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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!

-George MacDonald

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If Those Who Had

George MacDonald

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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!

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A Perfect Faith Would Lift Us Absolutely Above Fear

To Receive Honestly Is The Best Thanks For A Good Thing.

All That Is Not God Is Death.

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.

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. How Often We Look Upon God As Our Last And Feeblest Resource! We Go To Him Because We Have Nowhere Else To Go. And Then We Learn That The Storms Of Life Have Driven Us, Not Upon The Rocks, But Into The Desired Haven.

It Is By Loving And Not By Being Loved That One Can Come Nearest To The Soul Of Another.

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

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.

...it Is So Silly Of People To Fancy That Old Age Means Crookedness And Witheredness And Feebleness And Sticks And Spectacles And Rheumatism And Forgetfulness! It Is So Silly! Old Age Has Nothing Whatever To Do With All That. The Right Old Age Means Strength And Beauty And Mirth And Courage And Clear Eyes And Strong Painless Limbs.

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

It May Be Infinitely Worse To Refuse To Forgive Than To Murder, Because

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.

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

Few Delights Can Equal The Presence Of One Whom We Trust Utterly.

Things Come To The Poor That Can't Get In At The Door Of The Rich. Their Money Somehow Blocks It Up. It Is A Great Privilege To Be Poor--one That No Man Covets, And Brat A Very Few Have Sought To Retain, But One That Yet Many Have Learned To Prize.

Forgiveness Is The Giving, And So The Receiving, Of Life.

There Are Thousands Willing To Do Great Things For One Willing To Do A Small Thing.

To Love Righteousness Is To Make It Grow, Not To Avenge It. Throughout His Life On Earth, Jesus Resisted Every Impulse To Work More Rapidly For A Lower Good.

Obedience Is The Key To Every Door.

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.

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

You Doubt Because You Love Truth.

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

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.

And Her Life Will Perhaps Be The Richer, For Holding Now Within It The Memory Of What Came, But Could Not Stay.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

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.

Her Heart - Like Every Heart, If Only Its Fallen Sides Were Cleared Away - Was An Inexhaustible Fountain Of Love: She Loved Everything She Saw.

If God Were Not Only To Hear Our Prayers, As He Does Ever And Always, But To Answer Them As We Want Them Answered, He Would Not Be God Our Saviour But The Ministering Genius Of Our Destruction.

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

In Moments Of Doubt I Cry, ‘could God Himself Create Such Lovely Things As I Dreamed?’ ‘whence Then Came Thy Dream?’ Answers Hope.

He (god) Loves What I Shall Be.

Love Me, Beloved; Hades And Death Shall Vanish Away Like A Frosty Breath; These Hands, That Now Are At Home In Thine, Shall Clasp Thee Again, If Thou Art Still Mine; And Thou Shalt Be Mine, My Spirit's Bride, In The Ceaseless Flow Of Eternity's Tide, If The Truest Love Thy Heart Can Know Meet The Truest Love That From Mine Can Flow. Pray God, Beloved, For Thee And Me, That Our Sourls May Be Wedded Eternally.

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

I Want To Help You Grow As Beautiful As God Meant You To Be When He Thought Of You First.

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

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

It Is When People Do Wrong Things Wilfully That They Are The More Likely To Do Them Again.

It Was Foolish Indeed - Thus To Run Farther And Farther From All Who Could Help Her, As If She Had Been Seeking A Fit Spot For The Goblin Creature To Eat Her In At His Leisure; But That Is The Way Fear Serves Us: It Always Sides With The Thing We Are Afraid Of.

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

What Honest Boy Would Pride Himself On Not Picking Pockets ? A Thief Who Was Trying To Reform Would. To Be Conceited Of Doing One's Duty Is Then A Sign Of How Little One Does It, And How Little One Sees What A Contemptible Thing It Is Not To Do It. Could Any But A Low Creature Be Conceited Of Not Being Contemptible? Until Our Duty Becomes To Us Common As Breathing, We Are Poor Creatures.

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.

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.

Seeing Is Not Believing - It Is Only Seeing.

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

We Have To Do With God, To Whom No One Can Look Without The Need Of Being Good Waking Up In His Heart; To Think About God Is To Begin To Be Good.

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

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

Books Are But Dead Bodies To You, And A Library Nothing But A Catacomb!

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

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”.

The Holy Spirit Of The Spring Is Working Silently.

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.

Religion Is Life Essential.

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.

Afflictions Are But The Shadows Of God's Wings.

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 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. And To Pass Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death Is The Way Home, But Only Thus, That As All Changes Have Hitherto Led Us Nearer To This Home, The Knowledge Of God, So This Greatest Of All Outward Changes - For It Is But An Outward Change - Will Surely Usher Us Into A Region Where There Will Be Fresh Possibilities Of Drawing Nigh In Heart, Soul, And Mind To The Father Of Us All.

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.

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.

Why Are All Reflections Lovelier Than What We Call Reality? -- Not So Grand Or So Strong, It May Be, But Always Lovelier? Fair As Is The Gliding Sloop On The Shining Sea, The Wavering, Trembling, Unresting Sail Below Is Fairer Still...all Mirrors Are Magic Mirrors. The Commonest Room Is A Room In A Poem When I Turn To The Glass...there Must Be A Truth Involved In It, Though We May But In Part Lay Hold Of The Meaning.

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.'

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

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.

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.

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.

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

When We Understand The Outside Of Things, We Think We Have Them. Yet The Lord Puts His Things In Subdefined, Suggestive Shapes, Yielding No Satisfactory Meaning To The Mere Intellect, But Unfolding Themselves To The Conscience And Heart.

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.

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

Moderation Is The Basis Of Justice.

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.

What Can Money Do To Console A Man With A Headache?

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.

Friends, If We Be Honest With Ourselves, We Shall Be Honest With Each Other.

Here I Should Like To Remark, For The Sake Of Princes And Princesses In General, That It Is A Low And Contemptible Thing To Refuse To Confess A Fault, Or Even An Error. If A True Princess Has Done Wrong, She Is Always Uneasy Until She Has Had An Opportunity Of Throwing The Wrongness Away From Her By Saying: 'i Did It; And I Wish I Had Not; And I Am Sorry For Having Done It.

Doubts Are The Messengers Of The Living One To The Honest. They Are The First Knock At Our Door Of Things That Are Not Yet, But Have To Be, Understood. . . . Doubts Must Precede Every Deeper Assurance; For Uncertainties Are What We First See When We Look Into A Region Hitherto Unknown, Unexplored, Unannexed.

What I Would Say Is This, That The Light Is Not Blinding Because God Would Hide, But Because The Truth Is Too Glorious For Our Vision.

In Very Truth, A Wise Imagination, Which Is The Presence Of The Spirit Of God, Is The Best Guide That Man Or Woman Can Have; For It Is Not The Things We See The Most Clearly That Influence Us The Most Powerfully; Undefined, Yet Vivid Visions Of Something Beyond, Something Which Eye Has Not Seen Nor Ear Heard, Have Far More Influence Than Any Logical Sequences Whereby The Same Things May Be Demonstrated To The Intellect. It Is The Nature Of The Thing, Not The Clearness Of Its Outline, That Determines Its Operation. We Live By Faith, And Not By Sight.

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

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.

But There Is No Veil Like Light--no Adamantine Armor Against Hurt Like The Truth.

A True Friend Is Forever A Friend.

We Can Walk Without Fear, Full Of Hope And Courage And Strength To Do His Will, Waiting For The Endless Good Which He Is Always Giving As Fast As He Can Get Us Able To Take It In.

Life And Religion Are One, Or Neither Is Any Thing.

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

Light-leaved Acacias, By The Door, Stood Up In Balmy Air, Clusters Of Blossomed Moonlight Bore, And Breathed A Perfume Rare.

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.

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.

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.

But It Is Not The Rich Man Only Who Is Under The Dominion Of Things; They Too Are Slaves Who, Having No Money, Are Unhappy From The Lack Of It.

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.

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.

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.

Where Did You Come From, Baby Dear? Out Of The Everywhere And Into Here.

I Find The Doing Of The Will Of God Leaves Me No Time For Disputing About His Plans — I Do Not Say For Thinking About Them.

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

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.

Only He Knew That To Be Left Alone Is Not Always To Be Forsaken.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together.

The Trees Bathed Their Great Heads In The Waves Of The Morning, While Their Roots Were Planted Deep In Gloom; Save Where On The Borders Of The Sunshine Broke Against Their Stems, Or Swept In Long Streams Through Their Avenues, Washing With Brighter Hue All The Leaves Over Which It Flowed; Revealing The Rich Brown Of The Dacayed Leaves And Fallen Pine-cones, And The Delicate Greens Of The Long Grasses And Tiny Forests Of Moss That Covered The Channel Over Which It Passed In The Motionless Rivers Of Light.

No Man Has The Mind Of Christ, Except Him Who Makes It His Business To Obey Him.

But God Lets Men Have Their Playthings, Like The Children They Are, That They May Learn To Distinguish Them From True Possessions. If They Are Not Learning That He Takes Them From Them, And Tries The Other Way: For Lack Of Them And Its Misery, They Will Perhaps Seek The True!

Every Soul Has A Landscape That Changes With The Wind That Sweeps The Sky, With The Clouds That Return After Its Rain.

A Fairytale Is Not An Allegory. There May Be Allegory In It, But It Is Not An Allegory.

Now And Then, When I Look Round On My Books, They Seem To Waver As If A Wind Rippled Their Solid Mass, And Another World Were About To Break Through.

Could You Not Give Me Some Sign, Or Tell Me Something About You That Never Changes, Or Some Other Way To Know You, Or Thing To Know You By?" — "no, Curdie: That Would Be To Keep You From Knowing Me. You Must Know Me In Quite Another Way From That. It Would Not Be The Least Use To You Or Me Either If I Were To Make You Know Me In That Way. It Would Be But To Know The Sign Of Me — Not To Know Me Myself.

Affliction Is But The Shadow Of God's Wing.

No Words Can Express How Much The World Owes To Sorrow. Most Of The Psalms Were Born In The Wilderness. Most Of The Epistles Were Written In A Prison. The Greatest Thoughts Of The Greatest Thinkers Have All Passed Through Fire. The Greatest Poets Have "learned In Suffering What They Taught In Song." In Bonds Bunyan Lived The Allegory That He Afterwards Wrote, And We May Thank Bedford Jail For The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Comfort, Afflicted Christian! When God Is About To Make Pre-eminent Use Of A Person, He Put Them In The Fire.

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

You Will Be Dead So Long As You Refuse To Die.

All That Is Made Seems Planless To The Darkened Mind, Because There Are More Plans Than It Looked For...there Seems No Plan Because It Is All Plan: There Seems No Centre Because It Is All Centre.

You Would Not Think Any Duty Small, If You Yourself Were Great.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

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.

Then The Old Man Of The Earth Stooped Over The Floor Of The Cave, Raised A Huge Stone From It, And Left It Leaning. It Disclosed A Great Hole That Went Plumb-down. "that Is The Way," He Said. "but There Are No Stairs." "you Must Throw Yourself In. There Is No Other Way.

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?

To Be Humbly Ashamed Is To Be Plunged In The Cleansing Bath Of Truth.

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.

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.

[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."

This Is And Has Been The Father's Work From The Beginning-to Bring Us Into The Home Of His Heart.

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.

You Thought You Were Going To Be Made Into A Decent Little Cottage: But He Is Building A Palace. He Intends To Come And Live In It Himself. (quoted By C.s.lewis In Mere Christianity)

Good Souls Many Will One Day Be Horrified At The Things They Now Believe Of God.

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

The Region Belonging To The Pure Intellect Is Straitened: The Imagination Labours To Extend Its Territories, To Give It Room. She Sweeps Across The Boarders, Searching Out New Lands Into Which She May Guide Her Plodding Brother. The Imagination Is The Light Which Redeems From The Darkness For The Eyes Of The Understanding. Novalis Says, 'the Imagination Is The Stuff Of The Intellect' -affords, That Is, The Material Upon Which The Intellect Works.

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

Anything Big Enough To Occupy Our Minds Is Big Enough To Hang A Prayer On.

As In All Sweetest Music, A Tinge Of Sadness Was In Every Note. Nor Do We Know How Much Of The Pleasures Even Of Life We Owe To The Intermingled Sorrows. Joy Cannot Unfold The Deepest Truths, Although Deepest Truth Must Be Deepest Joy.

If We Knew As Much About Heaven As God Does, We Would Clap Our Hands Every Time A Christian Dies.

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

Why Should My Love Be Powerless To Help Another?

I Am Perplexed At The Stupidity Of The Ordinary Religious Being. In The Most Practical Of All Matters He Will Talk And Speculate And Try To Feel, But He Will Not Set Himself To Do.

The World...is Full Of Resurrections... Every Night That Folds Us Up In Darkness Is A Death; And Those Of You That Have Been Out Early, And Have Seen The First Of The Dawn, Will Know It - The Day Rises Out Of The Night Like A Being That Has Burst Its Tomb And Escaped Into Life.

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

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!

By All Means Rid Yourself Of An Impoverished Faith.

God Chooses That Men Should Be Tried, But Let A Man Beware Of Tempting His Neighbor.

But Words Are Vain; Reject Them All— They Utter But A Feeble Part: Hear Thou The Depths From Which They Call, The Voiceless Longing Of My Heart.

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.

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

It Is Not The High Summer Alone That Is God's. The Winter Also Is His. And Into His Winter He Came To Visit Us. And All Man's Winters Are His - The Winter Of Our Poverty, The Winter Of Our Sorrow, The Winter Of Our Unhappiness - Even 'the Winter Of Our Discontent.

The Whole History Of The Christian Life Is A Series Of Resurrections. . . . Every Time We Find Our Hearts Are Troubled, That We Are Not Rejoicing In God, A Resurrection Must Follow; A Resurrection Out Of The Night Of Troubled Thought Into The Gladness Of The Truth.

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.

Philosophy Is Really Homesickness.

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

Alas! How Easily Things Go Wrong!

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

People Must Not Choose Their Neighbors; They Must Take The Neighbors That God Sends Them. The Neighbor Is Just The Person Who Is Next To You At The Moment, The Person With Whom Any Business Has Brought You Into Contact.

When I Look Like This Into The Blue Sky, It Seems So Deep, So Peaceful, So Full Of A Mysterious Tenderness, That I Could Lie For Centuries And Wait For The Dawning Of The Face Of God Out Of The Awe-inspiring Loving-kindness.

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

Love Is The Opener As Well As Closer Of Eyes.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Learned That It Is Better, A Thousandfold , For A Proud Man To Fall And Be Humbled, Than To Hold Up His Head In His Pride And Fancied Innocence. I Learned That He That Will Be A Hero, Will Barely Be A Man; That He That Will Be Nothing But A Doer Of His Work, Is Sure Of His Manhood. In Nothing Was My Ideal Lowered, Or Dimmed, Or Grown Less Precious; I Only Saw It Too Plainly, To Set Myself For A Moment Beside It.

The Part Of The Philanthropist Is Indeed A Dangerous One; And The Man Who Would Do His Neighbour Good Must First Study How Not To Do Him Evil, And Must Begin By Pulling The Beam Out Of His Own Eye.

There Is This Difference Between The Growth Of Some Human Beings And That Of Others: In The One Case It Is A Continuous Dying, In The Other A Continuous Resurrection.

All Is Loss That Comes Between Us And Christ.

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

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.

I Repent Me Of The Ignorance Wherein I Ever Said That God Made Man Out Of Nothing: There Is No Nothing Out Of Which To Make Anything; God Is All In All, And He Made Us Out Of Himself.

Free Will Is Not The Liberty To Do Whatever One Likes, But The Power Of Doing Whatever One Sees Ought To Be Done, Even In The Very Face Of Otherwise Overwhelming Impulse. There Lies Freedom, Indeed.

I Rose As From The Death That Wipes Out The Sadness Of Life, And Then Dies Itself In The New Morrow.

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

It Is Simply Absurd To Say You Believe, Or Even Want To Believe, In Him, If You Do Not Do Anything He Tells You.

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

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.

Burdens Of Life

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.

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.

The Face Of The Son Of God, Who, Instead Of Accepting The Sacrifice Of One Of His Creatures To Satisfy His Justice Or Support His Dignity, Gave Himself Utterly Unto Them, And Therein To The Father By Doing His Lovely Will; Who Suffered Unto The Death, Not That Men Might Not Suffer, But That Their Suffering Might Be Like His, And Lead Them Up To His Perfection.

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

Age Is Not All Decay; It Is The Ripening, The Swelling, Of The Fresh Life Within, That Withers And Bursts The Husk.

The Lord Never Came To Deliver Men From The Consequences Of Their Sins While Yet Those Sins Remained...yet Men, Loving Their Sins And Feeling Nothing Of Their Dread Hatefulness, Have, Consistent With Their Low Condition, Constantly Taken This Word Concerning The Lord To Mean That He Came To Save Them From The Punishment Of Their Sins.

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!

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

In Whatever Man Does Without God, He Must Fail Miserably, Or Succeed More Miserably.

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.

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.

Where There Is No Choice, We Do Well To Make No Difficulty.

It Matters Little Where A Man May Be At This Moment; The Point Is Whether He Is Growing.

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

Meditation Practice

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.

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

But For Money And The Need Of It, There Would Not Be Half The Friendship In The World. It Is Powerful For Good If Divinely Used. Give It Plenty Of Air And It Is Sweet As The Hawthorn; Shut It Up And It Cankers And Breeds Worms.

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

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.

It Needs Brains To Be A Real Fool.

"but If God Is So Good As You Represent Him, And If He Knows All That We Need, And Better Far Than We Do Ourselves, Why Should It Be Necessary To Ask Him For Anything?" I Answer, "what If He Knows Prayer To Be The Thing We Need First And Most? What If The Main Object In God's Idea Of Prayer Be The Supplying Of Our Great, Our Endless Need - The Need Of Himself?"

Alas! This Time Is Never The Time For Self-denial, It Is Always The Next Time. Abstinence Is So Much More Pleasant To Contemplate Upon The Other Side Of Indulgence.

We Must Do The Thing We Must Before The Thing We May; We Are Unfit For Any Trust Till We Can And Do Obey.

All Haste Implies Weakness.

We Are Often Unable To Tell People What They Need To Know, Because They Want To Know Something Else, And Would Therefore Only Misunderstand What We Said.

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.

To Be Trusted Is A Greater Compliment Than Being Loved.

No, There Is No Escape. There Is No Heaven With A Little Of Hell In It--no Plan To Retain This Or That Of The Devil In Our Hearts Or Our Pockets. Out Satan Must Go, Every Hair And Feather!

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

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Pamela Anderson

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