Divine By Choice Quotes

I remember you as the wind that breathes upon the forest
The murmur of leaves rustling
The rays of the sun.
I remember you as the power of trees growing
And the bud breaking into bloosom.
You are in my thoughts whenever i praise
All that is noble and true. ~ P.C. Cast

It is no great hermeneutic feat to recognize that Rome crucified Jesus because of His claim to be king. The charge was posted over His head, after all. What is often overlooked, however, is that it is precisely because of their allegiance to that king - Jesus - that Rome persecuted His followers.
That the God of the Jews should father a son with magical powers was no more offensive to the Romans than the idea that Zeus should father Hercules. But what was intolerable was the fact that Jesus' followers did not stop with recognizing Him as divine; they had the audacity to claim He was their actual sovereign.
In short, while the Jews preserved their religion by shouting, "We have no king but Caesar," the early Christians sealed their fate by unabashedly declaring, "We have no king but Jesus! ~ Christopher Gorton

In Socrates' time, an orator was accustomed to ask his audience which genre or mode of expression was preferred: myth i.e., narrative-- or logical argumentation? In the age of the book, this decision cannot be left to the audience: the choice must be made in order for the book to exist and one merely imagines (or hopes for) an audience that will have given one answer rather than the other; one also tries to listen to the answer suggested or imposed by the subject itself. ~ Tzvetan Todorov

She breathed deeply of the freedom she found in Mattie's presence. Here she had no choice but to be herself. The carefully erected decoys she was constantly shuffling and changing to fit the situation were of no use here. Etta and Mattie went way back, a singular term that claimed co-knowledge of all the important events in their lives and almost all of the unimportant ones. And by rights of this possession, it tolerated no secrets. ~ Gloria Naylor

The brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge. ~ George Eliot

I didn't understand it then, but I've come to see he was right about his choice to leave his country limiting him forever. We are all confined by what we choose. If I had taken the gift of his question, if I had shown him even the smallest piece of private history, things might be different today. But I was silent and have chosen to remain so for too long. Now even the smallest revelation would seem cataclysmic. ~ Jenny Siler

If you choose your words as you choose your shoes then they would always be soft, comforting, supportive, and would always fit the occasion. ~ Wyatt Allen

Filled with a reverent notion (for which he would have been put to death on any of the public squares of Christendom or the lands of Mohammed), he reflected that the most adequate symbols of a conjectural Supreme Good are those very ones which are held, absurdly, to be the most idolatrous: the fiery globe above is the only God visible for us creatures, who would perish without it. Likewise, the most real of angels was this seagull, which possessed what Seraphim and Thrones did not have, the clear evidence of existing.

In this world unburdened by concepts, even ferocity was pure: the fish wriggling beneath the wave would soon be only a choice morsel, bleeding under the beak of the bird fishing here, but the bird was giving no false pretext for its hunger. Both fox and hare (trickery and fear) inhabited the dune where he slept, but the killer did not evoke laws promulgated long ago by some wise fox, or handed down by a fox-god. The victim did not suppose itself punished for its crimes or, when dying, protest to the end that it had remained loyal to its prince. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar

When I was in high school I used to sit by myself in the cafeteria - not necessarily by choice - but I thought it was funny to talk to people that weren't there. ~ Zach Galifianakis

What we become shouldn't be dictated by the mud and the dung and the dust and the fire and the ice and the dirt and the spit that hit us in the face, but what we become must be a choice made every day in the heart; and they who threw all of that at us to try and defile us– they will look up at us and see us no less beautiful. And even more beautiful. ~ C. JoyBell C.

I believe that we are henceforth incapable of returning to an order of moral life which would take the form of a simple submission to commandments or to an alien or supreme will, even if this will were represented as divine. We must accept as a positive good the critique of ethics and religion that has been undertaken by the school of suspicion. From it we have learned to understand that the commandment that gives death, not life, is a product and projection of our own weakness. ~ Paul Ricoeur

DIVINE NECESSITY creates "others" even among family members who become good to be killed by family members…

HUMAN NECESSITY commands man to resurrect the supposed reason for which God supposedly shattered humanity in Babylon:

The "Covenant" among men. ~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

Even the West has known the architecture of empty space, whose object, for thousands of years, has been less to construct divine houses, than to create sacred places, to seize upon mystery and to immerse man in it-whether by raising the cyclopean pedestal that surrounds him with stars, or by hollowing out the sanctuary that wraps him in haunted night. ~ Andre Malraux

Just as a vampire has no choice but to drink human blood, I have no choice but to kill people. My fate was already decided the moment I was born. I wasn't abused by my parents and scarred mentally. I have no ancestors that were murderers. I was raised in a very ordinary household. But whereas ordinary children play alone with imaginary friends and pets, I spent my time staring at imaginary corpse. ~ Otsuichi

Just as the Savior stepped forward to fulfill His divine responsibilites, we have the challenge and responsibilty to do likewise. If you are wondering if you make a difference to the Lord, imagine the effect when you make such commitments as the following:
"Father, if you need a woman to rear children in righteousness, Here and I, send me."
"If you need a woman to make a house a home filled with love, Here and I, send me."
if you need a woman who will shun vulgarity and dress modestly and speak with dignity and show the world how joyous it is to keep the commandments, Here am I, send me."
"If you need a woman who can resist the alluring temptations of the world by keeping her eyes fixed on eternity, Here am I, send me."
Between now and the day the Lord comes again, he needs women in every family, in every ward, in every community, in every nation who will step forward in righteousness and say by their words and thier actions, "Here am I, send me."
My question is, Will you be one of those women?
~ M. Russell Ballard

That the Op-Ed page is very important in readers' and the nation's perception of the Times, the perception of its editorial positions, and of its implicit editorial positions as expressed by the publisher's choice of people who are given the freedom to write opinion columns. ~ Daniel Okrent

Facilitative attitudes (and skills) can help a therapist gain entry into the group Freedom from a desire to control the outcome, and respect for the capacity of the group, and skills in releasing individual expression Openness to all attitudes no matter how extreme or unrealistic they may seem Acceptance of the problems experienced by the group where they are clearly defined as issues Allowance of the freedom of choices in direction, either for the group or individuals particularly in the near future ~ Carl Rogers

But underneath all this reasonable talk, this scientific speculating, no white Afrikaner could quite put down the way it felt…Something sinister was moving out in the veld: he was beginning to look at their faces, especially those of the women, lined beyond the thorn fences, and he knew beyond logical proof: there was a tribal mind at work out here, and it had chosen to commit suicide…Puzzling. Perhaps we weren't as fair as we might have been, perhaps we did take their cattle and their lands away…and then the work-camps of course, the barbed wire, and the stockades…Perhaps they feel it is a world they no longer want to live in. Typical of them, though, giving up, crawling away to die…why won't they even negotiate? We could work out a solution, some solution…
It was a simple choice for the Hereros, between two kinds of death: tribal death, or Christian death. Tribal death made sense. Christian death made none at all. It seemed an exercise they did not need. But to the Europeans, conned by their own Baby Jesus Con Game, what they were witnessing among these Hereros was a mystery potent as that of the elephant graveyard, or the lemmings rushing into the sea. ~ Thomas Pynchon

By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,--its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; and if you would know what will make for the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment so long. ~ Henry David Thoreau

For true conversion doth not consist in putting away great and outward sins only, but in descending deeply into your own self, searching into the inmost recesses of the heart, the secrets and closets, all the windings and turnings thereof; changing and renewing them throughout, with the grace that is given you: and so, by faith, you are converted from self-love to Divine love; from the world and all worldly concupiscences, to a spiritual and heavenly life; and from a participation of the pomps and pleasures thereof, to participating the merits and virtues of Christ, by believing his word, and walking in his steps. ~ Johann Arndt

When a liberal professor takes enormous intellectual liberties by openly promoting an ideological agenda to his students, the cry of academic freedom rings across the quads. But when a conservative professor is punished for publishing an article in a politically incorrect journal, there is no defense of intellectual diversity. What is billed as academic neutrality turns out to be a smoke screen for the relativistic liberal agenda.

Today's relativists could not have gotten away with their double standards in a culture that prized truth. But a gradual, sustained assault on truth has been carried out through the soft underbelly of Western culture: the arts. In film, music, and television, the themes of sensual pleasure and individual choice have drowned out the tried-and-true virtues of faith, family, self-sacrifice, duty, honor, patriotism, and fidelity in marriage. Cultural mechanics have wielded their tools to dull the public's sense of reasonable limits. In an Age of Consent, the silly and the profound are becoming indistinguishable. ~ Gary L. Bauer

I am that I am
a Goddess, a God
entitled to the deepest and most beautiful sensations
offered by Heaven and Earth
In Love I trust
In Wisdom I am revealed ~ Ramon Ravenswood

Bring peace to the Earth by bringing peace to all those whose lives you touch. Be peace. Feel and express in every moment your Divine Connection with the All, and with every person, place, and thing. Embrace every circumstance, own every fault, share every joy, contemplate every mystery, walk in every man's shoes, forgive every offense (including your own), heal every heart, honor every person's truth, adore every person's God, protect every person's rights, preserve every person's dignity, promote every person's interests, provide every person's needs, presume every person's holiness, present every person's greatest gifts, produce every person's blessing, and pronounce every person's future secure in the assured love of God. Be a living, breathing example of the Highest Truth that resides within you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can't have both. Not at the same time. Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage. A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we're defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you're not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback. ~ Brene Brown

I don't think that people in power can be convinced by words or articles. They will never give it up by choice. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

Whoso turns his attention to the bitter strifes of these days and seeks a reason for the troubles that vex public and private life must come to the conclusion that a fruitful cause of the evils which now afflict, as well as of those which threaten us, lies in this: that false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have crept into all the orders of the state, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses. ~ Pope Leo XIII

What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull.
But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that- if anywhere- is the only place I will be. ~ Margaret Atwood

To have faith in Divine protection is good, but even beter if backed by the pratical assistance heaven has a right to expect from sensible mortals. ~ Ellis Peters

There would be no history as we know it, no religion, no metaphysics or aesthetics as we have lived them, without an initial act of trust, of confiding, more fundamental, more axiomatic by far than any "social contract" or covenant with the postulate of the divine. This instauration of trust, this entrance of man into the city of man, is that between word and world. ~ George Steiner

In the early Buddhist view, then, a persons identity resides not in an enduring self but in his actions (karma)- that is in the choices that shape these actions. Because the dispositions formed by previous choices can be modified in turn by present behaviour, this identity as choice-maker is fluid, its experience alterable. While it is affected by the past, it can also break free of the past. ~ Joanna Macy

A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall. ~ Tom Robbins

In all professional endeavors, rigorous standards of accuracy are required. Scholars cherish their freedom of expression. But full freedom cannot be experienced if part of one's knowledge is ruled "out-of-bounds" by edicts of men. Spiritual truth cannot be ignored - especially divine commandments. ~ Russell M. Nelson

I see companies these days where thoughts of "exits" are foremost in the minds of top management and board, and it is so clear that this value will infect the decision making down to the smallest choice by the most junior employee. Do we create something that is good, or just that seems good and might get us acquired or funded? ~ Brad Stone

Christ said, not a single iota of the truth He gave was to be changed, then by what right do we sit in judgment on Divinity and say: This much of Your truth we will accept, because it pleases us, and this much we will reject? We are not the creators of divine truth; we are only the trustees and the guardians. God's truths are not optional any more than the right to happiness is optional; they are not debatable any more than the multiplication table is debatable. Any sect which starts with the assumption that it has rights over God's truth proves that it is man-made, and a religion that is man-made can be man-unmade. But a Church which is God-made cannot be man-unmade. ~ Fulton J. Sheen