Women Authors From England

"Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the masculine tenor of God-talk is particularly problematic in English. In Hebrew, Arabic and French, however, grammatical gender gives theological discourse a sort of sexual counterpoint and dialectic, which provides a balance that is often lacking in English. Thus in Arabic al-Lah (the supreme name for God) is grammatically masculine, but the word for the divine and inscrutable essence of God—al-Dhat—is feminine."

"Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them."

"The more I learned about the history of religion, the more my earlier misgivings appeared justified. The doctrines that I had accepted without question as a child were indeed man-made, constructed over a long period. Science seemed to have disposed of the Creator God, and biblical scholars had proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine."

"I say that religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."

"The only way to show a true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God’s existence."

"One of the most characteristic new developments since the 1970s has been the rise of a type of religiosity that we usually call “fundamentalism” in most of the major world religions, including the three religions of God. A highly political spirituality, it is literal and intolerant in its vision. In the United States, which has always been prone to extremist and apocalyptic enthusiasm, Christian fundamentalism has attached itself to the New Right. Fundamentalists campaign for the abolition of legal abortion and for a hard line on moral and social decency."

"Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree."

""My thoughts are not your thoughts. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, my ways above your ways." … should be written over every … pulpit. … Because so often we think that God's ways are our ways. God's thoughts are our thoughts. And we created God in our own image and likeness saying, "God approves of this. God forbids that. God desires the other." This is where some of the worst atrocities of religion have come from. Because people have used [it] — to give a sacred seal of a divine approval to some of their most worst hatreds, loathings, and fears. Whereas to the great theologians — what I found when I was studying for A History Of God — the great theologians in all three of the monotheistic religions, Jewish, Christian, Muslim — all insisted that yes, God was personal. But God went beyond the personal. You shouldn't speak glibly about God … in Judaism you may not speak God's name as a reminder that any human expression of the divine is likely to be so limited as to be blasphemous. But God should challenge your assumptions … you shouldn't imagine you've got Him in your pocket."

"A project like Pangea, which enables us to enter in to the situations of others, imaginatively, is fulfilling what the religions call the Golden Rule... going into one's own experience, and going into other's experience, and seeing the world from another perspective — that's what we desperately need in our dangerously polarized world."

"Muslim fundamentalists have toppled governments and either assassinated or threatened the enemies of Islam with the death penalty. Similarly, Jewish fundamentalists have settled in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the avowed intention of driving out the Arab inhabitants, using force if necessary. Thus they believe that they are paving a way for the advent of the Messiah, which is at hand. In all its forms, fundamentalism is a fiercely reductive faith."

"There is an immeasurable distance between submission to the cross and acceptance of it."

"Guide Thou my hand within that hand of Thine — Thy wounded hand! — until its tremblings take Strength from Thy touch."

"I saw the radiant Queen of Night Walking in brightness through the sky."

"Is life's evening long and dreary? Gone the treasures once possessed? Is thy spirit faint and weary? Dost thou long to be at rest? On this sweet promise fix thy sight: "At evening time it shall be light.""

"Lord! till I reach yon blissful shore, No privilege so dear shall be, As thus my inmost soul to pour In prayer to Thee."

"Renew my will from day to day! Blend it with Thine! and take away All that now makes it hard to say, "Thy will be done!""

"My God! is any hour so sweet, From blush of morn to evening-star, As that which calls me to Thy feet,— The hour of prayer?"

"Blest is my lot, whate'er befall: What can disturb me, who appall, While, as my strength, my rock, my all, Saviour! I cling to Thee?"

"Just as I am — Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, Because Thy promise I believe— O Lamb of God, I come!"

"From human eyes 'tis better to conceal Much that I suffer, much I hourly feel; But oh, this thought can tranquillise and heal, All, all is known to Thee."

"Nay, all by Thee is ordered, chosen, planned, Each drop that fills my daily cup, Thy hand Prescribes for ills none else can understand, All, all is known to Thee."

"I expect eternal life, not as a reward of merit, but a pure act of bounty. Detesting myself in every view I can take, I fly to the righteousness and atonement of my great Redeemer for pardon and salvation; this is my only consolation and hope. "Enter not into judgment, O Lord, with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no flesh be justified.""

"As the Creator and Preserver of men, Thou art gloriously manifest; butO! how much more gloriously art Thou revealed as reconciling ungrateful enemies to Thyself by the blood of Thy eternal Son. Here Thy beneficence displays its brightest splendor; here Thou dost fully display Thy most magnificent titles; THE LORD, THE LORD GOD, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness. How unsearchable are Thy ways, and Thy paths past finding out!"

"Blessed God, pity the soul whose extremest horror is the doom of an eternal departure from Thee. Draw my spirit into the holiest and the nearest union with Thyself that is possible while it dwells in this flesh! And let me here commence that delightful residence and converse with God, which nor death, nor judgment shall ever destroy, nor shall a long eternity ever put a period to it."

"Give me a baptism of glowing love, Thy power and presence wheresoe'er I rove; And my last prayer, all other prayers above — Oh, give to me More of Thyself, Lord Jesus: more of Thee!"

"Are we silent to Jesus? Think! Have you nothing to ask Him? Nothing to thank Him for? Nothing to praise Him for? Nothing to confess? Oh, poor soul, go back to Bethlehem — to Gethsemane, to Calvary, and remember at what a cost the vail before the Holies was rent in twain that thou mightest enter it."

"The disciple whom Jesus loved leaned on His bosom. Dear friend, where are you?"

"Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow me. This is war, not peace. It is battle declared against the world, the flesh, and the devil. In me said Christ, "ye have peace,"—not in the world; there is no promise of it there."

"Just in proportion as the soul is in fellowship with the Lord Jesus, in communion with His will, shall we trace His leadings, hear His voice, and understand in part."

"I have never committed the least matter to Him that I have not had reason for endless praise."

"The thief upon the cross and the beloved John were alike complete in Christ."

"Déesse à qui plaît la ruine des roses, Prolonge la nuit !"

"L’herbe de l’été pâlit sous le soleil. La rose, expirant sous les âpres ravages Des chaleurs, languit vers l’ombre, et le sommeil Coule des feuillages."

"What a disgrace to live at the beginning of the 20th century. … One is always influenced by one's own time. And ours is that of Sarah Bernhardt and Rostand. Things will be much better in another ten years. You will see a new art born, new and beautiful. You will see that, but I shall not. I shall be dead. But … Sarah Bernhardt will live forever, and go on playing L'AIGLON forever!"

"She makes me doubt my own sex."

"Men smell of leather. … The leather of huntsmen, furniture movers, porters."

"[Charles Brun] was so charming that I always write to him as "My dear Charlotte!""

"Before I knew the Lord, my love for children led me to desire to write for them and those who educated them, keenly feeling my own need of sympathy in childhood, and still smarting from the loveless surroundings of a delicate organisation and uncomprehended mind."

"Just once in my life a man tried to embrace me. It was horrible! He had big boots, a heavy belt, huge gloves. Faugh! Oh, let's not talk about men."

"I'm not logical. I'm infected with the romantic fever. It began in my teens when I read Baudelaire in secret, in a country boarding school in England from which I slipped away by climbing over the wall. I was fifteen, the same age as Juliet--a Juliet for whom Romeo had no attraction."

"Fellowship with Jesus lies not alone in pleasurable emotions; you must learn it in suffering and in service."

"I was born under an unlucky star. I love France and I am not French. I am English and I can't like England. My father was Scotch, my mother was born in Honolulu. My father, William Tarn, died at the age of forty in 1890. My real name is Pauline Tarn. I changed it to Renée Vivien."

"It was a yellow voice, a high, shrill treble in the nursery White always and high, I remember it so, White cupboard, off-white table, mugs, dolls’ faces And I was four or five. The garden could have been Miles away. We were taken down to the green Asparagus beds, the cut lawn, and the smell of it Comes each summer after rain when white returns. Our bird, A canary called Peter, sang behind bars. The black and white cat Curled and snoozed by the fire and danger was far away."

"Poets work upon and through each other."

"When I re-read my past work I can see a development to such an effect, indeed, that some of them no longer seem to be any part of me."

"A great cricketer must be an artist and express himself in his strokes."

"I have been treated as a freak, rather like the fat lady at the circus."

"Very few reporters in Fleet Street can write on the game with as much observation, sense of scene and character, and knowledge of the things that technically and tactically matter."

"As we at all times criticise the Premier for his management of home affairs, call Mr Butler a fool for his Budget, find fault with Beecham's conducting, or Gielgud's performance, can we not, sometimes, say that our cricketers are not quite so brilliant as usual?"

"'This is the stupidest place I have ever visited,' she said. 'I shall never come here again.' The tall man looked at her in silence and nodded. 'Yes, you will,' he said. 'You won't be able to stay away now that you have come.'"