Christians

"If one is anxious to write about God, one ought to be anxious to write well."

"Christianity and life ought to be one."

"She was dead, but her very death heightened that word "supernatural"; it was what she, not being, was."

"Deep, deeper than we believe, lie the roots of sin; it is in the good that they exist; it is in the good that they thrive and send up sap and produce the black fruit of hell."

"An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy."

"He said: "If I thought more of myself?" "You wouldn't have much difficulty in finding it," she answered. "Let's walk." He didn't understand the first phrase, but he turned and went by her side, silent while he heard the words. Much difficulty in finding what? in finding it? the it that could be found if he thought of himself more; that was what he had said or she had said, whichever had said that the thing was to be found, as if Adela had said it, Adela in her real self, by no means the self that went with Hugh; no, but the true, the true Adela who was apart and his; for that was the difficulty all the while, that she was truly his, and wouldn't be, but if he thought more of her truly being, and not of her being untruly away, on whatever way, for the way that went away was not the way she truly went, but if they did away with the way she went away, then Hugh could be untrue and she true, then he would know themselves, two, true and two, on the way he was going, and the peace in himself, and the scent of her in him, and the her, meant for him, in him; that was the she he knew, and he must think the more of himself."

"There were no Calvinists or Dominics or Augustines. The man who was most like those great ones was a Dane, a contemporary of Hans Andersen, but though Hans Andersen achieved world-wide repute at once, Soren Kierkegaard had to wait for his through some seventy years. It has taken Christendom that long to catch him up; it took fifty years to catch up St. Thomas, and it has not caught up Dante yet. He coordinated experiences in a new manner; say, using the old word, that he caused alien and opposite experience to coinhere. ... No doubt as soon as Kierkegaard becomes fashionable he will be explained. His imagination will be made to depend on his personal history, and his sayings will be so moderated in our minds that they will soon become not his saying but ours. It is a very terrible thing to consider how often this has happened with the great, and how often we are contented to understand what we have neatly supposed that they have said."

"The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."

"I’d made a family-friendly game about a beaver before this, when I went to put it online it got torn apart by a few prominent reviewers. People said that the main character looked like a scary animatronic animal. I was heartbroken and was ready to give up on game-making. Then one night something just snapped in me, and I thought to myself- I bet I can make something a lot scarier than that."

"Success comes on God’s terms, in His time, and in His way. God only allowed me to have success after I’d been broken after I’d stopped seeking success for myself, and after I’d come to terms with the idea that my labors for God might not ever bring me a penny. It was only after I’d lost everything that God was able to get my heart right to the point where He could trust me with success."

"Make sure that you are next year's big success story. Don't fall into the pit of people who have given up on making something of themselves, and make sure you take everything out of yourself. I'm getting too old for this. And when I retire someday, I'm going to want to sit down at a computer and play your games, read your stories, and watch your videos. Don't fall in with the people who have already given up on themselves. You are tomorrow's next big thing."

"I would love to stay at SNL forever. But you can't stay in the same place. People think you're a loser."

"I'm not gay, so I don't know much about Broadway musicals."

"My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don't know. Probably died. … I come from a long line of death. That's my point. And so I fear it. I fear it a lot."

"Patton Oswalt, he told me, "I think the worst part of the Cosby thing was the hypocrisy." And I disagreed. Yeah, I thought it was the raping."

"Roseanne was so broken up [after her show was canceled] that I got Louis to call her, even though Roseanne was very hard on Louis before that. But she was just so broken and just crying constantly. There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day. Of course, people will go, 'What about the victims?' But you know what? The victims didn' t have to go through that."

"I am completely behind the #MeToo movement. You'd have to have Down Syndrome to not feel sorry for— #MeToo is what you want for your daughters and you want that to be the future world, of course""

"Every generation has believed they lived ins the End Time, @NellScovell. It is a product of Man's narcissism. Deeply, we believe that when we die, so then does the world. Which is true. Because when we die, we don't disappear, the world does."

"The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth."

"You know, with Hitler, the more I learn about that guy the more I don't care for him."

"Macdonald is currently 49, and looks worryingly like he'll be hailed as one of the greats only in retrospect. Watch him at your earliest convenience, and start making recommendations soon."

"Y'all ever seen these commercials for these pills, this medication you take? It's like one pill for one thing, but they list, like, a hundred side effects? It's just like they're just scrolling for a minute. And you're thinkin, "Is that really a good trade? That can't be a good trade." You got people going, "Well, I can take the headaches, nausea, and vomiting, if it'll make my elbow feel better. It's really worth it—it is. I mean I've been taking it—Oh, oww! Owww! I can move it around, play with the kids, and—[pretends to vomit]. I've got full range of motion here.""

"You got to control your own destiny. You got to keep writin' different stuff. Keep switchin' up and never do the same thing too many times."

"Lazy technology: the electric toothbrush—that always made me laugh. The electric toothbrush—what, is brushing your teeth too strenuous an exercise? For some people? You got people goin' [imitates fast, strenuous brushing of teeth]. "Man, I am really feeling the burn here. Wish this thing had a motor on it." Why don't you just have electric deodorant? [imitates use of electric deodorant]"

"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."

"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."

"I felt the power of God as I'd never felt it before."

"A religious spirit animates the infancy of our literature, and must continue to gloe in its maturity.The public taste calls for this quality, and would relish no work in which it might be supplanted by a principle of infidelity. Our best authors have written under the influence of Christian feeling; but had they been destitute of this sentiment, they would have found it necessary to accommodate themselves to the opinions of the people, and follow Christian precedents. The beneficent influence of religion on literature, is like that of our evening sun, when it awakens in the clouds those beautiful and burning tints, which clothe the firmament in gold and purple. It constitutes the heart of learning - the great source of its moral power.Religion addresses itself to the highest and holiest of our sentiments - benevolence and veneration, and their excitement stirs up the imagination, strengthens the undeerstanding, and purifies the taste. Thus, both in the mind of the author and the reader, Christianity and literature act and react on each other, with the effect of elevating both, and carrying the human character to the highest perfection which it is destined to reach. Learning should be proud of this companionship, and exert all her wisdom to render it perpetual."

"Those who hold that it is no matter what happens after them, hold a wicked and inhuman doctrine... When we feel in our hearts this indifference to the fleeting, and this warm regard for the permanent, let us believe that God has implanted the instinct for a wise purpose; and then follow it as a heavenly guide. It is manifestly intended to turn us from the labors of the day — from the things which perish when the hand which formed ceases to uphold them — to tile things and objects which endure through indefinite ages — renewing, I should rather say augmenting their magnitude and their benificent fruits with every successive generation."

"Probably there is no department of science, no form o humanity, in which greater advances have been made of late years, than in the medical and moral management of the insane. When we contrast the spacious and airy apartments of the insane. When we contrast the spacious and airy apartments and the grounds of our asylums, with the dark, and narrow, and dirty cells, in which, twenty years ago, the best accommodated of these poor creatures were immured - their neat and confortable dress, with their former rags and nakedness - their wholesome food, with their former rags and nakedness - their wholesome food, their former rations - and abovel all, the kindness and affection which is shown to them noew, with their ulter neglect in the days when they were executed from the privileges and society of men, we find ourselves shuddering at the thought of what we have seen, and lost in admiration of what we now see. Wherever the Christian religion exists,we find the same rapid advances making towards the accomplishment of the great purposes of humanity. It seems as if the miracles of our Saviour were meant as protoypes of what his religion was to accomplish. It is by the influence of this religion of the march of science and philosophical discovery, that, by all Christian nations, the winds and the waves have been rebuked - that man is enabled to ride out the storm upon the ocean, as if it were hushed, and, like Peter of old, to walk upon the sea as on dry land."

"The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God."

"Being on the moon had a profound spiritual impact upon my life. Before I entered space with the Apollo 15 mission in July of 1971, I was a lukewarm Christian, to say the least! I was even a silent Christian, but I feel the Lord sent me to the moon so I could return to the earth and share his Son, Jesus Christ. The entire space achievement is put in proper perspective when one realizes that God walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon. I believe that God walked on the earth 2,000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ. I have totally yielded my life to the Lord’s service to tell people everywhere about the life-changing message of Christ."

"Man—vir, woman—femina, go to make up the man—homo. There can be no comparison, no rivalry between them; they are the complement of each other, and a little child shall lead them."

"What a wonderful work Wagner has done for humanity in translating the toil of life into the readable script of music! For those who seek the tale of other worlds his magic is silent; but earth-travail under his wand becomes instinct with rhythmic song to an accompaniment of the elements, and the blare and crash of the bottomless pit itself."

"We can never be too Pagan when we are truly Christian, and the old myths are eternal truths held fast in the Church’s net."

"I don't complain about "the military" because of inconvenience or discomfort … I complain about how perilous it feels to attempt an authentic Christianity in the midst of "exploiting persons of their intelligence value," and then listening to the news, hearing of the bombing campaign just undertaken in the town that I just wrote an intelligence report on only days previous. Those bombs are given coordinates by my reports."

"Since the day I walked onto Academy grounds at West Point, I have been in an ongoing and quite conscious battle with my military service. Whether it was my first decision in college to turn away from military service altogether, or my post-September 11th decision to return to service, I have been attempting to mitigate conscience and duty for the past seven years. In the absence of a clear and articulate objection to service, I have defaulted to evolving forms of duty as my guiding principle. … Conscientious objection is now the only way dutifully to fulfill my obligations both to faith and to nation, and to my own internal commitments to personal courage."

"Was Rome dispensing "God's divine Justice" when it forbade Peter and Paul from preaching in public? Were Peter and Paul "justly reprimanded for their sins" by being imprisoned and executed? Was Jesus being justly punished for his sin when the Sanhedrin sent him to be executed by Pilate? Was Germany dispensing divine wrath to Israel, Poland, etc., when they plotted to take over the world and exterminate all non-Aryans? … I am trying to say that the State does not have a license to do anything it wants … and when we are ordered by the State to violate God's law, we must not bow to Baal. Civil disobedience is just as mandatory as civil subservience. It all must past through the filter of conscience, not to mention Christ's mandate that we recognize that the Kingdom has already come. We are now its citizens. … we are under no obligation to abdicate conscience on behalf of the State."

"Every day I talk with the enemy. But I do not see an embodiment of "him who opposes goodness." If we approach the war on terrorism with the fervor of a Christian jihad against Islam, our battle is already lost, for we have become what we opposed and we are now the fundamentalists. Our battle is not one of flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers and principalities which rule this present darkness. We cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in "war mode" against a fleshly enemy, or the true enemy is already within us, and we have failed to believe in the power of a redemption which (we say) we believe has saved us. … My comfort and liberty must not be won by the sacrifices of a new and foreign poor now paying the price for our moral failings of diplomacy,. economy and statesmanship, turning our Republic into an Empire."

"Joining the army is not a sacrament, it's a pagan allegiance."

"We must at least allow the pain inflicted upon us by our enemies to be a megaphone to our own deafness to the world, waking us up to the needs of others, to the violence inflicted upon them."

"Light beyond metaphor, Why did You deign to come into this darkness? Your light does not illumine those who think they see You And believe they sound Your depths. Night, I know now, is day, Virtue no more to be found. He who witnesses Your splendor Can never describe it."

"I once thought that reason Had led me to You, And that through feeling I sensed Your presence, Caught a glimpse of You in similitudes, Knew You in Your perfection. I know now that I was wrong, That that truth was flawed."

"In losing all, the soul has risen To the pinnacle of the measureless; Because it has renounced all That is not divine, It now holds in its grasp The unimaginable Good In all its abundance, A loss and a gain impossible to describe."

"Love, where did You enter the heart unseen? Lovable Love, joyful Love, unthinkable Love, In Your plenitude You lie far beyond the reach of reason. Love, jocund and joyous, Divine fire, You do not stint Of your endlessly beautiful riches"

"As air becomes the medium for light when the sun rises, And as wax melts from the heat of fire, So the soul drawn to that light is resplendent, Feels self melt away, Its will and actions no longer its own. So clear is the imprint of God That the soul, conquered, is conqueror; Annihilated, it lives in triumph. What happens to the drop of wine That you pour into the sea? Does it remain itself, unchanged? It is as if it never existed. So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in, It is united with Truth, Its old nature fades away, It is no longer master of itself."

"The soul wills and yet does not will: Its will belongs to Another. It has eyes only for this beauty; It no longer seeks to possess, as was its wont -- It lacks the strength to possess such sweetness. The base of this highest of peaks Is founded on nichil [nothing], Shaped nothingness, made one with the Lord."