Religion

"When this great concourse of men came to Babylonia upon their journeyings, they said to one another: "Behold, the time is coming when, at the end of days, neighbor will be separated from neighbor, and brother from brother, and one will carry on war against the other. Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a great name upon the earth. And now let us make bricks, and each one write his name upon his brick.""

"We are all approaching that dread tribunal. However diversified our paths, they all converge toward that common centre. The young, with their elastic tread, are striding to the judgment; the old, with their tottering limbs are creeping to the judgment; the rich in their splendid equipages are driving to the judgment; the poor, in rags and barefooted, are walking to the judgment. The Christian making God's statutes his song, is a pilgrim to the judgment; the sinner, treading upon the mercy of Jesus, and trampling upon His blood, is hastening to the judgment. "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.""

"Winds, storms, tempests, thunders, lightnings, raging flames, dissolving elements, the archangel's trump smiting the silence of the tomb, the universal air blazing with disastrous splendors, "the tribes of the earth mourning and beating their breasts," the wicked calling on rocks and hills to fall upon them and cover them, the shouts of the saved, the howlings of the damned — all, all will then utter one voice, all will pierce our very souls with their tones; all will repeat these words, "God alone is great, and God's salvation alone deserved the cares, toils, sacrifices of an immortal spirit.""

"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."

"In those days the nations will be thrown into confusion and the races of the nations will rise on the Day of Destruction. And in those days, those who are in need will go out, seize their children, and cast out their children. And their offspring will slip from them, and they will cast out their children while they are still sucklings, and will not return to them, and will not have mercy on their beloved ones. And again I swear to you, the sinners, that sin is ready for the Day of Unceasing Bloodshed. And they worship stone, and some carve images of gold and of silver, and of wood and of clay. And some, with no knowledge, worship unclean spirits and demons, and every kind of error. But no help will be obtained from them. [...] And in those days, and in one place, fathers and sons will strike one another, and brothers will together fall in death, until their blood flows as if it were a stream. For a man will not, in mercy, withhold his hand from his sons, nor from his son's sons, in order to kill them. And the sinner will not withhold his hand from his honoured brother from dawn until the Sun sets they will kill one another. And the horse will walk up to its chest in the blood of sinners and the chariot will sink up to its height. And in those days the Angels will come down into the hidden places, and gather together in one place all those who have helped sin, and the Most High will rise on that day to execute the Great Judgment on all the sinners. And he will set guards, from the Holy Angels, over all the righteous and Holy, and they will guard them like the apple of an eye, until an end is made of all evil and all sin. And even if the righteous sleep a long sleep they have nothing to fear. And the wise men will see the truth, and the sons of the Earth will understand all the words of this book, and they will know that their riches will not be able to save them or overthrow their sin."

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

"Dies iræ, dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla Teste David cum Sibylla"

"I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought."

"I warrant you, if he danced till doomsday, he thought I was to pay the piper."

"Cependant la terre chancelle sur ses bases, la lune se couvre d'un voile sanglant, les astres pendent à demi détachés de leur voûte: l'agonie du monde commence. Tout à coup l'heure fatale vient à frapper; Dieu suspend les flots de la création, et le monde a passé comme un fleuve tari.'Alors se fait entendre la trompette de l'ange du jugement; il crie: Morts, levez-vous! Surgite, mortui! Les sépulcres se fendent, le genre humain sort du tombeau, et les races s'assemblent dans Josaphat.'Le Fils de l'homme apparaît sur les nuées; les puissances de l'enfer remontent du fond de l'abîme pour assister au dernier arrêt prononcé sur les siècles; les boucs et les brebis sont séparés, les méchants s'enfoncent dans le gouffre, les justes montent dans les cieux; Dieu rentre dans son repos, et partout règne l'éternité."

"N'attendez pas le Jugement dernier. Il a lieu tous les jours."

"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."

"Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly, For the Last Judgement draweth nigh."

"Day of judgement, god is calling on their knees the war pigs crawling. Begging mercy for their sins, Satan, laughing, spreads his wings...Oh lord, yeah!"

"When, O crowned Jesus; when, O loving Saviour; when, O patient and just Judge — when wilt Thou come forth from Thy hiding, and change tears to smiles, and groans to joys? When shall that choral song burst forth, sweeping through the air, and circling about Thy throne, which shall proclaim the redemption of the world to the Lord God?"

"Those who have deprived themselves of this Resurrection by reason of their mutual hatreds or by regarding themselves to be in the right and others in the wrong, were chastised on the Day of Resurrection by reason of such hatreds evinced during their night. Thus they deprived themselves of beholding the countenance of God, and this for no other reason than mutual denunciations."

"Christ clearly has judicial power over the living and the dead. He exercises judgment both over those who are living in the world at present and over those who pass from this world by death. At the Last judgment, however, He will judge the living and the dead together. In this expression the living may be taken to mean the just who live by grace, and the dead may be taken to mean sinners who have fallen from grace. Or else by the living may be meant those who will be found still alive at the Lord’s coming, and by the dead those who have died in previous ages."

"I had as lief preach humanity to a battle of eagles, as to urge honesty and integrity upon those who have determined to be rich, and to gain it by gambling stakes, and madmen's ventures."

"They best pass over the world who trip over it quickly; for it is but a bog. If we stop, we sink."

"Christianity does not condemn traffic, commerce, material activities of any kind. Its highest development is possible with the busiest life. To be a first-rate business man does not involve being a fourth-rate Christian. Buying, possessing, accumulating — this is not worldliness. But doing this in the love of it, with no love of God paramount — doing it so that thoughts of eternity and God are an intrusion — doing it so that one's spirit is secularized in the process; this is worldliness."

"A Christian making money fast is just a man in a cloud of dust, it will fill his eyes if he be not careful."

"The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it."

"Christians should live in the world, but not be filled with it. A ship lives in the water; but if the water gets into the ship, she goes to the bottom. So Christians may live in the world; but if the world gets into them, they sink."

"We wonder why a certain church-member is so lax in his devotions and loose in his practices. The reason is that, while his trunk and his branches are over on the church side of the wall, his roots run under the wall and dwell in the bad soil on the other side."

"Not by empty protestations against the pleasures of the world, and cynical denunciations of its enjoyments, but by our superiority to its perishing greatness, to its fading beauties, and its impotent antagonisms, are we to express our redemption from its power."

"There is no surer evidence of an unconverted state than to have the things of the world uppermost in our aim, love, and estimation."

"Show me the men who imbibe the spirit of the world, who choose the company of the world, who imitate the example of the world, conform to the maxims of the world, are swallowed up in the gayety, fashions, and amusements of the world; — behold, these are the ungodly, who are brought into desolation as in a moment."

"Conformity to the world has in all ages proved the ruin of the church. It is utterly impossible to live in nearness to God, and in friendship with the world."

"There is such a thing as a worldly spirit, and there is such a thing as an unworldly spirit — and according as we partake of the one or the other, the savor of the sacrifice of our lives is ordinary, common-place, poor, and base; or elevating, invigorating, useful, noble, and holy."

"Unworldliness is this — to hold things from God in the perpetual conviction that they will not last; to have the world, and not let the world have us; to be the world's masters, and not the world's slaves."

"Lift thyself up, look. around, and see something higher and brighter than earth, earthworms, and earthly darkness."

"Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion."

"Day and night, and every moment, there are voices about us. All the hours speak as they pass; and in every event there is a message to us; and all our circumstances talk with us; but it is in Divine language, that worldliness misunderstands, that selfishness is frightened at, and that only the children of God hear rightly and happily."

"Faith is the inspiration of nobleness, it is the strength of integrity; it is the life of love, and is everlasting growth for it; it is courage of soul, and bridges over for our crossing the gulf between worldliness and heavenly-mindedness; and it is the sense of the unseen, without which we could not feel God nor hope for heaven."

"The Buddha Is Nearer to Us You see clearly a man, simple, devout, lonely, battling for light, a vivid human personality, not a myth. Beneath a mass of miraculous fable I feel that there also was a man. He too, gave a message to mankind universal in its character. Many of our best modern ideas are in closest harmony with it. All the miseries and discontents of life are due, he taught, to selfishness. Selfishness takes three forms — one, the desire to satisfy the senses; second, the craving for immortality; and the third the desire for prosperity and worldliness. Before a man can become serene he must cease to live for his senses or himself. Then he merges into a greater being. Buddha in a different language called men to self-forgetfulness five hundred years before Christ. In some ways he was near to us and our needs. Buddha was more lucid upon our individual importance in service than Christ, and less ambiguous upon the question of personal immortality."

"Do we have all the hatred and all the aversion for the world which Our Lord requires, and which his example must inspire in us?"

"I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated"

"Anyone who claims to love both the world and the Creator of the world is lying."

"O my God! close my eyes, that I may see Thee; separate me from the world, that I may enjoy Thy company."

"There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life."

"The idea underlying such endless discussion and dreaming about the physical act is that sexual expertise confers worldliness and is therefore part of becoming an affirmed individual. This is a curious suggestion... Sex is many things — a need, a desire, an emotion, a release — but it has nothing to do with worldly sophistication, character building or even existential action. Sex, in general, is more of an obstacle than anything else for those who wish to free themselves and act as individuals... [W]e aren't dealing with a successful affirmation of responsible individualism in the real world. We are creating private dreams which compensate for the fracturing of the individual and the castration of his or her power in public life."

"I liked Charentz straight off, but more important than this was the feeling that I had that he was a truly great man. Human greatness is a rather difficult thing to account for, and more often than not one is mistaken in one's hunches about somebody one has met. Charentz seemed great to me, I think, because he was made of a mixture of proud virtues and amusing flaws. On the one hand, his independence of spirit was balanced by a humorous worldliness, his acute intelligence by a curiosity that frequently made him seem naive, his profoundly gentle manners by a kind of mocking mischievousness which might easily be mistaken for rudeness. But he was never rude, he was witty, and the purpose of his wit was to keep himself from the terrible condition of pomposity."

"This is the greatest wisdom—to seek the kingdom of heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides."

"Suppose the offer were this: You shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusted group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of Caina; but, day by day, your body shall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, and have more orders on its breast—crowns on its head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout round it, crowd after it up and down the streets; build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables’ heads all the night long; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the crown-edge on the skull;—no more. Would you take the offer, verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; many of us grasp at it in its fulness of horror. Every man accepts it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is; who means only that he is to get more horses, and more footmen, and more fortune, and more public honour, and—not more personal soul."

"The world is water and the mind milk. If you pour milk into water they become one; you cannot find the pure milk any more. But turn the milk into curd and churn it into butter. Then, when that butter is placed in water, it will float. So, practice spiritual discipline in solitude and obtain the butter of knowledge and love. Even if you keep that butter in the water of the world the two will not mix. The butter will float."

"By constantly repeating, 'I am free, I am free', a man verily becomes free. On the other hand, by constantly repeating, 'I am bound, I am bound', he certainly becomes bound to worldliness. The fool who says only, 'I am a sinner, I am a sinner', verily drowns himself in worldliness. One should rather say: 'I have chanted the name of God. How can I be a sinner? How can I be bound?'"

"So when the great Calamity comes; The day when man remembers all that he strove for, And hell is made manifest to him who sees. Then as for him who is inordinate, And prefers the life of this world, Hell is surely the abode. And as for him who fears to stand before his Lord and restrains himself from low desires, The Garden is surely the abode."

"(This) worldly life is only amusement and diversion. And if you believe and fear Allah, He will give you your rewards and not ask you for your properties."

"O mankind, indeed the promise of Allah is truth, so let not the worldly life delude you and be not deceived about Allah by the Deceiver."

"The ones who prefer the worldly life over the Hereafter and avert (people) from the way of Allah, seeking to make it (seem) deviant. Those are in extreme error."