De Lubac Quotes

Nietzsche, in cursing our age, sees in it the heritage of the Gospel, while Dostoevsky, cursing it just as vigorously, sees in it the result of a denial of the Gospel ~ Henri De Lubac

The central thesis of Surnaturel, then, is that, neither in patristic nor in medieval theology, and certainly not in Thomas Aquinas, was the hypothesis ever entertained of a purely natural destiny for human beings, something other than the supernatural and eschatological vision of God. There is only this world, the world in which our nature has been created for a supernatural destiny. Historically, there never was a graceless nature, or a world outside the Christian dispensation. This traditional conception of human nature as always destined for grace-given union with God fell apart between attempts, on the one hand, to secure the sheer gratuitousness of the economy of grace over against the naturalist anthropologies of Renaissance humanism and, on the other hand, resistance to what was perceived by Counter-Reformation Catholics as the Protestant doctrine of the total corruption of human nature by original sin. The Catholic theologians, who sought to protect the supernatural by separating it conceptually from the natural, facilitated the development of the humanism which flowered at the Enlightenment into deism, agnosticism and ultimately atheism. The conception of the autonomous individual for which the philosophers of the Age of Reason were most bitterly criticized by devout Catholics was, de Lubac suggested, invented by Catholic theologians. The philosophers which broke free of Christianity, to develop their own naturalist and deist theologies, had their roots in the anti- ~ Fergus Kerr

The Church is a perpetual construction site. ~ Henri De Lubac

It is not very easy to see," Mircea Eliade writes, "how the discovery that the primal laws of geometry were due to the empirical necessities of the irrigation of the Nile Delta can have any bearing on the validity or otherwise of those laws." We can argue here in the same way. For it is really no easier to understand how the fact that the first emergence of the idea of God may possibly have been provoked by a particular spectacle, or have been linked to a particular experience of a sensible nature, could affect the validity of the idea itself. In each case the problem of its birth from experience and the problem of its essence or validity are distinct. The problems of surveying no more engendered geometry than the experience of storm and sky engendered the idea of God. He important thing is to consider the idea in itself; not the occasion of its birth, but its inner constitution. If the idea of God in the mind of man is real, then no fact accessible to history or psychology or sociology, or to any other scientific discipline, can really be its generating cause. ~ Henri De Lubac

It's not sincereity, it is truth which frees us, because it transforms us. It tears us away from our inmost slavery. ~ Henri De Lubac

Nothing remains intact without effort. Repetition of formulas does not assure the transmission of thought. It is not safe to entrust a doctrinal treasure to the passivity of memory. Intelligence must play a part in its conservation, rediscovering it, so to speak, in the process. ~ Henri De Lubac

Do you ever leave your arrogance at home or does it follow you wherever you go? - Alex

This isn't arrogance, I'm just honest and soon enough you'll be honest with yourself and admit that you want me as much as I want you. - Dane ~ Lisa De Jong

We should never forget the two axioms: 'Jesus is with me' and whatever happens, happens by the will of God. ~ Charles De Foucauld

To feel the pull, the draw, the interior attraction, and to want to follow it, even if it has no name still, that is the "pilgrim spirit."The "why" only becomes clear as time passes, only long after the walking is over. ~ Kevin A. Codd

All that you give to others you are giving to yourself. ~ Anthony De Mello

There are some good marriages, but practically no delightful ones. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

If you want to design a successful human society, you need to know what kind of animal we are. Are we a social animal or a selfish animal? Do we respond better when we're solitary or living in a group? ~ Frans De Waal

Habit is a second nature. ~ Michel De Montaigne

The defects of the mind are
like the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Friends, whoe'er ye be that are immured in that prison, forgive me that, to my misfortune and yours, I cannot deliver you from your misery; ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I was least attractive at age thirteen. Puberty ensnared me in its sebaceous, cysty grip. I was too skinny, my face hadn't grown into my teeth and my hair resembled a Brillo pad. I outgrew Thirteen, but she lives on inside me like a succubus ever draining me of my joie de vivre. There is no way in fucking hell I'm a Suicide Blonde dancing for INXS on that list. ~ Shannon Bradley-Colleary

Being in an area of the planet where scientists believe mankind started is quite amazing. ~ Jan De Bont

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Central to all these interlinked themes was that curious irrational, phi, the Golden Section. Schwaller de Lubicz believed that if ancient Egypt possessed knowledge of ultimate causes, that knowledge would be written into their temples not in explicit texts but in harmony, proportion, myth and symbol. ~ John Anthony West

The thing I understood least of all was that knowledge led to despair and damnation. Our spiritual mentor had not said that those bad books had given a false picture of life: if that had been the case, he could easily have exposed their falsehood; the tragedy of the little girl whom he had failed to bring to salvation was that she had made a premature discovery of the true nature of reality. Well, anyhow, I thought, I shall discover it myself one day, and it isn't going to kill me: the idea that there was a certain age when knowledge of the truth could prove fatal I found offensive to common sense. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Language signifies when instead of copying thought it lets itself be taken apart and put together again by thought. Language bears the sense of thought as a footprint signifies the movement and effort of a body. The empirical use of already established language should be distinguished from its creative use. Empirical language can only be the result of creative language. Speech in the sense of empirical language - that is, the opportune recollection of a preestablished sign – is not speech in respect to an authentic language. It is, as Mallarmé said, the worn coin placed silently in my hand. True speech, on the contrary - speech which signifies, which finally renders "l'absente de tous bouquets" present and frees the sense captive in the thing - is only silence in respect to empirical usage, for it does not go so far as to become a common noun. Language is oblique and autonomous, and if it sometimes signifies a thought or a thing directly, that is only a secondary power derived from its inner life. Like the weaver, the writer works on the wrong side of his material. He has only to do with the language, and it is thus that he suddenly finds himself surrounded by sense. ~ Maurice Merleau-Ponty

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Let every man mind his own business. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

A little less vice is virtuousness in a very vicious heart ~ Marquis De Sade

The cat that laughs is crazy. Man who does not laugh is below... (Le chat qui rit est un fou. - Homme qui ne rit est dessous...) ~ Charles De Leusse

Respect for human rights requires transparent and accountable institutions and governance as well as the effective participation of all individuals and civil society, who are an essential part of realizing social and people-centred sustainable development. ~ Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes. ~ Michel De Montaigne

a good exercise when worrying is to ask yourself, What am I choosing not to see right now? Worry may well be distracting you from something important. For ~ Gavin De Becker

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing. ~ Michel De Montaigne

And what lies unknown within us includes such surprising things as ships that go through towns, seas that are momentarily indistinguishable from skies, fantasies that our beloved family will die in a major conflagration, and intense feelings of love sparked by contact with smooth skin. ~ Alain De Botton

Would you be esteemed? live with persons that are estimable. ~ Anne-Therese De Marguenat De Courcelles

[ ... ] the best guarantee for world peace would be an extraterrestrial enemy. ~ Frans De Waal

One learned to take time to savor life, much as one took time to savor a good meal or glass of wine. The French called it "l'entente de la vie," the harmony of life. ~ David McCullough

Napoleon, when hearing about Laplace's latest book, said, 'M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its creator.'

Laplace responds, 'Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là. (I had no need of that hypothesis.) ~ Pierre-Simon Laplace

What you call disorder is nothing else than one of the laws of the order you comprehend not and which you have erroneously named disorder because its effects, though good for Nature, run counter to your convenience or jar your opinions. ~ Marquis De Sade

Ha!' cackled the fiend, 'I expect you'd like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn't go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you'd be so kind as to lend me your body, I'll set him dancing to my tune.'

The wife's spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman's pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap.

It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips.

When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered ~ Emmanuelle De Maupassant

We never know, believe me, when we have succeeded best. ~ Miguel De Unamuno

One should not seek those who do not wish to be found. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

I am always anxious. ~ Alain De Botton

I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are opening upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be the produce of artificial contrivance; that centralization will be the natural form of government. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources. ~ Luc De Clapiers

Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron. ~ Honore De Balzac

One good, hearty laugh is a bombshell exploding in the right place, while spleen and discontent are a gun that kicks over the man who shoots it off. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

One must not trifle with love. ~ Alfred De Musset

She had to be honest. And this was where the truth hurt. She wanted to see Jack Force again. But it was agony ~ Melissa De La Cruz

In loss itself I find assuagement: having lost the treasure, I've nothing to fear. ~ Juana Ines De La Cruz

We charm by coincidence rather than design. ~ Alain De Botton

It is not the easy or convenient life for which I search, but life lived to the edge of all that I may be. - Mary Anne Radmacher ~ Barbara De Angelis

Smallness of mind is the cause of stubbornness, and we do not credit readily what is beyond our view. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Our self-love can be resigned to the sacrifice of everything but itself. ~ Jean-Francois De La Harpe

The soul that has no established aim loses itself ~ Michel De Montaigne

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman. ~ Jean De La Bruyere