Quotes

The good things in history are usually of very short duration, but afterwards have a decisive influence over what happens over long periods of time. -Hannah Arendt 

 We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. -T.S. Eliot

 The gospel is not a natural therefore, but a miraculous nevertheless. -Karl Barth 

The #1 illness globally is depression. The #1 cause of depression is stress. The #1 cause of stress is people trying to be in control of what is out of their control. We can’t control the world. We can make an effort to control how we conduct ourselves and our reaction to the world. -Noah benShea

 Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. -Vaclav Havel

Christianity began in Palestine as a relationship, moved to Greece and became an idea, went to Rome and became an institution, then came to (North) America and became an enterprise! -Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the U.S. Senate

Love-not law-is the spirit of justice. Hope is the agenda of justice. There can be no justice where there is no hope. To do justice is to create hope. Justice without hope is like law without gospel. -Erich & Miranda Weingartner, “No Justice Without Hope,” Canada Lutheran, December, 2006, p. 13.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. -C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. -An English monk

A lot of people confuse certainty with faith. When you’re absolutely certain you have nothing to learn, there’s no mystery; no risk, no real joy. -Alan Jones

Church sign in London: We welcome all who worship, all who doubt and all who would move from fear to faith.

Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change, and when we are right, make us easy to live with. -Peter Marshall

H/She who adds not to (her) his learning diminishes it. -The Talmud  

By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn. -Latin proverb

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. -Plato

The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all. -Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, leader of Burma’s democracy movement

If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if your are planning for a lifetime, educate people. -Chinese proverb

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -William Butler Yeats

Someone asked C.S. Lewis, “Why do the righteous suffer?” “Why not?” he replied. “They’re the only ones who can take it.”

Grant that we might seek never, never to bend the straight to the crooked. That is, your will to ours. But help us to bend the crooked to the straight. That is, our will to yours. -Augustine

A God without wrath brought human beings without sin into a kingdom without judgment through ministrations of a Christ without a cross. -H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America describing the Protestant liberalism of the day back in 1937.

Conflict is inevitable. Violence is not. -Elizabeth Loescher 

The greatest weakness is the awareness of none. -Anonymous 

Oldtimer: Someone who can remember when bacon, eggs and sunshine were good for us. -James E. Myers 

If envy were a fever, all the world would be ill. -Danish proverb 

For the great majority of humankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by things that seem than by those that are. -Machiavelli

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in words alone, but in every leaf in springtime. -Martin Luther

Let us always remember that the end of the resurrection is eternal happiness, of whose exellence scarcely the minutist part can be described by all that human tongues can say. For though we are truly told that the kingdom of God will be full of light, and gladness, and felicity, and glory, yet the things meant by these words remain most remote from sense, and as it were involved in enigma, until the day arrive on which he will manifest his glory to us face to face. -John Calvin

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 Easter has to do with the victory of seemingly powerless love over loveless power. -William Sloan Coffin

Belief in the resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith. It is the Christian faith. -George Carey, former archbishop of Canterbury

Rising, uprising, and resurrection belong together factually as well as linguistically. Rising is a word that describes what an individual does in the morning, uprising, what a people does when it shakes off political sleep. We cannot believe in resurrection for some but not for others. It is an all-inclusive symbol of life for everyone, a kind of life that gives meaning to death. No one has died in vain. This is the claim that resurrection throws in the face of death. -Dorothee Soelle

Grant that I may not pray alone with the mouth; help me that I may pray from the depths of my heart. -Martin Luther

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess. -Martin Luther

The Devil fears the word of God, he can’t bite it, it breaks his teeth. -Martin Luther

 Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God. -Martin Luther

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed. –Albert Schweitzer 

Whoever is spared personal pain must feel (her)himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world. –Albert Schweitzer 

Until (s)he extends (her)his circle of compassion to include all living things, (woman)man will not (her)himself find peace. –Albert Schweitzer 

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always. –Albert Schweitzer 

One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. –Albert Schweitzer 

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings. –Albert Schweitzer 

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality. Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal. If a man(woman) loses (her)his reverence for any part of life, (s)he will lose (her)his reverence for all of life. A man(woman) is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to (her)him, that of plants and animals as that of (her)his fellow men(women), and when (s)he devotes (her)himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. –Albert Schweitzer 

Revenge… is like a rolling stone, which, when a man(woman) has forced up a hill, will return upon (her)him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion. –Albert Schweitzer 

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan. –Albert Schweitzer 

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious. –Albert Schweitzer 

The door to happiness opens outwards. -Soren Kierkegaard

A person possesses only what s/he gives away. -Elie Wiesel

The motto of life is ‘give and take.’ Everyone must be both a giver and a receiver. A person who is not both is a barren tree. -Reb Yitzchak Eisik

(The) best portion of a good (person’s) life, (is her)his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. -William Wordsworth

Wonder is the basis of worship. -Thomas Carlyle

To live is to change, to be perfect is to change often. -John Henry Newman

Strength without compassion is violence. Compassion without justice is mere sentiment. Justice without love is Marxism. And love without justice is baloney! -Cardinal Sin

 (Humanity’s) capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but (humanity’s) inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. -Reinhold Niebuhr

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. -Mahatma Gandhi

 When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall–think of it, ALWAYS! -Mahatma Gandhi

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. -Jimi Hendrix

The question is not: Why does God permit the poor to starve? But the question is: Why does God permit the rich not to share? -Jean Vanier

The annual global cost of training a soldier is 56 times greater than educating a child. -Rodrigo Rojas

In a world that runs on power, instead of love, to be powerless is to be exposed to the most dreadful peril. -Gwynne Dyer By your pupils you’ll be taught. -Anonymous

Education is victualling a ship for a long voyage, not just getting people through examinations. -Robertson Davies

Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. -Charles Reade

Jesus was always doing two things: telling stories and asking questions. The Church is always doing two things: preaching sermons and giving answers. -Unknown

The things we fear most in organisations-fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances-are the primary sources of creativity. -Margaret Wheatley

Crime committed in the name of religion is the greatest crime against religion. -The Berne Declaration, signed by Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Muslim leaders from former Yugoslavia in 1992.

The atheist who is moved by love is moved by the spirit of God; an atheist who lives by love is saved by (her)his faith in the God whose existence (under that name) (s)/he denies. -William Temple

It is not how old you are that matters, but how you are old. -Chinese proverb

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. -Francis Bacon

Every great book is an action, and every great action is a book. -Martin Luther