As We Are Quotes

Alexis was now accustomed to his uncle's fatal disease as we are to all things that last around us; and because he had once made his nephew cry as the dead make us cry, the boy, even though his uncle was still alive, treated him like a dead man: he had begun to forget him. ~ Marcel Proust

Take away the newspaper - and this country of ours would become a scene of chaos. Without daily assurance of the exact facts - so far as we are able to know and publish them - the public imagination would run riot. Ten days without the daily newspaper and the strong pressure of worry and fear would throw the people of this country into mob hysteria - feeding upon rumors, alarms, terrified by bugbears and illusions. We have become the watchmen of the night and of a troubled day ... ~ Harry Chandler

And when I hear it said that God is good and He will pardon us, and then see that men cease not from evil-doing, oh, how it grieves me! The infinite goodness with which God communicates with us, sinners as we are, should constantly make us love and serve Him better; but we, on the contrary, instead of seeing in his goodness an obligation to please Him, convert it into an excuse for sin which will of a certainty lead in the end to our deeper condemnation. ~ Catherine Of Genoa

The same God who loves us as we are also loves us to much to leave us as we are. Perhpas because we tend to hold to ideas about God that reflect our own suppositions and fears, more than God's self-revelation. We reduce God to our own dimensions, ascribing to him our own reactions and responses, especially our own petty and conditional kind of love, and so end up believing in a God cast in our own image and likeness.

But the true God, the living God, is entirely "other":. Precisely from this radical otherness derives the inscrutable and transcendent nature of divine love-- for which our limited human love is but a distant metaphor. God's love is much more than our human love simply multiplied and expanded. God's love for us will ever be mystery; unfathomable, awesome, entirely beyond human expectation.

Precisely because God's love is something "no eyes has seen, nor ear heard nor the heart of man conceived" (1 Cor 2:9), Mother Teresa meditated on it continuously, and encouraged us to do the same, to continue plumbing this mystery more deeply. To this end she invites us: "Try to deepen your understanding of these two words, 'Thirst of God.; ~ Joseph Langford

Jacob, is something wrong? Is Isabella okay?"
"Probably. She is not well today. It could be a normal thing for a human female, but since she is usually as resistant to common ailments now as we are, she is nervous. I figured Gideon could ease her mind."
Noah missed the wince that crossed his friend's face that would have given away the indignant argument flying through the Enforcer's thoughts. Jacob's female counterpart huffily took umbrage to his claims of exactly who it was that was nervous and who had insisted on seeking Gideon, because it certainly had not been her.
"Tell her I hope she feels better," Noah said, his fondness for Bella quite clear in his tone. "Bear with her, old friend. She's breaking new ground. It can be pretty frightening to play Eve for an entire race."
"Do not worry. When it comes to my Bella, I would do anything to see to her happiness. That includes making others do anything to see to her happiness," Jacob said. He meant the words, of course, but he was hoping they'd help sooth someone's bristling pride.
"I'm sure Gideon is going to love that," Noah laughed.
Jacob grinned, altering gravity so that he began to float up from the floor.
"If you see Gideon before I do, will you tell him to come to Bella?"
"Of course. Tell her I said to start behaving like a real Druid or I - " Noah was cut off by a sharp hand motion and a warning expression from the Enforcer. It came a little too late, however, if Jacob's pained ~ Jacquelyn Frank

God made man out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us. ~ Martin Luther

15For we do not have a high priest g who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been d tempted as we are, h yet without sin. 16 i Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. ~ Anonymous

I just finished reading it [Tanner's Grief] and found it showed many sides of grief...often never talked about. Shared it with two friends yesterday...one has a friend that has been grieving many losses but too busy to stop and feel it. Personally I have believed unresolved grief is what's behind all of the anger, mass killings, hate etc.. So many are crying out but not allowing themselves to really cry through the inner pain and anguish as we are created to do as humans. I have seen this working with kids in schools...with hospice patients as chaplain, in spiritual direction one-on-one and pastoring a church. This is the first novelook I have ever read Abby that deals with grief
in a way that can help those reading it have hope they can do this...and not believe they have to do it alone or with those in their family or friends. Getting the help they need isn't being unfaithful to anyone.

--A Retired Minister ~ Abby Osman

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY

I don't know of people who do everything from going to school, learning different skills and basically develop themselves so that they stay at home. It's ingrained in every kid that they should study hard and excel so that they can get good jobs and live well. With that said, working is what makes us build nations and fulfill some our dreams so it's important to ensure that the work environment is kept safe and comfortable for workers so that they can remain productive for the longest time. However as long as we are living there will SWMS always be greedy employers who will take short cuts or fail to protect their employees and this is where OSHA(occupational safety and health administration)comes in to rectify these issues. Occupational safety is ensuring that employees work in danger free environment.


There are many industries of different nature and hence the possible hazards vary. For example in the textile and clothing industry, employees deal with dyes, chemicals and machines that spin , knit and weave to ensure production. In some countries there have been cases of sweatshops where people make clothes in poorly ventilated places for long hours. The tools of trade in all industries are still the ones that cause hazards e.g. machines can cut people, chemicals emit poisonous fumes or burn the skin and clothes etc.

Its therefore the mandate of employers to ensure work places are safe for workers and incase the ind ~ Peter Gabriel

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery - that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are ... This kind of unmasking - speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges - is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply. ~ John Welwood

A distinction must be made between that writing which enables us to hold on to life even as we are clinging to old hurts and wounds and that writing which offers to us a space where we are able to confront reality in such a way that we live more fully. Such writing is not an anchor that we mistakenly cling to so as not to drown. It is writing that truly rescues, that enables us to reach the shore, to recover. ~ Bell Hooks

The reason we recoil from this is that we have in our day started by getting the whole picture upside down. Starting with the doctrine that every individuality is 'of infinite value,' we then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ. There is no question of finding for him a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value and give scope to his natural idiosyncrasy. The place was there first. The man was created for it. He will not be himself till he is there. We shall be true and everlasting and really divine persons only in Heaven, just as we are, even now, coloured bodies only in the light. ~ C.S. Lewis

I believe in stories that are non-linear, as we are (hopefully) ~ Natasha Tsakos

When prayer fades out, power fades out. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful; no more, no less. ~ E. Stanley Jones

I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works. ~ Louise L. Hay

God awaits us with open arms; we need only to take a step toward him like the Prodigal Son. But if, weak as we are, we don't have the strength to take that step, just the desire to take it is enough. ~ Andrea Tornielli

As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. ~ Henri Nouwen

Polite, socially acceptable suppression of our rage is "inauthentic," insofar as we are not sharing our full selves. And that is part of trust, too. Part of being trustworthy is meeting expectations and staying in line, as if you were a well-behaved woman. ~ Emily Nagoski

The strange and wonderful Book of Job treats of the same subject as we are discussing; its contents are a fiction, conceived for the purpose of explaining the different opinions which people hold on Divine Providence ... This fiction, however, is in so far different from other fictions that it includes profound ideas and great mysteries, removes great doubts, and reveals the most important truths. I will discuss it as fully as possible; and I will also tell you the words of our Sages that suggested to me the explanation of this great poem. ~ Maimonides

All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new. ~ Sherman Alexie

Let's strive to become as protective over our time with God as we are with our daily cup of brew. Let's become addicted to our "spiritual caffeine fix. ~ Tessa Emily Hall

I've changed, you've changed
We've become something more than what was hoped for or foreseen ~ Tiffany Fulton

Time, too, will die, just as we do, when the universe dies, and is born again. Time's a living thing, just as we are, with birth, longevity, and extinction. Time has a heartbeat, but it isn't ours, no matter how much of ourselves we sacrifice to it. We don't need Time. Time needs us. Even Time loves company. ~ Gregory David Roberts

But cheating has always been the purview of fairies, and as we are about to enter their domain, we ought to act in accordance with local customs. ~ Catherynne M Valente

We cannot live to be together
Forever doomed to love and death,
The latter bringing us together
Claiming from life the final breath!
So we shall love in death forever,
Evicted as we are from life,
As long as living shall be never
Successful in the love-long strife! ~ Tatyana K. Varenko

An analysis of Scripture is all right as long as it is in a very subordinate position, and as long as we are careful it does not so grip us, that we become interested only in an objective, intellectual sense. It is a unique Word, and it must not be approached just as any other book is approached. ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Some of us are fated to live in a box from which there is only temporary release. We of the damned-up spirits, of the thwarted feelings, of the blocked hearts, and the pent-up thoughts, we who long to blast out, flood forth in a torrent of rage or joy or even madness, but there is nowhere for us to go, nowhere in the world because no one will have us as we are, and there is nothing to do except to embrace the secret pleasures of our sublimations, the arc of a sentence, the kiss of a rhyme, the image that forms on paper or canvas, the inner cantata, the cloistered embroidery, the dark and dreaming needlepoint from hell or heaven or purgatory or none of those three, but there must be some sound and fury from us, some clashing cymbals in the void. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Reclaiming ourselves usually means coming to recognize and accept that we have in us both sides of everything. We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength. These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life. Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. It is a real world. In calling ourselves "heads" or "tails," we may never own and spend our human currency, the pure gold of which our coin is made.

But judgment may heal over time. One of the blessings of growing older is the discovery that many of the things I once believed to be my shortcomings have turned out in the long run to be my strengths, and other things of which I was unduly proud have revealed themselves in the end to be among my shortcomings. Things that I have hidden from others for years turn out to be the anchor and enrichment of my middle age. What a blessing it is to outlive your self-judgments and harvest your failures. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

We have the promise of God's being our God, and of the blessing by Christ for ourselves, as we are Abraham's seed, yet take the whole promise collectively made to him and us. ~ Thomas Goodwin

It is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and, therefore, to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have passion for all things, not just between two people, but for all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the trees, everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now, and we will have no wars. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Because, as we are told - a sad old joke, too - Ghosts, like the ladies, never speak till spoke to. ~ Bill Vaughan

One of the hallmarks of happiness is having close, meaningful connections with others. But keeping up a facade of having it all together keeps us isolated, because it keeps us from forging real, honest, deep relationships where we can fully be ourselves and feel accepted exactly as we are. ~ Reshma Saujani

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. (HEBREWS 4:15) ~ John Eldredge

Jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. Plenty of wealthy Christians are suffocating from the weight of the American dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. This is the yoke from which we are being set free. And as we are liberated from the yoke of global capitalism, our sisters and brothers in Guatemala, Liberia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka will also be liberated. Our family overseas, who are making our clothes, growing our food, pumping our oil, and assembling our electronics
they too need to be liberated from the empire's yoke of slavery. Their liberation is tangled up with our own. ~ Shane Claiborne

The more things we accumulate, the more cluttered our lives become, and the more stressed we feel as we are compelled to think about them. Life is about people not about things. ~ Natalie Vellacott

Such as we are made of, such we be. ~ William Shakespeare

We'll never be as young as we are tonight. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

As long as we are not chased from our words we have nothing to fear. As long as our utterances keep their sound we have a voice. As long as our words keep their sense we have a soul. ~ Edmond Jabes

We do not know ourselves aright,
Until we have the Father's light.
We think we know ourselves and groan,
Until we know as we are known ~ John Piper

You and I keep looking for light in the darkness, expecting it to appear. But it already has." I touch his shoulder. "We're it, boyo. Broken and cracked and stupid as we are, we're the light, and we're spreading. ~ Pierce Brown

Well, the first reaction was, What smoke? When I looked and saw it, and we all ran to the back where we were far away from the flames-cowards as we are, you know-all sat around the emergency door and even tested the emergency door, ready to jump out. Of course, I said, Beatles and children first. ~ Larry Kane

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it. ~ Stephen Colbert

Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. ~ Galway Kinnell

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in stronds afar remote. ~ William Shakespeare

God loves us as we are, but He also loves ... God doesn't care what roads we've traveled, only that our roads turn to Him. ~ DiAnn Mills

Our imaginations are not yet tooled-up to penetrate the neighbourhood of the quantum. Nothing at that scale behaves in the way matter - as we are evolved to think - ought to behave. Nor can we cope with the behaviour of objects that move at some appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Common sense lets us down, because common sense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large. ~ Richard Dawkins

Passion. Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

We find it hard to love imperfect things so we imagine God is just as small as we are. If we expect or need things to be perfect or to our liking ( including ourselves) we have created a certain path for a very unhappy life. ~ Richard Rohr

Death is a part of Life, they are dancing together the dance of infinity in front of the gates of Time. We can live our dreams as we are dreaming our future. Time is the Endless Consciousness ~ Grigoris Deoudis

It occurs to me that as different as we are in our behavior and decisions, our most basic, knee-jerk emotional reactions to really big things are often remarkably similar. And it is in these moments that I am most grateful for my sister. ~ Emily Giffin

It was on Thanksgiving Day a number of years ago… I got to thinking that there might be some beings on another planet somewhere who are as intelligent compared with us as we are compared with turkeys.
Then I had visions of these beings from another planet going to the butcher shop with their meat list. I wonder what they'd call their butcher shops? They'd probably call them "folks shops." I could hear them placing an order: "Give me a half dozen Oriental knees, two Caucasian feet and twelve fresh Black lips." And the folks-shopkeeper comes back smiling and says, "These Black lips are so fresh they're still talkin'. ~ Dick Gregory

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We must work with the Australians, the South Koreans, the Japanese and the Filipinos to contain China. And then we must ask for their support and their help with North Korea. Because believe it or not, China is as concerned about Kim Jong-Un as we are. ~ Carly Fiorina

Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.' 'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals - mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of. ~ George Orwell

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - some one who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, some one in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two. ~ Miles Franklin

We're all a lot of where we come from, just as much as we are the people who raised us and who we've met along the way. ~ Krista Ritchie

Dear Father always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us - may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven. Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us. Please don't put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours - forever - which is just the way we want it! ~ Dallas Willard

We're trying to be spiritual, to get it right. We know we don't need to clean up our act in order to become a Christian, but when it comes to praying, we forget that. We, like adults, try to fix ourselves up. In contrast, Jesus wants us to come to him like little children, just as we are. ~ Paul E. Miller

Respect for individual human personality has with us reached its lowest point," observed one intellectual in 1921, "and it is delightfully ironical that no nation is so constantly talking about personality as we are. We actually have schools for 'self-expression' and 'self-development,' although we seem usually to mean the expression and development of a successful real estate agent. ~ Susan Cain

As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for. ~ Josh Billings

The experiences show us just as we are; they make us see our own defects. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To derive joy from simple things; to derive joy from beautiful, giving persons; to give back, indeed to give away; to be thankful, as we are so often told we must be, for small mercies. ~ Arun Shourie

We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks. ~ Richard Bach

We are each a gift, exactly as we are in this moment, with no improvements! ~ SARK

The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today ... The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow"
"Autobiography of an Historian", An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949). ~ G. M. Trevelyan

Nobody gets irony anymore, as we are now living in the post-ironic age. Once George Bush gets a library, our irony is dead. ~ Eric Idle

Though we must never think to learn above our Bible, as long as we are here in this world, yet we must still be getting forward in it. ~ Matthew Henry

Every man and woman who has talent and hides it will be called a slothful servant. Improve day by day upon the capital you have. In proportion as we are capacitated to receive, so it is our duty to do. ~ Brigham Young

there will be no road too long as we are looking for happiness ~ Jan Jansen

Ahead of me lies the familiar litany: weakening of the heart, hardening of the arteries, increasing brittleness of bones, decreases in kidney filtration rates, lower resistance of the immune system, and loss of memory. The list could be extended almost indefinitely. Evolution seems indeed to have arranged things so that all our systems deteriorate, and that we invest in repair only as much as we are worth. ~ Jared Diamond

We are not defined as much by our reproductive organs, as we are by how we feel about them. ~ Michael Makai

So in considering the writings of Paul, the question is not, Are head coverings good or bad? The question is, in that context, Did head coverings help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? The question is not, Should Christians eat meat? but rather, in that context, Did eating meat help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? And as we consider the application of Paul's teachings in our various contexts today, the question is not, Should women be allowed to preach? but Do women preachers help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? Paul was smart enough to know the answers to these questions would vary from church to church and person to person, so surely he was smart enough to also know they would vary from culture to culture and century to century. Was Paul a man of his time? Of course. But that's exactly the point. God meets us where we are, as we are. The Spirit shows up in the thick of it. ~ Rachel Held Evans

The soul does not condemn us. It is not the God of our fathers.

Soul is the essence of existence and it is free and limitless. It gives all things the freedom to be, to grow, and eventually to know. It is not a judge, but a passive observer of all things.

The soul is the feeling of life, without the judgment and separation of the mind and ego. It has no commandments for us to follow, other than to live, learn, and grow in awareness of ourselves and life by experience.

When we accept ourselves as we are and the events of our life, we are following the soul of existence. We are given opportunities to learn, grow, and know our natural self, without judgment.

When we follow the god of the ego, we must judge our actions and our life. The soul is not a judge of life.

The soul allows us to fail in following its love and wisdom, without condemnation. ~ Robert S. Cosmar

We change our attitudes, our careers, our relationships. Even our age changes minute by minute. We change our politics, our moods, and our sexual preferences. We change our outlook, we change our minds, we change our sympathies. Yet when someone changes hir gender, we put hir on some television talk show. Well, here's what I think: I think we all of us do change our genders. All the time. Maybe it's not as dramatic as some tabloid headline screaming "She Was A He!" But we do, each of us, change our genders. In response to each interaction we have with a new or different person, we subtly shift the kind of man or woman, boy or girl, or whatever gender we're being at the moment. We're usually not the same kind of man or woman with our lover as we are with our boss or a parent. When we're introduced for the first time to someone we find attractive, we shift into being a different kind of man or woman than we are with our childhood friends. We all change our genders. ~ Kate Bornstein

We see things not as they are, we see them as WE are. ~ Morrie Camhi

I embrace you despite your race.
I accept you despite your religion.
I admire you despite your education.
I welcome you despite your gender.
I love you despite your status.
I need you despite your politics.

You are my brothers, you are my sisters,
you are my mothers, and you are my fathers.
I am as you are, you are as I am; we are as we are.
Let us become as we were meant to become. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

There is nothing like a conflict to do the difficult work for you. It is an underrated remedy, cowardly as we are, but it makes everything so much easier. ~ Jens Christian Grondahl

Stop!" she screamed. "Don't hurt him."
"Back off!" Billy shouted.
She yanked harder on Billy's arm.
"He isn't a vampire anymore, idiot. Look! Do you see that big, yellow thing up in the sky? That's called the sun. It's shining down on him, and he isn't exploding. His fangs are gone. He's as human as we are. Case closed."
Billy stared up at the sky, his jaw slack. "Not possible."
Jack mumbled, "They don't call me Jackpot for nothing."
"What?" Billy blinked at him.
"Private joke. ~ Kasi Blake

We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. Anais Nin ~ Debbie Hampton

We teach boys to be such men as we are. We do not teach them to aspire to be all they can. We do not give them a training as if webelieved in their noble nature. We scarce educate their bodies. We do not train the eye and the hand. We exercise their understandings to the apprehension and comparison of some facts, to a skill in numbers, in words; we aim to make accountants, attorneys, engineers; but not to make able, earnest, great- hearted men. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we persist in self-centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time. However, it is just as certain that we shall continue to cast a skeptical and ironic and even witty eye on what we have ourselves invented. If religion is innate in us, then so is our doubt of it and our contempt for our own weakness. ~ Christopher Hitchens

As the shape of Christianity changes and our churches adapt to a new world, we have a choice: we can drive our hearses around bemoaning every augur of death, or we can trust that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead is busy making something new. As long as Christians are breaking the bread and pouring the wine, as long as we are healing the sick and baptizing sinners, as long as we are preaching the Word and paying attention, the church lives, and Jesus said even the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. We might as well trust him, since he knows a thing or two about the way out of the grave. ~ Rachel Held Evans

There are those whose love awakens our own and those whose love undermines. As long as we are blind to this fact, true love will elude us. ~ B.G. Bowers

It just seems clear to me that as long as we are all here, it's pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it. ~ Alice Walker

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and a proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They ask to be deceived. What Stresemann said of the Germans is true of the frustrated in general: "They pray not only for their daily bread, but also for their daily illusion." The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led. ~ Eric Hoffer

Just as we are blessed with a brain through which we learn and understand, ears with which to hear, fingers and toes and a body through which to feel, and a pair of eyes through which we learn to see, I believe our soul is also blessed with senses. ~ Catherine Carrigan

There are no soft or slothful ways to become sanctified to the point that we are prepared to live in the presence of the Savior. And there can be blessings in the burdens we bear. As a result of these struggles, our souls are stretched and our spirits are strengthened. Our character becomes more Christlike as we are tried and tested. ~ L. Lionel Kendrick

We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. ~ Blaise Pascal

The ultimate way of Being lies beyond all contradictory pairs of opposites
with which our two dimensional thinking mind operates.
As soon as we are successful in silencing the restless activity of the thinking mind
and give a chance to intuition, the pure all embracing spirit in us will manifest effortlessly. ~ Anagarika Govinda

Lord, your presence lifts us, your grace amazes us, your power overwhelms us, and your love excites us. No matter what we bring with us - hurts, sorrows, self- satisfaction, bitterness, or joyful praise - you always receive us as we are and transform what we bring and fill us with gifts of your mercy. Amen. ~ David Clowes

And the law of God is written in every heart, and it is there that he manifests himself; And in infinite love, according to our necessities, states, conditions. And as we are all various and different from one another, more or less, so the law by the immediate operation of divine grace in the soul, is suited to every individual according to his condition. ~ Elias Hicks

We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves. ~ Sarah Dessen

Demography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care. ~ Howard Baker

We who live in this nervous age would be wise to meditate on our lives and our days long and often before the face of God and on the edge of eternity. For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Honesty before God requires the most fundamental risk of faith we can take: the risk that God is good, that God does love us unconditionally. It is in taking this risk that we rediscover our dignity. To bring the truth of ourselves, just as we are, to God, just as God is, is the most dignified thing we can do in this life. ~ Gerald May

Millennials: We lost the genetic lottery. We graduated high school into terrorist attacks and wars. We graduated college into a recession and mounds of debt. We will never acquire the financial cushion, employment stability, and material possessions of our parents. We are often more educated, experienced, informed, and digitally fluent than prior generations, yet are constantly haunted by the trauma of coming of age during the detonation of the societal structure we were born into. But perhaps we are overlooking the silver lining. We will have less money to buy the material possessions that entrap us. We will have more compassion and empathy because our struggles have taught us that even the most privileged can fall from grace. We will have the courage to pursue our dreams because we have absolutely nothing to lose. We will experience the world through backpacking, couch surfing, and carrying on interesting conversations with adventurers in hostels because our bank accounts can't supply the Americanized resorts. Our hardships will obligate us to develop spiritual and intellectual substance. Maybe having roommates and buying our clothes at thrift stores isn't so horrible as long as we are making a point to pursue genuine happiness. ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

All those commodities are going to have to rise in value as we are in short supply and we are printing too much money. ~ Peter Schiff

Atheism is a way of humility. It's to think oneself to be an animal, as we are actually and to allow oneself to become human. ~ Andre Comte Sponville

As we are human, we can't do what we can't do; as we're neurotic, we can't do what we can. ~ Mignon McLaughlin