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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.

-George MacDonald

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It Was Foolish Indeed

George MacDonald

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

Timely Service, Like Timely Gifts, Is Doubled In Value.

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.

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 Low Theologies, Hell Is Invariably The Deepest Truth, And The Love Of God Is Not So Deep As Hell.

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.

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.

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

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.

Blessed Be The True Life That The Pauses Between Its Throbs Are Not Death!

Affliction Is But The Shadow Of God's Wing.

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

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

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.

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.

When I Can No More Stir My Soul To Move, And Life Is But The Ashes Of A Fire; When I Can But Remember That My Heart Once Used To Live And Love, Long And Aspire- O, Be Thou Then The First, The One Thou Art; Be Thou The Calling, Before All Answering Love, And In Me Wake Hope, Fear, Boundless Desire.

The First Thing In All Progress Is To Leave Something Behind.

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 Greatest Forces Lie In The Region Of The Uncomprehended.

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.

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

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

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!

All That Is Not God Is Death.

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

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

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.

Those Christians Who Are Very Strict In Their Observances, Think A Good Deal More Of The Sabbath Than Of Man, A Great Deal More Of The Bible Than Of The Truth, And Ten Times More Of Their Creed Than Of The Will Of God. Of Course, If They Heard Anyone Utter Such Words As I Have Just Written, They Would Say He Was And Atheist.

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

Difficulty Adds To Result, As The Ramming Of Powder Sends The Bullet The Further.

Until A Man Has Love, It Is Well He Should Have Fear. So Long As There Are Wild Beasts About, It Is Better To Be Afraid Than Secure.

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

All That Man Sees Has To Do With Man. Worlds Cannot Be Without An Intermundane Relationship. The Community Of The Centre Of All Creation Suggests An Interradiating Connection And Dependence Of The Parts. Else A Grander Idea Is Conceivable Than That Which Is Already Embodied.

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.

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

It Needs Brains To Be A Real Fool.

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

In The Midst Of Death We Are In Life. Life Is The Only Reality; What Men Call Death Is But A Shadow.

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.

Past Tears Are Present Strength.

What Distressed Me Most - More Even Than My Own Folly - Was The Perplexing Question - How Can Beauty And Ugliness Dwell So Near? Even With Her Altered Complexion And Face Of Dislike; Disenchanted Of The Belief That Clung Around Her; Known For A Living, Walking Sepulcher, Faithless, Deluding, Traitorous; I Felt, Notwithstanding All This, That She Was Beautiful. Upon This I Pondered With Undiminished Perplexity.

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

All Those Evil Doctrines About God That Work Misery And Madness Have Their Origin In The Brains Of The Wise And Prudent, Not In The Hearts Of Children.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Region Of The Senses Is The Unbelieving Part Of The Human Soul.

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.

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.

Oh The Folly Of Any Mind That Would Explain God Before Obeying Him! That Would Map Out The Character Of God Instead Of Crying, Lord, What Wouldst Thou Have Me To Do?

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.

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.

It Is Only By Loving A Thing That You Can Make It Yours.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

It Is Vain To Think That Any Weariness, However Caused, Any Burden, However Slight, May Be Got Rid Of Otherwise Than By Bowing The Neck To The Yoke Of The Father's Will. There Can Be No Other Rest For Heart And Soul Than He Has Created. From Every Burden, From Every Anxiety, From All Dread Of Shame Or Loss, Even Loss Of Love Itself, That Yoke Will Set Us Free.

A Man Is As Free As He Chooses To Make Himself, Never An Atom Freer.

Many A Thief Is A Better Man Than Many A Clergyman, And Miles Nearer To The Gate Of The Kingdom.

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.

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

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

I Came From God, And I'm Going Back To God, And I Won't Have Any Gaps Of Death In The Middle Of My Life.

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

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

I Believe In Fate, Never In Chance.

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.

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.'

What A Man Is Lies As Certainly Upon His Countenance As In His Heart, Though None Of His Acquaintances May Be Able To Read It. The Very Intercourse With Him May Have Rendered It More Difficult.

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.

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.

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

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.

Better To Have The Poet's Heart Than Brain, Feeling Than Song.

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.

We Are All Very Anxious To Be Understood, And It Is Very Hard Not To Be. But There Is One Thing Much More Necessary.' What Is That, Grandmother?' To Understand Other People.' Yes, Grandmother. I Must Be Fair - For If I'm Not Fair To Other People, I'm Not Worth Being Understood Myself. I See.

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.

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

Doubt May Be A Poor Encouragement To Do Anything, But It Is A Bad Reason For Doing Nothing.

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.

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.

Oh, I Believe That There Is No Away; That No Love, No Life, Goes Ever From Us; It Goes As He Went, That It May Come Again, Deeper And Closer And Surer, And Be With Us Always, Even To The End Of The World.

What Would The Living One Have Me Do?

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.

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

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

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

Love Is The Opener As Well As Closer Of Eyes.

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.

A True Friend Is Forever A Friend.

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 Doubt Because You Love Truth.

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)

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

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

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.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

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

Somehow, I Can't Say How, It Tells Me That All Is Right; That It Is Coming To Swallow Up All Cries.

Religion Is Life Essential.

But There Are Not A Few Who Would Be Indignant At Having Their Belief In God Questioned, Who Yet Seem Greatly To Fear Imagining Him Better Than He Is.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

As To The Pure All Things Are Pure, So The Common Mind Sees Far More Vulgarity In Others Than The Mind Developed In Genuine Refinement.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Heaven...a Place Where Everything That Is Not Music Is Silence.

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.

Any Faith In Him, However Small, Is Better Than Any Belief About Him, However Great.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

A Man May Sink By Such Slow Degrees That, Long After He Is A Devil, He May Go On Being A Good Churchman Or A Good Dissenter And Thinking Himself A Good Christian.

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

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.

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.

If We Do Not Die To Ourselves, We Cannot Live To God, Andhe That Does Not Live To God, Is Dead.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What Does God Want Me To Do?”, Not “what Will God Do If I Do So And So?

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

To Try To Be Brave Is To Be Brave.

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.

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

Meditation Practice

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.

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.

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.

The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Fellow, Next To Rousing His Conscience, Is — Not To Give Him Things To Think About, But To Wake Things Up That Are In Him; Or Say, To Make Him Think Things For Himself.

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.

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.

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

Man Finds It Hard To Get What He Wants, Because He Does Not Want The Best; God Finds It Hard To Give, Because He Would Give The Best, And Man Will Not Take It.

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

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.

One Chief Cause Of The Amount Of Unbelief In The World Is Tha Tthose Who Have Seen Something Of The Glory Of Christ Set Themselves To Theorize Concerning Him Rather Than To Obey Him.

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.

All Is Loss That Comes Between Us And Christ.

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.

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

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

Misinterpretation

Joy Cannot Unfold The Deepest Truths. Cometh White-robed Sorrow, Stooping And Wan, And Flingeth Wide The Door She Must Not Enter.

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

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.

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

All Haste Implies Weakness.

...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.

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

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

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

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

For The Greatest Fool And Rascal In Creation There Is Yet A Worse Condition; And That Is, Not To Know It, But To Think Himself A Respectable Man.

It Is To The Man Who Is Trying To Live, To The Man Who Is Obedient To The Word Of The Master, That The Word Of The Master Unfolds Itself.

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

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.

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

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

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.

To Free A Man From Suffering, He Must Be Set Right, Put In Health; And The Health At The Root Of Man's Being, His Rightness, Is To Be Free From Wrongness, That Is, From Sin. A Man Is Right When There Is No Wrong In Him. I Do Not Mean Set Free From The Sins He Has Done: That Will Follow; I Mean The Sins He Is Doing, Or Is Capable Of Doing; The Sins In His Being Which Spoil His Nature — The Wrongness In Him — The Evil He Consents To; The Sin He Is, Which Makes Him Do The Sin He Does.

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.

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

Trust To God To Weave Your Thread Into The Great Web, Though The Pattern Shows It Not Yet.

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

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Henry Bolingbroke

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