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God Is The God Of The Animals In A Far Lovelier Way, I Suspect, Than Many Of Us Dare To Think, But He Will Not Be The God Of A Man By Making A Good Beast Of Him.

-George MacDonald

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God Is The God

George MacDonald

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God Is The God Of The Animals In A Far Lovelier Way, I Suspect, Than Many Of Us Dare To Think, But He Will Not Be The God Of A Man By Making A Good Beast Of Him.

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Love Makes Everything Lovely; Hate Concentrates Itself On The One Thing Hated.

For The Bliss Of The Animals Lies In This, That, On Their Lower Level, They Shadow The Bliss Of Those--few At Any Moment On The Earth--who Do Not 'look Before And After, And Pine For What Is Not,' But Live In The Holy Carelessness Of The Eternal Now.

To Cease To Wonder Is To Fall Plumb-down From The Childlike To The Commonplace—the Most Undivine Of All Moods Intellectual. Our Nature Can Never Be At Home Among Things That Are Not Wonderful To Us.

No; But You Came, And Found The Riddles Waiting For You! Indeed You Are Yourself The Only Riddle. What You Call Riddles Are Truths, And Seem Riddles Because You Are Not True.

He May Delay Because It Would Not Be Safe To Give Us At Once What We Ask: We Are Not Ready For It. To Give Ere We Could Truly Receive, Would Be To Destroy The Very Heart And Hope Of Prayer, To Cease To Be Our Father. The Delay Itself May Work To Bring Us Nearer To Our Help, To Increase The Desire, Perfect The Prayer, And Ripen The Receptive Condition.

I Know My Easts And Tom Brown, You See, And They're Never Happy Unless Their Morality Is Being Tried In The Furnace And They Can Feel They Are Doing The Right Christian Thing And Never Mind The Consequences To Anyone Else.

The Word Doctrine, As Used In The Bible, Means Teaching Of Duty, Not Theory.

To Try Too Hard To Make People Good Is One Way To Make Them Worse. The Only Way To Make Them Good Is To Be Good, Remembering Well The Beam And The Mote.

The Perfection Of His Relation To Us Swallows Up All Our Imperfections, All Our Defeats, All Our Evils; For Our Childhood Is Born Of His Fatherhood. That Man Is Perfect In Faith Who Can Come To God In The Utter Dearth Of His Feelings And His Desires, Without A Glow Or An Aspiration, With The Weight Of Low Thoughts, Failures, Neglects, And Wandering Forgetfulness, And Say To Him, “thou Art My Refuge, Because Thou Art My Home”.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

My Spirits Rose As I Went Deeper; Into The Forest; But I Could Not Regain My Former Elasticity Of Mind. I Found Cheerfulness To Be Like Life Itself - Not To Be Created By Any Argument. Afterwards I Learned, That The Best Way To Manage Some Kinds Of Pain Fill Thoughts, Is To Dare Them To Do Their Worst; To Let Them Lie And Gnaw At Your Heart Till They Are Tired; And You Find You Still Have A Residue Of Life They Cannot Kill. So, Better And Worse, I Went On, Till I Came To A Little Clearing In The Forest.

A Man's Real Belief Is That Which He Lives By. What A Man Believes Is The Thing He Does, Not The Thing He Thinks.

Why Should My Love Be Powerless To Help Another?

Let Me, If I May, Be Ever Welcomed To My Room In Winter By A Glowing Hearth, In Summer By A Vase Of Flowers. If I May Not, Let Me Think How Nice They Would Be And Bury Myself In My Work. I Do Not Think That The Road To Contentment Lies In Despising What We Have Not Got. Let Us Acknowledge All Good, All Delight That The Worlds Holds, And Be Content Without It.

...though I Cannot Promise To Take You Home," Said North Wind, As She Sank Nearer And Nearer To The Tops Of The Houses, "i Can Promise You It Will Be All Right In The End. You Will Get Home Somehow.

Half Of The Misery In The World Comes From Trying To Look, Instead Of Trying To Be, What One Is Not.

I Don't Know How To Thank You.' Then I Will Tell You. There Is Only One Way I Care For. Do Better, And Grow Better, And Be Better.

I Wondered Over Again For The Hundredth Time What Could Be The Principle Which, In The Wildest, Most Lawless, Fantastically Chaotic, Apparently Capricious Work Of Nature, Always Kept It Beautiful.

There Is An Aching That Is Worse Than Any Pain.

We Should Teach Our Children To Think No More Of Their Bodies When Dead Than They Do Of Their Hair When Cut Off, Or Of Their Old Clothes When They Have Done With Them.

And In Thy Own Sermon, Thou That The Sparrow Falls Dost Allow, It Shall Not Cause Me Any Alarm; For Neither So Comes The Bird To Harm, Seeing Our Father, Thou Hast Said, Is By The Sparrow's Dying Bed; Therefore It Is A Blessed Place, And The Sparrow In High Grace.

Seeing Is Not Believing - It Is Only Seeing.

It's Right To Trust In God; But, If You Don't Stand To Your Halliards Your Craft'll Miss Stays, And Your Faith'll Be Blown Out Of The Bolt-ropes In The Turn Of A Marlinspike.

The Love Of Our Neighbor Is The Only Door Out Of The Dungeon Of Self.

Anything Large Enough For A Wish To Light Upon, Is Large Enough To Hang A Prayer Upon.

There Is No Strength In Unbelief. Even The Unbelief Of What Is False Is No Source Of Might. It Is The Truth Shining From Behind That Gives The Strength To Disbelieve.

If There Be Music In My Reader, I Would Gladly Wake It.

I Write, Not For Children,but For The Child-like, Whether They Be Of Five, Or Fifty, Or Seventy-five.

My Prayers, My God, Flow From What I Am Not; I Think Thy Answers Make Me What I Am.

It Is The Heart That Is Not Sure Of Its God That Is Afraid To Laugh In His Presence.

When We Are Out Of Sympathy With The Young, Then I Think Our Work In This World Is Over

There Is No Inborn Longing That Shall Not Be Fulfilled. I Think That Is As Certain As The Forgiveness Of Sins.

As Many As Received Him, To Them Gave He Power To Become The Sons Of God.

Obedience Is The Key To Every Door.

If It Were Not For The Outside World, We Would Have No Inside World To Understand Things By. Least Of All Could We Understand God Without These Millions Of Sights And Sounds And Scents And Motions, Weaving Their Endless Harmonies. They Come Out Of His Heart To Let Us Know A Little Of What Is In It.

Right Gladly Would He Free Them From Their Misery, But He Knows Only One Way: He Will Teach Them To Be Like Himself, Meek And Lowly, Bearing With Gladness The Yoke Of His Father's Will. This In The One, The Only Right, The Only Possible Way Of Freeing Them From Their Sin, The Cause Of Their Unrest.

Sad, Indeed, Would The Whole Matter Be If The Bible Had Told Us Everything God Meant Us To Believe. But Herein Is The Bible Greatly Wronged. It Nowhere Lays Claim To Be Regarded As The Word, The Way, The Truth. The Bible Leads Us To Jesus, The Inexhaustible, The Ever-unfolding Revelation Of God. It Is Christ "in Whom Are Hid All The Treasures Of Wisdom And Knowledge," Not The Bible, Save As Leading To Him.

Two People May Be At The Same Spot In Manners And Behaviour, And Yet One May Be Getting Better, And The Other Worse, Which Is The Greatest Of Differences That Could Possibly Exist Between Them.

All About Us, In Earth And Air, Wherever The Eye Or Ear Can Reach, There Is A Power Ever Breathing Itself Forth In Signs, Now In Daisy, Now In A Wind-waft, A Cloud, A Sunset; A Power That Holds Constant And Sweetest Relation With The Dark And Silent World Within Us. The Same God Who Is In Us, And Upon Whose Tree We Are The Buds, If Not Yet The Flowers, Also Is All About Us- Inside, The Spirit; Outside, The Word. And The Two Are Ever Trying To Meet In Us.

I Begin Indeed To Fear That I Have Undertaken An Impossibility, Undertaken To Tell What I Cannot Tell Because No Speech At My Command Will Fit The Forms In My Mind.

O Christ, My Life, Possess Me Utterly. Take Me And Make A Little Christ Of Me. If I Am Anything But Thy Father's Son, 'tis Something Not Yet From The Darkness Won. Oh, Give Me Light To Live With Open Eyes. Oh, Give Me Life To Hope Above All Skies.

One Of The Grandest Things In Having Rights Is, That Though They Are Your Rights You May Give Them Up

I Am Sometimes Almost Terrified At The Scope Of The Demands Made Upon Me, At The Perfection Of The Self-abandonment Required Of Me; Yet Outside Of Such Absoluteness Can Be No Salvation.

Were I Asked, What Is A Fairytale? I Should Reply, Read Undine: That Is A Fairytale.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together. Nature Thought Beauty Too Rich To Go Forth Upon The Earth Without A Meet Alloy.

I Dare Not Say With Paul That I Am The Slave Of Christ, But My Highest Aspiration And Desire Is To Be The Slave Of Christ.

We Are Dwellers In A Divine Universe Where No Desires Are In Vain - If Only They Be Large Enough.

There Is No Water In Oxygen, No Water In Hydrogen: It Comes Bubbling Fresh From The Imagination Of The Living God, Rushing From Under The Great White Throne Of The Glacier. The Very Thought Of It Makes One Gasp With An Elemental Joy No Metaphysician Can Analyse.

If There Be A God And One Has Never Sought Him, It Will Be Small Consolation To Remember That One Could Not Get Proof Of His Existence.

If There Is A God

Come, Come To Him Who Made Thy Heart; Come Weary And Oppressed; To Come To Jesus Is Thy Part; His Part, To Give Thee Rest.

There Is No Slave But The Creature That Wills Against Its Creator.

I Watched Her Departure, As One Watches A Sunset. She Went Like A Radiance Through The Dark Wood, Which Was Henceforth Bright To Me, From Simply Knowing That Such A Creature Was In It.

When A Feeling Was There, They Felt As If It Would Never Go; When It Was Gone, They Felt As If It Had Never Been; When It Returned, They Felt As If It Had Never Gone.

There Is No Cheating In Nature And The Simple Unsought Feelings Of The Soul. There Must Be A Truth Involved In It, Though We May But In Part Lay Hold Of The Meaning.

I Say Again, If I Cannot Draw A Horse, I Will Not Write This Is A Horse Under What I Foolishly Meant For One.

Forgiveness Unleashes Joy. It Brings Peace. It Washes The Slate Clean. It Sets All The Highest Values Of Love In Motion.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Not Come Even When God's Will Is Our Law; It Is Fully Come When God's Will Is Our Will.

You Must Learn To Be Strong In The Dark As Well As In The Day, Else You Will Always Be Only Half Brave.

God Never Gave Man A Thing To Do Concerning Which It Were Irreverent To Ponder How The Son Of God Would Have Done It.

By All Means Rid Yourself Of An Impoverished Faith.

The Seed Dies Into A New Life, And So Does Man.

If We Will But Let Our God And Father Work His Will With Us, There Can Be No Limit To His Enlargement Of Our Existence

Never Was There A More Injurous Mistake Than To Say It Was Thebusiness Only Of The Clergy To Care For Souls.

Diamond, However, Had Not Been Out So Late Before In All His Life, And Things Looked So Strange About Him! - Just As If He Had Got Into Fairyland, Of Which He Knew Quite As Much As Anybody; For His Mother Had No Money To Buy Books To Set Him Wrong On The Subject.

Real Good-breeding Is Independent Of The Forms And Refinements Of What Has Assumed To Itself The Name Of Society.

I Believe In Fate, Never In Chance.

For That Great Love Speaks In The Most Wretched And Dirty Hearts; Only The Tone Of Its Voice Depends On The Echoes Of The Place In Which It Sounds.

To Say On The Authority Of The Bible That God Does A Thing No Honourable Man Would Do, Is To Lie Against God; To Say That It Is Therefore Right, Is To Lie Against The Very Spirit Of God.

All Things Are Possible With God, But All Things Are Not Easy.

Never Tell A Child 'you Have A Soul.' Teach Him, You Are A Soul; You Have A Body.

Instead Of Asking Yourself Whether You Believe Or Not, Ask Yourself Whether You Have, This Day, Done One Thing Because He Said, Do It! Or Once Abstained Because He Said, Do Not Do It! It Is Simply Absurd To Say You Believe, Or Even Want To Believe, In Him, If You Do Not Do Anything He Tells You.

What A Good Thing, For Instance, It Was That One Princess Should Sleep For A Hundred Years! Was She Not Saved From All The Plague Of Young Men Who Were Not Worthy Of Her? And Did Not She Come Awake Exactly At The Right Moment When The Right Prince Kissed Her? For My Part, I Cannot Help Wishing A Good Many Girls Would Sleep Till Just The Same Fate Overtook Them. It Would Be Happier For Them, And More Agreeable To Their Friends.

He Who Seeks The Father More Than Anything He Can Give, Is Likely To Have What He Asks, For He Is Not Likely To Ask Amiss.

All That Is Not God Is Death.

The More I Work With The Body, Keeping My Assumptions In A Temporary State Of Reservation, The More I Appreciate And Sympathize With A Given Disease. The Body No Longer Appears As A Sick Or Irrational Demon, But As A Process With Its Own Inner Logic And Wisdom.

God Left The World Unfinished For Man To Work His Skill Upon. He Left The Electricity Still In The Cloud, The Oil Still In The Earth.

Unfinished Work

It Is Not In The Nature Of Politics That The Best Men Should Be Elected. The Best Men Do Not Want To Govern Their Fellowmen.

God Will Not Take Shelter Behind A Jugglery Of Logic Or Metaphysics. He Is Neither A Schoolman Nor Theologian, But Our Father In Heaven.

Moderation Is The Basis Of Justice.

You Can't Live On Amusement. It Is The Froth On Water - An Inch Deep And Then The Mud.

For This, Deep Waters Whelm The Fruitful Lea, Wars Ravage, Famine Wastes, Plague Withers, Nor Shall Cease Till Men Have Chosen The Better Part.

If Those Who Had Set Themselves To Explain The Various Theories Of Christianity Had Set Themselves Instead To Do The Will Of The Master, How Different The World Would Be Now!

To Judge Religion We Must Have It--not Stare At It From The Bottom Of A Seemingly Interminable Ladder.

God Is Nearer To You Than Any Thought Or Feeling Of Yours... Do Not Be Afraid.

Whose Work Is It But Your Own To Open Your Eyes? But Indeed The Business Of The Universe Is To Make Such A Fool Out Of You That You Will Know Yourself For One, And Begin To Be Wise.

To Be Kind Neither Hurts Nor Compromises.

[god Desires] Not That He May Say To Them, "look How Mighty I Am, And Go Down Upon Your Knees And Worship," For Power Alone Was Never Yet Worthy Of Prayer; But That He May Say Thus: "look, My Children, You Will Never Be Strong But With My Strength. I Have No Other To Give You. And That You Can Get Only By Trusting In Me. I Can Not Give It You Any Other Way. There Is No Other Way."

What Would The Living One Have Me Do?

In Joy Or Sorrow, Feebleness Or Might, Peace Or Commotion, Be Thou, Father, My Delight.

There Are Women Who Fly Their Falcons At Any Game, Little Birds And All.

Not Only Then Has Each Man His Individual Relation To God, But Each Man Has His Peculiar Relation To God.

As Christ Is The Blossom Of Humanity, So The Blossom Of Every Man Is Christ Perfected In Him.

It Is Not The Cares Of Today, But The Cares Of Tomorrow, That Weigh A Man Down. For The Needs Of Today We Have Corresponding Strength Given. For The Morrow We Are Told To Trust. It Is Not Ours Yet. It Is When Tomorrow's Burden Is Added To The Burden Of Today That The Weight Is More Than A Man Can Bear.

Now I Want You To Think That In Life Troubles Will Come, Which Seem As If They Never Would Pass Away. The Night And Storm Look As If They Would Last Forever; But The Calm And The Morning Cannot Be Stayed; The Storm In Its Very Nature Is Transient. The Effort Of Nature, As That Of The Human Heart, Ever Is To Return To Its Repose, For God Is Peace.

God's Finger Can Touch Nothing But To Mold It Into Loveliness.

Come, Then, Affliction, If My Father Wills, And Be My Frowning Friend. A Friend That Frowns Is Better Than A Smiling Enemy.

One Of The Good Things That Come Of A True Marriage Is, That There Is One Face On Which Changes Come Without Your Seeing Them; Or Rather There Is One Face Which You Can Still See The Same, Through All The Shadows Which Years Have Gathered Upon It.

I Would Not Favour A Fiction To Keep A Whole World Out Of Hell. The Hell That A Lie Would Keep Any Man Out Of Is Doubtless The Very Best Place For Him To Go To. It Is Truth... That Saves The World.

The Greatest Forces Lie In The Region Of The Uncomprehended.

God Hides Nothing. His Very Work From The Beginning Is Revelation--a Casting Aside Of Veil After Veil, A Showing Unto Men Of Truth After Truth. On And On From Fact Divine He Advances, Until At Length In His Son Jesus He Unveils His Very Face.

If Both Church And Fairy-tale Belong To Humanity, They May Occasionally Cross Circles, Without Injury To Either.

You Doubt Because You Love Truth.

What God May Hereafter Require Of You, You Must Not Give Yourself The Least Trouble About. Everything He Gives You To Do, You Must Do As Well As Ever You Can, And That Is The Best Possible Preparation For What He May Want You To Do Next. If People Would But Do What They Have To Do, They Would Always Find Themselves Ready For What Came Next.

To Have What We Want Is Riches; But To Be Able To Do Without Is Power.

Well, Perhaps; But I Begin To Think There Are Better Things Than Being Comfortable.

To The Dim And Bewildered Vision Of Humanity, God's Care Is More Evident In Some Instances Than In Others; And Upon Such Instances Men Seize, And Call Them Providences. It Is Well That They Can; But It Would Be Gloriously Better If They Could Believe That The Whole Matter Is One Grand Providence.

No Man Can Make Haste To Be Rich Without Going Against The Will Of God, In Which Case It Is The One Frightful Thing To Be Successful.

But More Impressive Than The Facts And Figures As To Height, Width, Age, Etc., Are The Entrancing Beauty And Tranquility That Pervade The Forest, The Feelings Of Peace, Awe And Reverence That It Inspires.

He (god) Can Be Revealed Only To The Child; Perfectly, To The Pure Child Only. All The Discipline Of The World Is To Make Men Children, That God May Be Revealed To Them.

How Many People Would Like To Be Good, If Only They Might Be Good Without Taking Trouble About It! They Do Not Like Goodness Well Enough To Hunger And Thirst After It, Or To Sell All That They Have That They May Buy It; They Will Not Batter At The Gate Of The Kingdom Of Heaven; But They Look With Pleasure On This Or That Aerial Castle Of Righteousness, And Think It Would Be Rather Nice To Live In It.

Suppose You Didn't Know Him, Would That Make Any Difference?' 'no,' Said Willie, After Thinking A Little. 'other People Would Know Him If I Didn't.' 'yes, And If Nobody Knew Him, God Would Know Him, And Anybody God Has Thought Worth Making, It's An Honor To Do Anything For.

But When We Are Following The Light, Even Its Extinction Is A Guide.

As No Scripture Is Of Private Interpretation, So Is There No Feeling In A Human Heart Which Exists In That Heart Alone - Which Is Not, In Some Form Or Degree, In Every Human Heart.

But, For As Cold And Wretched As It Looks, The Sun Has Not Forsaken It. He Has Only Drawn Away From It A Little, For Good Reasons, One Of Which Is That We May Learn That We Cannot Do Without Him.

There Are Things That Must Be Done In Faith, Else They Never Have Being.

She Would Wonder What Had Hurt Her When She Found Her Face Wet With Tears, And Then Would Wonder How She Could Have Been Hurt Without Knowing It.

All Haste Implies Weakness.

Which Of Us Is Other Than A Secret To All But God!

He Who Is Faithful Over A Few Things Is A Lord Of Cities. It Does Not Matter Whether You Preach In Westminster Abbey Or Teach A Ragged Class, So You Be Faithful. The Faithfulness Is All.

Primarily, God Is Not Bound To Punish Sin; He Is Bound To Destroy Sin. The Only Vengeance Worth Having On Sin Is To Make The Sinner Himself Its Executioner.

A Baby Sermon- The Lighting And Thunder, They Go And They Come: But The Stars And The Stillness Are Always At Home

The Ruin Of A Man's Teaching Comes Of His Followers, Such As Having Never Touched The Foundation He Has Laid, Build Upon It Wood, Hay, And Stubble, Fit Only To Be Burnt. Therefore, If Only To Avoid His Worst Foes, His Admirers, A Man Should Avoid System. The More Correct A System The Worse Will It Be Misunderstood; Its Professed Admirers Will Take Both Its Errors And Their Misconceptions Of Its Truths, And Hold Them Forth As Its Essence.

The Direst Foe Of Courage Is The Fear Itself, Not The Object Of It; And The Man Who Can Overcome His Own Terror Is A Hero And More.

We Profess To Think Jesus The Grandest And Most Glorious Of Men, Yet Hardly Care To Be Like Him. When We Are Offered His Spirit, That Is, His Very Nature Within Us, For The Asking, We Will Hardly Take The Trouble To Ask For It.

Her Face Was Fair And Pretty, With Eyes Like Two Bits Of Night Sky, Each With A Star Dissolved In The Blue.

Nothing Makes One Feel So Strong As A Call For Help.

This Is A Wise, Sane Christian Faith: That A Man Commit Himself, His Life, And His Hopes To God; That God Undertakes The Special Protection Of That Man; That Therefore That Man Ought Not To Be Afraid Of Anything.

We Die Daily. Happy Those Who Daily Come To Life As Well.

They Will Pressure You Into Doing Things That May Be Unsafe, Use Your Good Judgment, And Remember, 'i Would Rather Be Laughed At, Than Cried For.'

Truth Is Truth, Whether From The Lips Of Jesus Or Balaam.

It Has Been Well Said That No Man Ever Sank Under The Burden Of The Day. It Is, When Tomorrow's Burden Is Added To The Burden Of Today, That The Weight Is More Than A Man Can Bear. Never Load Yourselves So, My Friends. If You Find Yourselves So Loaded, At Least Remember This: It Is Your Own Doing, Not God's. He Begs You To Leave The Future To Him, And Mind The Present.

As You Grow Ready For It, Somewhere Or Other You Will Find What Is Needful For You In A Book.

The Time For Speaking Seldom Arrives, The Time For Being Never Departs.

The Doing Of Things From Duty Is But A Stage On The Road To The Kingdom Of Truth And Love.

A God Must Have A God For Company. And Lo! Thou Hast The Son-god To Thy Friend. Thou Honour'st His Obedience, He Thy Law. Into Thy Secret Life-will He Doth See; Thou Fold'st Him Round In Live Love Perfectly- One Two, Without Beginning, Without End; In Love, Life, Strength, And Truth, Perfect Without A Flaw.

There Is Little Hope Of The Repentance And Redemption Of Certain Some Until They Have Committed One Or Another Of The Many Wrong Things Of Which They Are Daily, Through A Course Of Unrestrained Selfishness, Becoming More And More Capable.

Alas, How Easily Things Go Wrong! A Sigh Too Much, A Kiss Too Long And There Follows A Mist And A Weeping Rain And Life Is Never The Same Again

Annihilation Itself Is No Death To Evil. Only Good Where Evil Was, Is Evil Dead. An Evil Thing Must Live With Its Evil Until It Chooses To Be Good. That Alone Is The Slaying Of Evil.

People Must Believe What They Can, And Those Who Believe More Must Not Be Hard Upon Those Who Believe Less. I Doubt If You Would Have Believed It All Yourself If You Hadn't Seen Some Of It.

Let A Man Think And Care Ever So Little About God, He Does Not Therefore Exist Without God. God Is Here With Him, Upholding, Warming, Delighting, Teaching Him-making Life A Good Thing To Him. God Gives Him Himself, Though The Man Knows It Not.

The Mind Of The Many Is Not The Mind Of God.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

It Is By Loving, And Not By Being Loved, That One Can Come Nearest The Soul Of Another; Yea, That, Where Two Love, It Is The Loving Of Each Other, That Originates And Perfects And Assures Their Blessedness. I Knew That Love Gives To Him That Loveth, Power Over Any Soul Beloved, Even If That Soul Know Him Not, Bringing Him Inwardly Close To That Spirit; A Power That Cannot Be But For Good; For In Proportion As Selfishness Intrudes, The Love Ceases, And The Power Which Springs Therefrom Dies. Yet All Love Will, One Day, Meet With Its Return.

The Purposes Of God Point To One Simple End-that We Should Be As He Is, Think The Same Thoughts, Mean The Same Things, Possess The Same Blessedness.

We Are And Remain Such Creeping Christians, Because We Look At Ourselves And Not At Christ; Because We Gaze At The Marks Of Our Own Soiled Feet, And The Trail Of Our Own Defiled Garments.... Each, Putting His Foot In The Footprint Of The Master, And So Defacing It, Turns To Examine How Far His Neighbor’s Footprint Corresponds With That Which He Still Calls The Master’s, Although It Is But His Own.

Only Because Uplifted In Song, Was I Able To Endure The Blaze Of The Dawn.

A Condition Which Of Declension Would Indicate A Devil, May Of Growth Indicate A Saint.

Never Be Discouraged Because Good Things Get On So Slowly Here; And Never Fail Daily To Do That Good Which Lies Next To Your Hand.

The Birds, The Poets Of The Animal Creation - What Though They Never Get Beyond The Lyrical! - Awoke To Utter Their Own Joy, And Awake Like Joy In Others Of God's Children.

No Story Ever Really Ends, And I Think I Know Why.

I Believe That No Hell Will Be Lacking Which Would Help The Just Mercy Of God To Redeem His Children.

Division Has Done More To Hide Christ From The View Of Men Than All The Infidelity That Has Ever Been Spoken.

I Am An Emptiness For Thee To Fill; My Soul A Cavern For Thy Sea

Do You Think You Love Your Children Better Than He Who Made Them? Is Not Your Love What It Is Because He Put It Into Your Heart First? Have You Not Often Been Cross With Them? Sometimes Unjust To Them? Whence Came The Returning Love That Rose From Unknown Depths In Your Being, And Swept Away The Anger And The Injustice? You Did Not Create That Love. Probably You Were Not Good Enough To Send For It By Prayer. But It Came. God Sent It. He Makes You Love Your Children.

Work Is Not Always Required. There Is Such A Thing As Sacred Idleness.

Meditation Practice

The Best Preparation For The Future Is The Present Well Seen To, And The Last Duty Done.

In Giving, A Man Receives More Than He Gives; And The More Is In Proportion To The Worth Of The Thing Given.

It Is A Happy Thing For Us That This Is Really All We Have To Concern Ourselves About--what To Do Next. No Man Can Do The Second Thing. He Can Do The First.

Each Is But A Means To An End; In The Perfected End We Find The Intent, And There God — Not In The Laws Themselves, Except As His Means Of Revealing Himself. For That Same Reason, Human Science Cannot Discover God. For Human Science Is But The Backward Undoing Of The Tapestry-web Of God's Science, It Works With Its Back To Him, And Is Always Leaving Him — His Intent.

Not Even Nothingness Preceded Life. Nothingness Owes Its Very Idea To Existence.

I Do Not Myself Believe There Is Any Misfortune. What Men Call Such Is Merely The Shadowside Of A Good.

How Strange This Fear Of Death Is! We Are Never Frightened At A Sunset.

You've Got To Save Your Own Soul First, And Then The Souls Of Your Neighbors If They Will Let You; And For That Reason You Must Cultivate, Not A Spirit Of Criticism, But The Talents That Attract People To The Hearing Of The Word.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together.

God Himself - His Thoughts, His Will, His Love, His Judgments Are Men's Home. To Think His Thoughts, To Choose His Will, To Judge His Judgments, And Thus To Know That He Is In Us, With Us, Is To Be At Home.

I Would Rather Be What God Chose To Make Me Than The Most Glorious Creature That I Could Think Of; For To Have Been Thought About, Born In God's Thought, And Then Made By God, Is The Dearest, Grandest And Most Precious Thing In All Thinking.

I Am So Tried By The Things Said About God. I Understand God's Patience With The Wicked, But I Do Wonder How He Can Be So Patient With The Pious!

A Perfect Faith Would Lift Us Absolutely Above Fear

Love Loves Unto Purity. Love Has Ever In View The Absolute Loveliness Of That Which It Beholds. Therefore All That Is Not Beautiful In The Beloved, All That Comes Between And Is Not Of Love's Kind, Must Be Destroyed. And Our God Is A Consuming Fire.

But I Begin To Think The Chief Difficulty In Writing A Book Must Be To Keep Out What Does Not Belong To It.

I Am An Optimistic Fatalist. This World And All Its Beginnings Will Pass On Into Something Better.

Religion Is Life Essential.

But There Is A Light That Goes Deeper Than The Will, A Light That Lights Up The Darkness Behind It: That Light Can Change Your Will, Can Make It Truly Yours And Not Another's - Not The Shadow's. Into The Created Can Pour Itself The Creating Will, And So Redeem It!

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

A True Friend Is Forever A Friend.

What Distressed Me Most - More Even Than My Own Folly - Was The Perplexing Question, How Can Beauty And Ugliness Dwell So Near?

For When Is The Child The Ideal Child In Our Eyes And To Our Hearts? Is It Not When With Gentle Hand He Takes His Father By The Beard, And Turns That Father's Face Up To His Brothers And Sisters To Kiss? When Even The Lovely Selfishness Of Love-seeking Has Vanished, And The Heart Is Absorbed In Loving?

It May Be An Infinitely Less Evil To Murder A Man Than To Refuse To Forgive Him. The Former May Be The Act Of A Moment Of Passion: The Latter Is The Heart’s Choice.

Common People, Whether Lords Or Shop-keepers, Are Slow To Understand That Possession, Whether In The Shape Of Birth Or Lands Or Money Or Intellect, Is A Small Affair In The Difference Between Men.

There Is But One Thing That Can Free A Man From Superstition, And That Is Belief. All History Proves It. The Most Sceptical Have Ever Been The Most Credulous.

If You Care To See God, Be Pure. If You Will Not Be Pure, You Will Grow More And More Impure.

The Possession Of Wealth Is, As It Were, Prepayment, And Involves An Obligation Of Honor To The Doing Of Correspondent Work.

To Give Truth To Him Who Loves It Not Is But To Give Him More Plentiful Material For Misinterpretation.

Misinterpretation

Afflictions Are But The Shadows Of God's Wings.

Ah, What Is It We Send Up Thither, Where Our Thoughts Are Either A Dissonance Or A Sweetness And A Grace?

Affliction Is But The Shadow Of God's Wing.

The Root Of All Rebellion: It Is Because We Are Not Near Enough To Thee To Partake Of Thy Liberty That We Want A Liberty Of Our Own Different From Thine.

The Boy Should Enclose And Keep, As His Life, The Old Child At The Heart Of Him, And Never Let It Go. He Must Still, To Be A Right Man, Be His Mother's Darling, And More, His Father's Pride, And More. The Child Is Not Meant To Die, But To Be Forever Fresh Born.

Thou Art Beautiful Because God Created Thee, But Thou Art A Slave To Sin... Wickedness Has Made You Ugly.

The Miracles Of Jesus Were The Ordinary Works Of His Father, Wrought Small And Swift That We Might Take Them In.

In The Hearts Of Witches, Love And Hate Lie Close Together And Often Tumble Over Each Other.

Many A Life Has Been Injured By The Constant Expectation Of Death. It Is Life We Have To Do With, Not Death. The Best Preparation For The Night Is To Work Diligently While The Day Lasts. The Best Preparation For Death Is Life.

It Is Our Best Work That God Wants, Not The Dregs Of Our Exhaustion. I Think He Must Prefer Quality To Quantity.

Quality Not Quantity

All Love Will, One Day, Meet With Its Return. All True Love Will, One Day, Behold Its Own Image In The Eyes Of The Beloved, And Be Humbly Glad.

Those Are Not The Tears Of Repentance!... Self-loathing Is Not Sorrow. Yet It Is Good, For It Marks A Step In The Way Home, And In The Father's Arms The Prodigal Forgets The Self He Abominates.

We Are Not Made For Law, We Are Made For Love.

As I Said To Speedicut, It's Hell In The Diplomatic.

A Man Is In Bondage To Whatever He Cannot Part With That Is Less Than Himself.

Some Thinkers Would Feel Sorely Hampered If At Liberty To Use No Forms But Such As Existed In Nature, Or To Invent Nothing Save In Accordance With The Laws Of The World Of The Senses; But It Must Not Therefore Be Imagined That They Desire Escape From The Region Of Law.

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Ruth Ann Minner

Vladimir Horowitz

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