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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”.

-George MacDonald

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The Perfection Of His

George MacDonald

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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”.

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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.

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

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

They Are Not The Best Students Who Are Most Dependent On Books. What Can Be Got Out Of Them Is At Best Only Material; A Man Must Build His House For Himself.

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

Obedience Is The Key To Every Door.

But There Are Victories Far Worse Than Defeats; And To Overcome An Angel Too Gentle To Put Out All His Strength, And Ride Away In Triumph On The Back Of A Devil, Is One Of The Poorest.

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.

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.

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.

Love Is The Opener As Well As Closer Of Eyes.

Philosophy Is Really Homesickness.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

It Was Part Of War; Men Died, More Would Die, That Was Past, And What Mattered Now Was The Business In Hand; Those Who Lived Would Get On With It. Whatever Sorrow Was Felt, There Was No Point In Talking Or Brooding About It, Much Less In Making, For Form's Sake, A Parade Of It. Better And Healthier To Forget It, And Look To Tomorrow.the Celebrated British Stiff Upper Lip, The Resolve To Conceal Emotion Which Is Not Only Embarrassing And Useless, But Harmful, Is Just Plain Commons Sense

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Believe In Fate, Never In Chance.

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

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

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

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

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

Why Should My Love Be Powerless To Help Another?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The Whole Trouble Is That We Won't Let God Help Us.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

All Haste Implies Weakness.

Yet I Know That Good Is Coming To Me—that Good Is Always Coming; Though Few Have At All Times The Simplicity And The Courage To Believe It. What We Call Evil, Is The Only And Best Shape, Which, For The Person And His Condition At The Time, Could Be Assumed By The Best Good. And So, Farewell.

To Be Trusted Is A Greater Compliment Than Being Loved.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Misinterpretation

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 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.

Do Not Measure God's Mind By Your Own.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

...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.

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.

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.

I've Been Thinking About It A Great Deal, And It Seems To Me That Although Any One Sixpence Is As Good As Any Other Sixpence, Not Twenty Lambs Would Do Instead Of One Sheep Whose Face You Knew. Somehow, When Once You've Looked Into Anybody's Eyes, Right Deep Down Into Them, I Mean, Nobody Will Do For That One Any More . Nobody, Ever So Beautiful Or So Good, Will Make Up For That One Going Out Of Sight.

Truth Is A Very Different Thing From Fact; It Is The Loving Contact Of The Soul With Spiritual Fact, Vital And Potent. It Does Not Work In The Soul Independently Of All Faculty Or Qualification There For Setting It Forth Or Defending It. Truth In The Inward Parts Is A Power, Not An Opinion.

The Greatest Forces Lie In The Region Of The Uncomprehended.

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.

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.

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

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.

Moderation Is The Basis Of Justice.

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

Above All Things, I Delight In Listening To Stories, And Sometimes In Telling Them.

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

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

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

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

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

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.

There Is An Aching That Is Worse Than Any Pain.

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.

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.

By All Means Rid Yourself Of An Impoverished Faith.

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

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.

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.

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

Meditation Practice

He (god) Loves What I Shall Be.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Attitudes Are More Important Than Facts.

Man's Rank Is His Power To Uplift.

Fear Is Faithlessness.

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.

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.

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.

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

Past Tears Are Present Strength.

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.

Affliction Is But The Shadow Of God's Wing.

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 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.

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

The Ideal Is The Only Absolute Real; And It Must Become The Real In The Individual Life As Well, However Impossible They May Count It Who Never Tried It.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There Is No Harm In Being Afraid. The Only Harm Is In Doing What Fear Tells You. Fear Is Not Your Master! Laugh In His Face And He Will Run Away.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Alas! How Easily Things Go Wrong!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Except The Light Of The Knowledge Of The Glory Of God In The Face Of Christ Jesus Make A Man Sick Of His Opinions, He May Hold Them To Doomsday For Me; For No Opinion, I Repeat Is Christianity, And No Preaching Of Any Plan Of Salvation Is The Preaching Of The Glorious Gospel Of The Living God.

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.

A Voice Is In The Wind I Do Not Know A Meaning On The Face Of The High Hills Whose Utterance I Cannot Comprehend. A Something Is Behind Them: That Is God.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

All Is Loss That Comes Between Us And Christ.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

If Instead Of A Gem, Or Even A Flower, We Should Cast The Gift Of A Loving Thought Into The Heart Of A Friend, That Would Be Giving As The Angels Give.

Thinking Of You

Those That Hope Little Cannot Grow Much.

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

I Saw Thee Ne'er Before; I See Thee Never More; But Love, And Help, And Pain, Beautiful One, Have Made Thee Mine, Till All My Years Are Done.

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!

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

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

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.

"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?"

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

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.

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

It Is Not The Cares Of Today, But The Cares Of Tomorrow, That Weigh A Man Down.

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

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

One Who Not Merely Beholds The Outward Shows Of Things, But Catches A Glimpse Of The Soul That Looks Out Of Them, Whose Garment And Revelation They Are-if He Be Such, I Say, He Will Stand, For More Than A Moment, Speechless With Something Akin To That Which Made The Morning Stars Sing Together.

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.

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.

The First Thing A Kindness Deserves Is Acceptance, The Second, Transmission.

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.

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

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.

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Elsa Schiaparelli

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