher, the Lord Maitreya. In what way they fell short of the required qualifications we do not know; but, out of his great love for humanity the Lord Gautama instantly offered to make himself ready to undertake whatever additional effort might be necessary to attain the required development. We learn from tradition that life after life he practised special virtues, each life showing out some great quality achieved."

"The Lord Maitreya, whose name means kindliness or compassion, took up the office of Bodhisattva when the Lord Gautama laid it down, and since then He has made many efforts for the promotion of Religion. One of His first steps on assuming office was to take advantage of the tremendous magnetism generated in the world by the presence of the Buddha, to arrange that great Teachers should simultaneously appear in many different parts of the earth; so that within a comparatively short space of time we find not only the Buddha Himself, Shri Shankaracharya and Mahavira in India, but also Mithra in Persia, Laotse and Confucius in China, and Pythagoras in ancient Greece."

"What is now called Christianity was undoubtedly a magnificent conception as He originally taught it, sadly as it has fallen away from that high level in the hands of ignorant exponents since. It must not be assumed, of course, that the teaching of brotherly and neighbourly love was new in the world. As St. Augustine said in His book De Civitate Dei, The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian..."

"Readers of the Bhagavad Gita will also remember the teaching of love and devotion with which it is filled. The Bodhisattva also occupied occasionally the body of Tsong-ka-pa, the great Tibetan religious reformer, and throughout the centuries he has sent forth a stream of His pupils, including Nagarjuna, Aryasanga, Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, and many others, who founded new sects or threw new light upon the mysteries of religion, and among these was one of His pupils who was sent to found the Muhammadan faith. The sending out of the teachers I have mentioned above is only part of His work, which is not confined to humanity, but includes the education of all creatures on earth, and among them the Deva evolution. He is thus the Head of all the faiths at present existing, and of many others which have died out in the course of time, though He is of course responsible for them only in their original form, and not for the corruption which man has naturally and inevitably introduced into all of them as the ages have rolled by. He varies the type of religion to suit the period of the world’s history at which it is put forth, and the people to whom it is given; but though the form may vary as evolution proceeds, the ethics are ever the same."

"The Bodhisattva also occupied occasionally the body of Tsong-ka-pa, the great Tibetan religious reformer, and throughout the centuries He has sent forth a stream of His pupils, including Nagarjuna, Aryasanga, Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, and many others, who founded new sects or threw new light upon the mysteries of religion, and among these was one of His pupils who was sent to found the Muhammadan faith.... He is thus the Head of all the faiths at present existing, and of many others which have died out in the course of time, though He is of course responsible for them only in their original form, and not for the corruption which man has naturally and inevitably introduced into all of them as the ages have rolled by..."

"They will ask, "Can the time of Maitreya create a New Era?" Answer, "If the Crusades brought a new age, then truly the Era of Maitreya is a thousandfold more significant." In such consciousness should one proceed."

"Once a woman stopped between images of the Blessed Buddha and Maitreya, not knowing to Whom to offer her reverence. And the image of the Blessed Buddha uttered these words, “According to My Covenant, revere the future. Standing in defense of the past, direct your gaze toward the dawn.”"

""Wisdom in all," recalls the Hindu. "Cooperation in all" will be added to this in the Age of Maitreya. Not only by command, not just by harmony, but by the lightning-bolt of directed thought are the co-workers united... Each era has its own call. The power of thought will be the evocative principle of the New World."

"No name will provoke so many attacks as that of Maitreya, for it is bound up with the future. Nothing provokes so much fear and irritation in people as thinking about the future... Striving toward the future, be ready for battle. Do not hide your striving, for fire strives upward and only a high degree of striving will strengthen our union... It is essential not to fear to broaden your labors, for this is the best way to co-measurement. Sitting under one particular tree, one may think that it is the center of the world. But, expanding the essence of one's spirit through the entire world, one becomes like Fire, all-pervading."

"Often people will not look at reality, but insist on their own misperception... Understand once again that the time of changes of continents is approaching. Maitreya is coming, in the vanguard of science, addressing its new frontiers. All the problems of science and of the evolution of all that exists are of concern to the Teacher."

"The prayer uttered by Christ when leaving Earth was not heard by people. The prayer uttered by Buddha was not heard by people. The prayer that will be uttered by Maitreya knocks like lightning at the gates of the human spirit."

"You are correct in speaking of humanity’s lack of insight. When we approach the ominous hour, all forces must be strained for the mighty step. It has already been told that the Epoch of Maitreya is approaching, and the signs are strewn as fiery seeds; hence, the ominous hour will be one of Light for those who are in step with the Cosmic Magnet. Hence, the ominous hour will be as a future Light for those who battle for the significance of the Epoch of Maitreya. Hence, cooperation with Us brings the predestined victory. Therefore, the co-workers who walk in self-denial will be victors."

"Maitreya is coming, radiant with all fires. His Heart is aflame with compassion for destitute humanity. His Heart is aflame with the affirmation of the new Covenants."

"Each Lord has his keynote. The Epoch of Maitreya proclaims woman. The manifestation of Maitreya is linked with the confirmation of the Mother of the World, in the past, present, and future."

"How stupid are all who deny hope! How blind are those who affirm the advantage of wars! How few are the consciousnesses that can perceive the regeneration of the planet by way of culture! Certainly, those who do not comprehend creativeness by means of higher measures will perish in the same old upheavals. Those who do not comprehend the new ways are greatly in need of understanding the Epoch of Maitreya. The Banner of Peace and of the Lords will open all ways!"

"The various concepts of the will should be thoroughly thought through and delineated... The Epoch of Maitreya is the Age of the Heart! Only with the heart can you fathom the value of Maitreya’s treasures! Only with the heart can you understand how greatly all accumulations and all straight-knowledge are needed for the future."

"All the crusades in humanity’s past are nothing in comparison with the March of Maitreya. I affirm that the Great Battle means the renewal of the Earth. The future should be understood not as a battle but as podvig. One can expect battles not only in the usual sense but also as a reconstruction of life... You can understand how the intensification of energy is laying a new step for the planet’s progress. No one should be surprised that chaos breaks through, for the Battlefield is enormous. Let us not forget to notice even the smallest manifestations. There is so much diversity in the clashes between the fundamental forces of the Universe!"

"When slavery, the shame of the World, is manifested, then one must expect a change of epoch. Can one expect the advent of Maitreya to be possible only in four hundred thousand years? Many times has confusion been caused by mere words. It is impossible to imagine the Earth submerged in darkness for another thousand of years. Just picture the progression of evil! Therefore the most fierce Armageddon can be regarded as salvation."

"Maitreya will be 88 cubits (132 feet/ 40 meters) tall and will live for 88,000 years. Like Maṅgala Buddha, his rays will make people hard to distinguish between day and night."

"The scriptures say that Maitreya will attain bodhi in seven days (which is the minimum period), by virtue of his many lives of preparation for buddhahood similar to those reported in the Jataka tales."

"At this time a notable teaching he will start giving is that of the ten non-virtuous deeds (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, abusive speech, idle speech, covetousness, harmful intent and wrong views) and the ten virtuous deeds (the abandonment of: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, abusive speech, idle speech, covetousness, harmful intent and wrong views)."

"According to tradition, the Blessed One preordained the Bodhisattva Maitreya as his successor. “And the Blessed One said to Ananda, ‘I am not the first Buddha who has come upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time another Buddha will arise in the world, a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, embracing the Universe, an incomparable leader of men, a ruler of devas and mortals. He will reveal to you the same eternal truths, that I have taught you. He will establish his Law, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax, and glorious at the goal, in the spirit and in the letter. He will proclaim a righteous life, wholly perfect and pure, such as I now proclaim. His disciples will number many thousands while mine number many hundreds.’ “Ananda said, ‘How shall we know him?’ “The Blessed One said, ‘He will be known as Maitreya!’ ” (Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha) The future Buddha, Maitreya, as his name indicates, is the Buddha of compassion and love. This Bodhisattva, according to the power of his qualities, is often called Ajita—the Invincible."

"It is interesting to note that reverence of many Bodhisattvas was accepted and developed only in the Mahayana school. Nevertheless, the reverence of one Bodhisattva, Maitreya, as a successor chosen by Buddha himself, is accepted also in the Hinayana. Thus, one Bodhisattva, Maitreya, embraces the complete scope, being the personification of all aspirations of Buddhism."

"What qualities must a Bodhisattva possess? In the Teaching of Gotama Buddha and in the Teaching of Bodhisattva Maitreya, given by him to Asanga according to tradition in the fourth century (Mahayana-Sutralankara), the maximum development of energy, courage, patience, constancy of striving, and fearlessness was underlined first of all. Energy is the basis of everything, for it alone contains all possibilities."

"Throughout the entire Buddhist world the rocks on the roadsides, with the images of Maitreya, point out the approaching future. From the most ancient times until now this Image has been erected by Buddhists who know the approach of the New Era. In our day, venerable lamas, accompanied by disciples, painters, and sculptors, travel through the Buddhist countries, erecting new images of the symbol of aspirations toward the radiant future."

"Buddha, as the source, and Maitreya, as a universal hope, will unite the austere followers of the Teaching of the South with the multiformity of the North. That which is most essential for the immediate future will definitely manifest itself. Instead of swelling the Teaching with commentaries, it will again be restored to the beauty of the value of concise conviction. The new time of the Era of Maitreya is in need of conviction."

"Life in its entirety must be purified by the flame of achievement. The great Buddha, who preordained Maitreya, prescribed the path for the whole of existence. For those wise and clear covenants, the manifestation of the new evolution is calling. The demand for the purification of the Teaching is not accidental. The dates are approaching. The Image of Maitreya is ready to rise. All the Buddhas of the past have combined their wisdom of experience and have handed it on to the Blessed Coming One."

"The Treasure is returning from the West. On the mountains the fires of jubilation are kindled. Behold the road! There walk those who carry the Stone. Upon the Shrine are the signs of Maitreya. Out of the Sacred Kingdom is given the date when the carpet of expectation may be spread. By the sign of the seven stars shall the Gates be opened. “By fire shall I manifest My messengers. Gather the prophecies of your happiness.” Thus are fulfilled the prophecies of the ancestors and the writings of the wise ones... The approaching Maitreya is symbolized with His feet set upon earth—the symbol of haste. (Prophecies of Shambhala and Maitreya)"

"It is predicted that the manifestation of Maitreya will come after the wars. But the final war will be for the True Teaching. But each one rising up against Shambhala shall be stricken in all his works. And the waves shall wash away his dwelling. And even a dog will not answer to his call. Not clouds but lightning shall he see on the final night. And the red messenger shall rise up on pillars of Light. The teaching indicates that each warrior of Shambhala shall be named the invincible. The Lord Himself hastens and His banner is already above the mountains! (Prophecies of Shambhala and Maitreya)"

"The Blessed Buddha bestowed upon you the cherished Maitreya to approach the New Era. Thy Pastures shall reach the Promised Land. When thou tendest thy flocks, dost thou not hear the voices of the stones? These are the toilers of Maitreya who make ready the treasures for thee. When the wind murmureth through the reeds, dost thou understand that this is the arrows of Maitreya flying in protection? When lightning illumineth thy camps, knowest thou that this is the light of thy desired Maitreya? To whom shall the watch upon the first night be entrusted? — To thee! (Prophecies of Shambhala and Maitreya)"

"The Tashi Lama shall ask the Great Dalai Lama: “What is predestined for the last Dalai Lama?” “The denier shall be given over to justice and shall be forgotten. And the warriors shall march under the banner of Maitreya... “Those rising against Shambhala shall be cast down. To the obscured ones the Banner of Maitreya shall flow as blood over the lands of the new world. To those who have understood, as a red sun.” (Prophecies of Shambhala and Maitreya)"

"The eyes of the child Prince opened early to the miracles of the world. Naught escaped his penetrative attention. The King said, “Perception is the crown of the Lord, but the strength of His arm is His shield. Let Him strengthen His arm with the bow. Let the children of the noble Kshatriyas compete with the Prince.” The Queen Mother added, “If penetration is the crown of the Lord, and the strength of His arm is His shield, then the glory of the Lord is His mercy and His wisdom. I would that my near one should be surrounded by the Devas of Wisdom who created the Vedas.”"

"Then an old sage turned to the King saying, “Reverend Mother, and thou, Lord, command me to combine your wishes. Command me to bring unto you her whom we call the daughter of the Great Nag, whom we have sheltered in our house. And for seven years have we marveled at her wisdom and the strength of her bow. Verily she is worthy of the hand which has inscribed the wisdom of the Vedas.” “Let her be brought here,” commanded the King. The wise councilor brought a young being, saying, “Maitri, send the worthiest greeting to our King.”"

"Unheard of was it to see a seven-year-old girl in a white garment, her bow and arrow in hand and a dagger in her girdle. The crown of heavy dark hair was not restrained by the fillet of the Nag and the eyes peered out sadly and sternly. The King said, “Maitri, if you can send the arrow, transfix yonder peacock.” Maitri bowed to the King and said, “I may not take life from an animal; but permit me, King, to pierce an apple on the top of the apple tree.” The King commanded Maitri to be companion to the Prince and greatly admired the wisdom of her who was found on the shores of the lake."

"Many years did the Prince spend with Maitri, calling her at times Stern One, or Glowing One, or Warrior, or Seeress of the Wisdom of Nagi."

"Maitri opened before him the door of the Path."

"When the powerful Lion returned and with the roar of Truth mantled the mountains, Maitri guarded for Him his best pupil and pronounced, “She shall glorify the sight of Thy labors.”"

"The Lord of Truth answered, “Maitri, manifested Councilor and Keeper. Thou who hast hidden thy wisdom from the crowd. Thou shalst assume My place as the Lord of Compassion and Labor. Maitreya shall lead the nations towards Light. And the arrow of achievement shall bestow the apple of Knowledge.”"

"What has been said is as true as that the Temple of Knowledge shall be erected near the site of the glorification of the Teacher. What has been said is as true as that the pupil of the Blessed One shall give her name to the Temple of Knowledge. The base of the manifestation of Truth is affirmed by the labors of life. Given in Chorten-Karpo."

"Kahit maging sanglibo man Ang buhay n'yaring katawan Pawa kong ipapapatay, Kung inyong pagpipilitang Si Kristo'y aking talikdan."

"If in order to help the needy one is able, without ill-will, to strip the rich down to their shirts, one is not doing wrong, especially if they are heartless skinflints."

"I have come to operate on you."

"No, you're not dreaming... Now you are conscious. You have never been so conscious as you are now."

"Guard your families and keep them from the schemes of the evil one through the presence of God in them. Protect and keep them through prayer and dialog, through mutual understanding and forgiveness, through honesty and faithfulness, and most importantly, through listening. Listen to one another with your ears, eyes, hearts, mouths and the palms of your hands, and keep the roaring of the noise of the world away from your homes because it is like raging storms and violent waves; once it enters the home, it will sweep away everything and disperse everyone. Preserve the warmth of the family, because the warmth of the whole world cannot make up for it."

"A man who prays lives out the mystery of existence, and a man who does not pray scarcely exists."

"Success in life consists of standing without shame before God."

"Their buildings rise, their morality sinks. Their worldly goods increase, their values diminish. Their speeches multiply, their prayers grow scarce.... An edifice based on man may well rise, but it ends up crushing him."

"Persevere in prayer without ceasing.. to understand and live according to his will, not to change it."

"The Father's will is always for your good."

"Pray to soften hardened hearts, to open darkened minds."

"By your prayers you can bring down the rain of mercy."

"Pray in your beds."

"The family is the basis of the Lord’s plan; and all forces of evil are focusing all their evil on destroying the family because they know that by destroying the family, the foundations of the plan of God will be shaken. The war of the Evil One against the Lord is his war against the family, and the war of the Evil One against the family is the core of his war against the Lord. Because the family is the image of God, from the beginning of the creation of this universe, The Evil one is focusing on destroying the family, the foundation of God’s plan."

"One does not have to look far to see evidence of Satan’s plan in our world today, as the family is further fragmented and divided in modern culture."

"On Christmas Eve in 1898, Father Charbel died. His body was interred in the ground without a coffin and without embalming, according to the monk's custom, dressed in the full habit of the order."

"For the next 45 nights, a most unusual event occurred: According to many local townspeople, an extraordinarily bright light appeared above his tomb, lighting the night sky. Finally, after the mysterious light persisted, officials at the monastery petitioned the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to exhume Charbel's body. When the grave was opened four months after Charbel's death, his body was found to be incorrupt."

"Strange things happen to Nohad al-Shami. In 1993 her painting of St Charbel began oozing oil. Around the same time the long-dead saint appeared in her dreams. 'I have come to operate on you,' he said. And so he did, curing her of hemiplegia (paralysis of half of the body), she claims. At the mountain-top monastery of Annaya, in north-west Lebanon, a mass is said every month to mark the miracle and to pray for new ones."

"The priest-monk lived and served in the monastery for 19 years, showing great devotion to the life of prayer, manual work, and contemplative silence. Charbel's superiors observed God's 'supernatural power' at work in his life, and he became known as a wonder-worker even among some Muslims. In 1875, he was granted permission to live as a solitary monk in a nearby hermitage dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. Rigorous asceticism, and a profound union with God, continued to characterise the monk's life for the next 23 years."

"How difficult is to please you people. I celebrate too long and he too short!"

"Sanctity is not just a virtue. It is an attainment of such spiritual height, that the abundance of God’s grace which fills the saint overflows on all who associate with him. Great is the saint’s state of bliss in which they dwell contemplating the Glory of God. Being filled with love for God and man, they are responsive to man’s needs, interceding before God and helping those who turn to them."

"Many were aware that it was not necessary to ask Vladika to visit someone. The Lord Himself inspired him where and to whom to go."

"We would go to Vladika to get his blessing before exams. One time I went and he said, “Why are you asking for my blessing, you didn’t study, go away.” How he knew that is a mystery to me, but I knew that I would do miserably, and I did."

"His incredible, self imposed, ascetic restriction on sleeping in bed was known to many. For 44 years of his monastic life, he slept for 4 or 5 hours per night sitting in his chair."

"If he was in his room and you wanted to see him, you didn’t just knock and wait for him to respond. What you did was knock and say “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us”, and when he responded with an “Amen”, you walked in."

"As an Altar Attendant... observing, especially during Eucharist, the intensity and power of his praying was spell binding. It seemed to me that he was not standing on the floor, but elevated. I mentioned this to others, and they agreed. St John was not a big man physically, but when he blessed the bread and wine, at that moment, making the Sign of the Cross over the Challis and Discus (plate) as required, he would thump the Altar Table, as he made the Sign. He could not have reached so far without being elevated. Recalling it now, I still get chills."

"A moleben was sung, after which Vladika, standing before a lectern, was delivering a sermon. I was standing next to my mother, and we both saw a light surrounding Vladika down to the lectern — a radiance around him a foot wide. This lasted a rather long time. When the sermon was over, I, struck by such an unusual phenomenon, told what we had seen to our friend, who replied to us: `Yes, many faithful saw it.'"

"We Altar Attendants really liked going to other churches when they had their church’s holiday... Typically, the hosts never thought of sitting us. When Vladika was urged to take his place, he would ask the person in charge of the banquet ‘Where are my Altar Attendants sitting?’ Typically they would be slightly embarrassed and say something ‘Oh, we’ll find them a place in the kitchen’ or more often than not, just say ‘We don’t have a place for them’. At that time, Vladika would say that he is not sitting down until his Altar Attendants are seated. Then a slight panic would ensue, as people scrambled for an extra table and some chairs. We loved that scene, and very much appreciated Vladika’s loyalty and concern."

"You demand proofs, you say that now there are neither miracles nor saints. Why should I give you theoretical proofs, when today there walks in the streets of Paris a Saint — Saint Jean Nus Pieds (Saint John the Barefoot)."

"Sometimes during our conversation it seemed to me that he dozed. But when I stopped, he would immediately say: “Continue, I hear you.”"

"After services he would smile and joke with the boys who served with him, playfully knocking the refractory on the head with his staff. Occasionally the Cathedral clergy would be disconcerted to see Vladika, in the middle of a service (though never in the altar), bend over to play with a small child! And on feast days when blessing with holy water was called for, he would sprinkle the faithful, not on the top of the head as is usual, but right in the face (which once led a small girl to exclaim, "he squirts you"), with a noticeable glint in his eye and total unconcern at the discomfiture of some of the more dignified."

"The biggest surprise, however, came during the procession around the church with the blessing of the water. When he would sprinkle the holy water, he would aim mostly at his altar boys, dousing them. The boys felt themselves to be the center of attention, and were elated to be thus sanctified by their beloved archpastor."

"While being unconcerned with matters of jurisdictions, Archbishop John was ruthless and intolerant towards Clergy who were lax and indifferent in matters of spiritual integrity. For this he was hated to such an extent that there was even an attempt to poison him during Pascha, and he barely survived. This intolerance towards Archbishop John stemmed mostly from envy and jealousy."

"The chapter of St. Tikhon's Orphanage has never been written. The amazing way in which Blessed John gathered and fed the children requires an able writer to capture it for posterity. The children would be underfed, abused and frightened, until Archbishop John would come and very often take them personally into his orphanage and school. Each child and there were over three thousand who went through the orphanage had a traumatic story."

"The persecution of Blessed John Maximovitch the Wonderworker did not end with his death. It is true that some trouble-makers repented and publicly wept, kissing the coffin when everyone was parting with the Saint. But his enviers continued to resent him, as they do even up till today, when it is politically convenient to pronounce him a saint. After his death some leaders in his Synod, having seen that he had ended triumphantly, decided to put a stop to the publishing of his miracles and memoirs about him, in order to conceal their deeds against him."

"When he heard confessions, he did not make it a big thing... he called confession a "dusting off"... the layers of ungodly impressions which settle upon the soul automatically if the soul does not resist and preserve its freshness. After each confession from Archbishop John, which as I said was nothing extraordinary, I felt very enlightened, although I must confess I always feared him because I knew he clairvoyant."

"O people of the world unite, and pave the way to peace sublime, Divided you yourself invite disastrous wars, unrest and crime."

"The legend runs that only a small number of families of Kashmiri Hindus survived the massacre and all the present population of Kashmiri Pandits is descended from them. It was said that cartloads of sacred threads, which the Hindus wear, were collected and thrown into the Dal Lake from the decapitated bodies of the killed and tortured. Crowds of women committed suicide to escape the clutches of the ravishers. Women, it is said, carried lethal poisons in their pockets to be swallowed when no other way was left to save their honor."

"Properly speaking, Yoga is an adjunct to religion and has always been treated as such in India, the country of its birth. The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj which means to yoke or join. As such, Yoga signifies the union of the individual soul with universal Consciousness or, in the language of the Upanishads, with the uncreated, all-pervading Brahman."

"The word yoga is met for the first time in Vedas in the Katha Upanishad and some description of it is contained in Svetasvatra, the last of the early Upanishads. It is more frequently met with in Puranas, the epics and other later literature, and is sometimes synonymously used for tapa and dhyana (i.e., religious austerity and meditation). Basically Yoga is nothing more or less than systematized concentration. Fixity of attention, whether on a God or a Goddess, on a symbol or a diagram, on the void or any material object, or whether on a mantra or any particular region of the body, is the main exercise of every ancient form of Yoga."

"We are not using the totality of the human brain. According to various estimates, most of us use only ten percent of the brain and according to some only eight percent. That means 90 percent of the brain is un-utilized, that there is still a large margin in the brain which could be used for other purposes, and nature has provided it for certain purposes which are not yet known to science."

"This is my experience, that the human brain is still organically evolving in the direction of the great mystics, in the same direction as the great geniuses. For this evolution a certain type of life is necessary."

"Children should be brought up with the ideal cultivated in them that the universe is ruled by an intelligent power, that they must cultivate purity, honesty, truth, compassion and live ideal lives. In that way they will conform to the evolutionary needs. That is the best thing we can do for the children."

"This book is from the Super-Mind A fast dictated gift sublime, The Message it contains will find Full confirmation in due time."

"This well-observed phenomenon, So new to modern intellect, Has been exhibited, off and on, In varied tongue and dialect,"

"Right from the old Egyptian times, By many a richly gifted mind, Of which the evidence in some climes, One can in holy scriptures find."

"There is no way to find this out, No way to wake up from the dream, No method to remove the doubt, Save knowledge of the State Supreme."

"Religion is, in truth, a route To be pursued unto the last, Not for discussion or dispute Nor ostentatious rite or fast (Verses 291 - 294)"

"But to act on the rules enjoined, For Man to be a Super-man. These rules no mortal brain has coined, But form a part of Heaven's Plan."

"And every year a golden crop, Of these Immortals will arise To help safely to the top, The savants who train for the prize. (Verses 381 - 386)"

"What I aver is not a dream Nor wishful thought nor fantasy Though it may now fantastic seem"

"It soon will be a reality, To make it ready for the shift From the old order to the New, In which the strong the weak will lift, And the rich to the poorer give."

"This promised dream-world, as designed For man, by Heaven that has imbued With these ideals the human mind, Will ne’er be given up but pursued."

"It is a fallacy to hold That Life’s patrician is the prime, And outcast tribe the sterile old, Who live for death to bide their time."

"True religion is a firm belief in an Almighty Creator, in immortality, in self-perfection, in service, truth, love and compassion for all fellow beings, as the only way for the sanctification of human life to manifest the glory of the soul."

"If we look for a moment at the great mystics of the past, the prophets like Christ and Buddha, Shankaracharya, Vyasa, or Mohammed, we find evidence of this in their own lives. It is a desire tospeak the truth, a desire to speak to mankind with unbounded love, compassion, mercy, and charity. This is found in all of them."

"Kundalini is the evolutionary mechanism in man. It is slowly but inexorably leading mankind towards a higher state of consciousness. In the normal human being the condition of one’s heart is always a matter for careful attention because the heart plays a most important function in keeping the body alive."

"If I say that Kundalini performs no less important a function, not only for the individual but for the whole of the race, shouldn’t it be a matter of the deepest interest for us to know how it functions? It is at work every moment of our lives in building the brain and the nervous system, and it is therefore most necessary for the safety of mankind that some people deeply interested in it arouse this power so that the world might benefit by their experience."

"Everyone who is transformed by the action of Kundalini blooms into a genius. When more and more facts about this still-mysterious and mighty force are known, more and more men and women will endeavour to arouse the power."

"As for those in whom the power awakens in a malignant way, it will be possible when physicians come into possession of more facts about it to apply methods and other remedies to counteract the effects of an unhealthy awakening."

"The knowledge of the secret of Kundalini, when accepted and amplified by the experience of other competent investigators, will bring home to humanity the need for strict adherence to the laws of evolution and for adjusting their social and political systems in harmony with these laws."

"At this moment mankind is unsafe in the hands of present-day politicians. Considering the progress she has made in physical science and technological skill, it is imperative that superconscious minds be placed in charge of human affairs."

"For political leadership one needs more than a pure heart and a good intellect. He or she must have the talent for administration and the charisma to rule. People with less character but better talent sometimes prove to be better leaders than those who were good-hearted but did not know the art of leadership."

"Please don’t think that after the awakening of Kundalini all human problems will be automatically solved. The universe is so complicated and human nature so deep that to the last day man will continue to gather wisdom to enable him to live in greater and greater harmony and joy."

"Solitude and nature are absolutely necessary for the proper development of a human being."

"It is an admixture of natural life, lived in solitude, amid beautiful surroundings of nature and what we call an arboreal life, which is absolutely necessary for the poise and harmony of the human mind."

"We should have a population for which we have sufficient out of all that is produced by the earth. This can only be possible when the needs of the population and the planning done for it are on a global basis."

"What would be needed are men and women who are cultivated, trained, and who have reached to other dimensions of consciousness, in charge of important offices. That is the only way to safety."

"See how calm and reposeful Nature is and how restless is man... He doesn't know that he has to evolve in a certain direction, that he has to reach a dimension where he will combine the scientist, the sage and the illuminated in himself."

"Did you ever surfeit a drinker to this heart? Bring to my lips, Saqi, lips of the purple flask. Scent-like, it cannot lie concealed behind the veil, The beauty which has tasted the delight of being unveiled. Brief is our span of life, fleeter than the lightning flash, Fated are we to finish in haste each assigned task. Whosoever I approach to unfold my heart, Comes forth at once with his own tale of woe. You haven't seen, O Dard, the world's destructive might, Flask-like it mingles in dust each drinker's blood."

"دوستو، دیکها تماشا یہاں کا بس تم رہو خوش ہم تو اپنے گھر چلے۔"

"My friends, we have seen enough of this play. We are going home, you can stay."

"جگ میں کوئی نہ ٹک ہنسا ہوگا کہ نہ ہنسنے میں رو دِیا ہوگا"

"No one in the world has (ever) laughed, the least bit without weeping at the same time."

"When Abba Arsenius was still in the palace, he prayed to God saying: “Lord, guide me as to how I can be saved,” and there came to him a voice saying: “Arsenius, flee from people and you shall be saved.”"

"When the same [person] had retired into the solitary life he prayed again, offering the same prayer, and he heard a voice saying to him: “Arsenius, take flight, keep silent and maintain hesychia, for these are the roots of sinlessness.”"

"A brother asked Abba Arsenius if he could hear a saying from him. The elder said to him: “As much as you are able, strive so that what goes on inside you be godly and you conquer your external passions.”"

"Abba Mark said to Abba Arsenius: “Why do you run away from us?” The elder said to him: “God knows that I love you, but I cannot be with God and with people. The thousands and tens of thousands above have one will, but people have many wills, so I cannot forsake God and come among people.”"

"A brother went to the cell of Abba Arsenius at Scete and, looking through the window, saw the elder as though he were all fire, for the brother was worthy to see [this.] When he knocked, the elder came out and saw the brother looking astounded. “Have you been knocking for long?” he said to him. “You didn’t see anything here?” but he said: “No.” The elder conversed with him and sent him on his way."

"They also used to say of him that on Saturday night when Sunday was about to dawn he used to put the sun behind him and stretch out his hands to heaven, praying until the sun shone on his face; and then he would sit down."

"Abba Arsenius for God’s sake conversed with no one, neither for spiritual profit nor for any other reason."

"“Bardesanes was also a great student of Indian religion, and wrote a book on the subject, from which the Platonist Porphyry subsequently quoted. But it is as a poet and writer on Christian theology and theosophy that Bardesanes gained so wide a reputation; he wrote many books in Syriac and also Greek ... [and] he was the first to adapt the Syriac tongue to metrical forms and set the words to music; these hymns became immensely popular, not only in the Edessene kingdom but wherever the Syriac tongue was spoken.”"

"Bardesanes’s faith was true after his master Valentinus, the founder of Gnostic schools in Alexandria and Rome, and orthodox Christians have cursed him bitterly for it. Ephraim of Edessa, a father of the Church, writing 120 years after his death, says that he died “with the Lord in his mouth and demons in his heart”. He accused Bardesanes of being a heretic and sophist, a greedy sheep-dog in league with the wolves, and a cunning dissembler practicing deceit with his songs. If this is what a Christian saint has to say about his theology, it is something of an irony that Roman Catholic scholars are so eager to accept his geography."

"Ignorance makes us reject what is beneficial; and when it becomes brazen it strengthens the hold of evil."

"Concern yourself with your own sins and not with those of your neighbor; then the workplace of your intellect will not be robbed."

"I have seen unlearned men who were truly humble, and they became wiser than the wise."

"Do not say: 'I do not know what is right, therefore I am not to blame when I fail to do it.' For if you did all the good about which you do know, what you should do next would then become clear to you."

"Evils reinforce each other; so do virtues, thus encouraging us to still greater efforts."

"The devil belittles small sins; otherwise he cannot lead us into greater ones."

"Do not listen to talk about other people's sins. For through such listening the form of these sins is imprinted on you."

"When you first become involved in something evil, don't say: 'It will not overpower me.' For to the extent that you are involved you have already been overpowered by it."

"He who does not choose to suffer for the sake of truth will be chastened more painfully by suffering he has not chosen."

"The intellect cannot be still unless the body is still also: and the wall between them cannot be demolished without stillness and prayer."

"Prayer is called a virtue, but in reality it is the mother of the virtues: for it gives birth to them through union with Christ."

"Love is the last of the virtues to be born in the heart, but it is the first in value."

"However great our virtuous actions of today, they do not requite but condemn our past negligence."

"One man received a thought and accepted it without examination. Another received a thought and tested its truth. Which of them acted with greater reverence?"

"Many of us feel remorse for our sins, yet we gladly accept their causes."

"A passion which we allow to grow active within us through our own choice afterwards forces itself upon us against our will."

"God has not given to mankind more gracious gift than patience and gnosis (marifāh)."

"Tree jobs are very difficult to perform: generosity in poverty; truthfulness in the state of fear; piety in solitude."

"Unless the servant erects an iron-wall around his baser self, he cannot taste relish of his worship."

"If speaking pleases you, be silent! If silence pleases you, Speak!"

"Only the people of Divine realization are His chosen servants. These are the blest souls whom no body knows except God nor anyone respect them."

"I would never like to sit in the company of the world lings nor did they like to sit in my companionship."

"Renunciation is a king who does not dwell anywhere but in an emptied heart."

"Fear of God is king that dwells only in the heart of a pious one."

"Let one who desires a taste of freedom and deliverance from bondage purify the secret between himself and God Most High."

"Sorrow is a king who, when he dwells in a place, does not consent to have anyone dwelled there with him."

"The best station is that of firm belief in patience through poverty until the grave."

"Sin is the key to misery."

"The existence of lover in the pavilion of the Beloved is a sin beyond comparison to any other."

"O Brother! Sin for the servant is great calamity. May God protect us from such things! Sin in the beginning hardens the heart, which ultimatley leads to unbelief and wretchedness. Don't forget the wiles of Satan and the fate of Balāam Bāōur."

"Spiritual Guide should be perfect, well versed in the vicissitude of the mystic path, and firmly established in his high state. He should be a man who has experiences both the horror of God's Majesty and the delight of His beauty."

"Mystic way is infested with one's ego, devils, men and Jinn, thus making it impossible to travel along it without and experienced, holy man as one's ascort. Also there are many slippery places where it is easy to fall. And one can be plagued with misfortune and dangers from behind."

"O Brother! There are thousands upon thousands who have been martyred and slain on the Divine way. Many other thousands are wounded and thrown prostrate. Those well known for their intellect have been perplexed in their search for Him and those famous for their religious knowledge are searching Him at the outskirts of His Glory and Tremulousness. Those, whose eyes and radiant and heart clairvant, are submerged in one drop of His ocean of His Majesty or singed like sparks from the fire of His Glory."

"Bliss and misery are two treasures of the Lord. The key to the former is submission, while the key to the latter is sin. The one who is fortunate has been blessed from his mother's womb. Such a person is given the key to bliss. The one who is unfortunate has been born accursed. Sin is the key to misery."

"O Dear! Live in this world brokenhearted and miserable. When Moses asked God: "O Lord where should I search You?" The answer came: "In the heart which is broken by the hand of detiny.""

"Like some spark lighting upon our inmost soul, love was kindled and burst into flame within us—a love at once to the Holy Word, the most lovely object of all, who attracts all irresistibly toward Himself by His unutterable beauty, and to this man [Origen], His friend and advocate. And being most mightily smitten by this love, I was persuaded to give up all those objects or pursuits which seem to us befitting, and among others even my boasted jurisprudence,— yea, my very fatherland and friends... There arose but one object dear and worth desire—to wit, philosophy, and that master of philosophy, this inspired man."

"The soul is free, and cannot be coerced by any means, not even though one should confine it and keep guard over it in some secret prison-house. For wherever the intelligence is, there it is also of its own nature and by the first reason. And if it seems to you to be in a kind of prison-house, it is represented as there to you by a sort of second reason. But for all that, it is by no means precluded from subsisting anywhere according to its own determination."

"If wisdom follows knowledge, so troubles attend on wisdom."

"How great is the envy which follows a man from his neighbours, like the sting of a wicked spirit... he who receives it, and takes it as it were into his breast, has nothing else but to eat his own heart, and tear it, and consume both soul and body, finding inconsolable vexation in the good fortune of others."

"I put a poor youth, if he be wise, before an aged prince devoid of wisdom."

"The fool is proved above all things by his finding no satisfaction in any lust."

"For the most part, righteousness of life leads a man to poverty."

"For men who lie on earth there is but one salvation, that their souls acknowledge and wing their way to Him by whom they have been made."

"Since the hour when Christ despoiled Hades, men have danced in triumph over death."

"As Goliath had his head cut off with his own sword, so also is the devil, who has been the father of death, put to rout through death (Heb 2:14); and he finds that the selfsame thing which he was wont to use as the ready weapon of his deceit, has become the mighty instrument of his own destruction. Yea, if we may so speak, casting his hook at the Godhead, and seizing the wonted enjoyment of the baited pleasure, he is himself manifestly caught while he deems himself the captor, and discovers that in place of the man he has touched the God."

"Since the second Adam has brought up the first Adam out of the deeps of Hades... and has set forth him who was deceived as a citizen of heaven to the shame of the deceiver, the gates of Hades have been shut, and the gates of heaven have been opened, so as to offer an unimpeded entrance to those who rise there in faith."

"For what purpose was she espoused? In order that the spoiler might not learn the mystery prematurely. For that the King was to come by a virgin, was a fact known to the wicked one. ... Wherefore the Lord came by an espoused virgin, in order to elude the notice of the wicked one."

"Hail, thou that are highly favoured! The Lord is with you. No longer shall the devil be against you; for where of old that adversary inflicted the wound, there now first of all does the Physician apply the salve of deliverance. Where death came forth, there has life now prepared its entrance. By a woman came the flood of our ills, and by a woman also our blessings have their spring."

"There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and Eternal Image."

"There is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all."

"There is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent."

"Influenced by the unorthodox, controversial doctrines and practices of famous Arab-Spanish Sufi ideologue Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), Moinuddin Chisti and Nizamuddin Auliya were the most unorthodox and liberal amongst India’s Sufis. Annoying the orthodox, they had adopted musical sessions (sama) and dancing (raqs) in their rituals. However, when it came to the real question of Islam, they never took a stand against classical orthodoxy; they always put the Ulema ahead of them in religious matters. To the question of whether dancing and playing of musical instruments, as had been adopted by Sufi dervishes, were permissible, Auliya said, ‘‘What is forbidden by Law (Sharia) is not acceptable.’’ On the question of whether the controversial Sufi devotional practices were permissible or not, he said, ‘‘Concerning this controversy at present, whatever the judge (orthodox Ulema) decrees will be upheld.’’"

"The Sufis of India had no contradiction with the Ulema; both had a common goal—the interest of Islam, but to be achieved through different methods. Auliya used to say, ‘What the Ulema seekto achieve through speech, we achieve by our behavior.’ Jamal Qiwamu’d-din, a long-time associate of Auliya, never saw him miss a single Sunnah of the Prophet."

"Nizamuddin Auliya (1238–1325), toeing the orthodox line, condemned the Hindus to the fire of hell, saying: ‘The unbelievers at the time of death will experience punishment. At that moment, they will profess belief (Islam) but it will not be reckoned to them as belief because it will not be faith in the Unseen... the faith of (an) unbeliever at death remains unacceptable.’ He asserted that ‘On the day of Resurrection when unbelievers will face punishment and affliction, they will embrace faith but faith will not benefit them... They will also go to Hell, despite the fact that they will go there as believers.’"

"In his khutba (sermon), Nizamuddin Auliya condemned the infidels as wicked, saying, ‘He (Allah) has created Paradise and Hell for believers and the infidels (respectively) in order to repay the wicked for what they have done.’"

"Auliya’s thought on Jihad against non-Muslims can be gleaned from his statement that Surah Fatihah, first chapter of the Quran, did not contain two of the ten cardinal articles of Islam, which were ‘‘warring with the unbelievers and observing the divine statutes...’’ He did not only believe in warring with the unbelievers or Jihad, he came to India with his followers to engage in it. He participated in a holy war commanded by Nasiruddin Qibacha in Multan. When Qibacha’s army was in distress facing defeat, Auliya rushed to him and gave him a magical arrow instructing: ‘‘Shoot this arrow at the direction of the infidel army.’ ...Qibacha did as he was told, and when daybreak came not one of the infidels was to be seen; they all had fled!’ 254 When Qazi Mughisuddin inquired about the prospect of victory in the Jihad launched in South India under the command of Malik Kafur, the Auliya uttered in effusive confidence: ‘What is this victory? I am waiting for further victories.’ 255"

"The Auliya used to accept large gifts sent by Sultan Alauddin from the spoils plundered in Jihad expeditions and proudly displayed those at his khanqah (lodge)."

"Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya (fourteenth century) at many places admits that Hindus “do not embrace Islam”, and that “the heart of these people is not changed through sermons”."

"In Afzalul Favaid Nizimuddin Auliya has been cited as saying: “It would be the day of Resurrection (Qiamat) when women will ride horses or walk about in the streets... . Great harm would be done when women would get freedom’’."

"Shykh Nizãmu’d-Dîn Awliyã’s dargãh in Delhi continued to be and remains till today the most important centre of Islamic fundamentalism in India."

"Tarikh-i-Hasan Khuiihami notes of the conversion of Hindus to Islam by Shamsud-Din Iraqi that ‘twenty-four thousand Hindu families were converted to Iraqi’s faith by force and compulsion (qahran wa jabran).’"

"One of the major commands of Amir Shamsud-Din Muhammad Iraqi carried out by him (Kaji Chak) was the massacre of the infidels and polytheists of this land."

"Tarikh-i-Kashmir, a historical account of Kashmir written by Haidar Malik Chadurah, who served in Sultan Yusuf Shah’s Court (1579–86), records: ‘Sheikh Shams-ud-Din reached Kashmir. He began destroying the places of worship and the temples of the Hindus and made an effort to achieve the objectives.’"

"Fath Shãh ascended the throne in AH 894 (AD 1488-89)… In those days Mîr Shams, a disciple of Shãh Qãsim Anwar, reached Kashmir and people became his devotees. All endowments, imlãk, places of worship and temples were entrusted to his disciples. His Sûfîs used to destroy temples and no one could stop them…"

"“…Baba Ûchah Ganai went for circumambulation of the two harms (Mecca and Medina)… in search of the perfect guide (Pir-i-Kamil). He prayed to God (to help) him when he heard a voice from the unknown that the ‘perfect guide’ was in Kashmir himself… Hazrat Shaikh, Baba Ûchah Ganai… returned to Kashmir… All of a sudden his eyes fell upon a place of worship, the temples of the Hindus. He smiled; when the devotees asked the cause of (his smile) he replied that the destruction and demolition of these places of worship and the destruction of the idols will take place at the hand of the high horn Shaikh Shams-ud-Din Irraqi. He will soon be coming from Iraq and shall turn the temples completely desolate, and most of the misled people will accept the path of guidance and Islam… So as was ordained Shaikh Shams-ud-Din reached Kashmir. He began destroying the places of worship and the temples of the Hindus and made an effort to achieve the objectives.”297"

"Amir Shamsof truthuíd-Din Araki mad a firm resolve to give a crushing defeat to the enemies of the people and the opponents of the religion of Islam in this land of mischief- mongers, and a hotbed of corrupt people. He determined to raise high the banner of Islam, demolish the customs and traditions of idol-worshippers, and eradicate all symptoms of infidelity and ignorance (about Islamic religion) from the misguided people of this land."