Religion

"The Spirits fall headlong in the darkness, but the hath made me holy, and Upuati hath nursed me. I will hide myself among you, O ye stars which are imperishable."

"The scribe Ani, whose word is true, is holy and righteous. He hath not committed any sin, and he hath done no evil against us."

"The gods rejoice when they see crowned upon his throne, and when his beams flood the world with light. The majesty of this holy god setteth out on his journey, and he goeth onwards until he reacheth the land of Manu; the earth becometh light at his birth each day; he proceedeth until he reacheth the place where he was yesterday."

"Homage to you, , Lord of eternity, King of the gods, whose names are manifold, whose forms are holy, you being of hidden form in the temples, whose Ka is holy."

"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 Christians 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."

"A devotee of Utu is among the holy."

"If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation."

"The word Holy (from Old English: hālig meaning "wholeness") denotes the presence of sacredness in an object, being, person, place or idea."

"Wirf den Helden in deiner Seele nicht weg! Halte heilig deine höchste Hoffnung!"

"The you is older than the I; the you has been pronounced holy, but not yet the I: so man crowds towards his neighbor."

"We are chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,-through sanctification of the Spirit;” and this sanctification, it is a comfort to know, is a sanctification we may safely confide in; because it is widely different from the self-sanctification, the fleshly holiness, or wilful separation, to which “he that runneth,” and “he that willeth,” addicts himself, in order that the idol self may be magnified and worshipped."

"Jesus ... combines all duties (1) in one universal rule (which includes within itself both the inner and the outer moral relations of men), namely: Perform your duty for no motive other than unconditioned esteem for duty itself, i.e., love God (the Legislator of all duties) above all else; and (2) in a particular rule, that, namely, which concerns man’s external relation to other men as universal duty: Love every one as yourself, i.e., further his welfare from good-will that is immediate and not derived from motives of self-advantage. These commands are not mere laws of virtue but precepts of holiness which we ought to pursue, and the very pursuit of them is called virtue."

"Holy poverty … is the foundation and guardian of all virtues."

"If I am absolutely, i.e., by nature wicked and unholy, how can holiness and goodness be the objects of my thought – no matter whether these objects are given to me internally or externally? If my heart is wicked, my understanding corrupt, how can I perceive and feel the holy to be holy, the good to be good? How can I perceive a beautiful painting as beautiful if my soul is by nature ugly, and hence incapable of perceiving aesthetic beauty?"

"So much of the uncanny—or the holy, for that matter—is inward experience. As such, testimony about it tends to be tainted. People lie. People delude themselves, or others. People are swayed or frightened or convinced they have seen things they have not. People are, frankly, sometimes simply mad."

"He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have nay."

"Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn."

"When to elect there is but one, 'Tis Hobson's Choice; take that or none."

"Thy royal will be done—'tis just," Replied the wretch, and kissed the dust; "Since, my last moments to assuage, Your Majesty's humane decree Has deigned to leave the choice to me, I'll die, so please you, of old age."

"S'asseoir entre deux selles le cul a terre."

"Or fight or fly, This choice is left ye, to resist or die."

"The difficulty in life is the choice."

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

"But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her."

"Where passion leads or prudence points the way."

"Se soumettre ou se démettre."

"Inter sacrum et sazim."

"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose."

"Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l'oses."

"Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods."

"What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? 'Tis better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all!"

"Of harmes two the less is for to chose."

"If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes."

"A strange alternative * * * Must women have a doctor or a dance?"

"It is misleading to say that somebody "chose" a dysfunctional relationship or any other negative situation in his or her life. Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious, spiritually speaking. This means that you are compelled to think, feel, and act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind. That is why Jesus said: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." This is not related to intelligence in the conventional sense of the word. I have met many highly intelligent and educated people who were also completely unconscious, which is to say completely identified with their mind. In fact, if mental development and increased knowledge are not counterbalanced by a corresponding growth in consciousness, the potential for unhappiness and disaster is very great. p. 142"

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

"When conflicted between two choices, take neither."

"[W]e now face a demand to make choices that is unparalleled in human history."

"There's small choice in rotten apples."

"Preferment goes by letter and affection."

"I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits, And rank me with the barbarous multitudes."

"Which of them shall I take? Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd, If both remain alive."

"Set honour in one eye and death i' the other, And I will look on both indifferently."

"We must now take precautions to prevent you from being embarrassed by something in which the ignorant majority is at fault for lack of proper consideration, and so from supposing with them, that man has not been created truly good simply because he is able to do evil. ... If you reconsider this matter carefully and force your mind to apply a more acute understanding to it, it will be revealed to you that man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior: it is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honor of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived."

"When presented with options it's interesting to see what choices the people make."

"Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell, * * * * * * And boldly venture to whatever place Farthest from pain?"

"Rather than be less Car'd not to be at all."

"So much to win, so much to lose, No marvel that I fear to choose."

"Every person, if he so wills, can become a paradigmatic human being, not by brushing of his accidental qualities, but by remaining in them and ennobling them. He ennobles them by choosing them."

"Imagine a captain of a ship the moment a shift of direction must be made; then he may be able to say: I can do either this or that. But if he is not a mediocre captain he will also be aware that during all this the ship is ploughing ahead with its ordinary velocity, and thus there is but a single moment when it is inconsequential whether he does this or does that. So also with a person-if he forgets to take into account the velocity-there eventually comes a moment where it is no longer a matter of an Either/Or, not because he has chosen, but because he has refrained from it, which also can be expressed by saying: Because others have chosen for him-or because he has lost himself."