Leaven Quotes

Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every phase of human endeavor ... It is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the Dawn. ~ Emma Goldman

Unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not as materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to ~ Henry David Thoreau

Oh, hear Him within you speaking this infinite love,moving like some divine and audible leaven,lifting the sky of the soul with expansions of light, shaping new heights and new depths,and, at your stir of assent,spreading the mountains with flame, filling the hollows with Heaven. ~ Jessica Powers

Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of Earth's bitter leaven Effaced forever. ~ William Wordsworth

Thus, in truth, a sojourn in Rome means an expansion of view that is beyond words. Whereas up to that time I had been accustomed to image Christianity to myself as a delicate flower, divine because of its supernatural fragility, now I saw that it was a tree in whose branches the fowls of the air, once the enemies of its tender growth, can lodge in security - divine since the wideness of its reach and the strength of its mighty roots can be accounted for by nothing else. Before I had thought of it as of a fine, sweet aroma, to be appreciated apart; now I saw that it was the leaven, hid in the heavy measures of the world, expressing itself in terms incalculably coarser than itself, until the whole is leavened. ~ Robert Hugh Benson

The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself? ~ Herbert Spencer

The miracle of redemption spreads like a leaven throughout the regions of the earth if properly strategized ~ Sunday Adelaja

The Family is the salt of the earth and the light of the world, it is the leaven of society. ~ Pope Francis

It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Confection wasn't like that. Confection was Nonsense with rules, where baking soda would always leaven your cake and yeast would always rise. Confection could be Nonsensical because it had rules, and so Logical people could survive there, could even thrive there, once they had accepted that things weren't quite the same as they were in other worlds. ~ Seanan McGuire

Of course, there is some truth in advertising. There's yeast in bread, but you can't make bread with yeast alone. Truth in advertising," announced Lord Peter sententiously, "is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal. It provides a suitable quantity of gas, with which to blow out a mass of crude misrepresentation into a form that the public can swallow. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action - that the end will sanction any means. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is implied in the New Testament vision that Christianity is not a culture-creating thing but rather a culture-influencing one... there can never be such a thing as a Christian culture; there can only be cultures in which the influence of Christianity is more or less apparent.The New Testament vision does not pit a "Christian culture" against a non-Christian culture; rather does it introduce a leavening into any existing culture into which it insinuates itself, a leaven whereby that already existing culture is then affected.... The New Testament's idea of societal compositism is the only real alternative to the stultifying ideologies that have given rise to the modern optionless and option forbidding totalitarian states. ~ Leonard Verduin

Poets are the leaven in the lump of civilization. ~ Elizabeth Janeway

The prophetic movement is called to be as well as to say. They are to be a light set on a hill, the salt of the earth, the leaven in the lump. God is to be revealed in as well as by His called people. ~ Jack Provonsha

For most of their relationship, Eric avoided paying his due because he knew Alice would pay when he didn't. If he paid only 10 units, she would come up with the other 30. If he didn't feel like driving over to her house then she would come to his. if he didn't wish to break a deadlock after an argument, he could count on her to play the mediator. But he miscalculated just how far he could push Alice. her share of the 40x began to slowly decline, leaven him to make up the shortfall. Only small amounts were at first involved, but they suffered remorseless inflation until the full weight of the relationship came to descend on this delicate shoulders. Alice had in a myriad of ways imply ceased to care, and Eric realized that unless he continued to pump around 30x into the situation, Alice and he would inevitably collide and break up. ~ Alain De Botton

One ought not to hoard culture . It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits. ~ Wallace Stevens

Jesus made clear that the Kingdom of God is organic and not organizational. It grows like a seed and it works like leaven: secretly, invisibly, surprisingly, and irresistibly. ~ Os Guinness

This, however, is sure: nothing is really lost. Any influence for good, no matter how ephemeral, makes its mark: it helps to leaven the loaf of evil: it leaves a loophole, albeit a small one, for a future escape from bondage. ~ Horace Annesley Vachell

he who would proceed in due course should love first one fair form, and then many, and learn the connexion of them; and from beautiful bodies he should proceed to beautiful minds, and the beauty of laws and institutions, until he perceives that all beauty is of one kindred; and from institutions he should go on to the sciences, until at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science of universal beauty, and then he will behold the everlasting nature which is the cause of all, and will be near the end. In the contemplation of that supreme being of love he will be purified of earthly leaven, and will behold beauty, not with the bodily eye, but with the eye of the mind, and will bring forth true creations of virtue and wisdom, ~ Plato

Is life worth living?
Yes, so long as there is wrong to right.
So long as faith with freedom reigns and loyal hope survives,
And gracious charity remains to leaven lowly lives;
While there is only one untrodden tract for intellect or will,
And men are free to think and act,
Life is worth living still. ~ Alfred Austin

Doorkeepers He was not merely of the salt of the earth, but of the leaven of the kingdom, contributing more to the true life of the world than many a thousand far more widely known and honoured. Such as this man are the chief springs of thought, feeling, inquiry, action, in their neighbourhood; they radiate help and breathe comfort; they reprove, they counsel, they sympathize; in a word, they are doorkeepers of the house of God. Constantly upon its threshold, and every moment pushing the door to peep in, they let out radiance enough to keep the hearts of men believing in the light. They make an atmosphere about them in which spiritual things can thrive, and out of their school often come men who do greater things, better they cannot do, than they. Malcolm, ch. ~ George MacDonald

The lamb was to be eaten with bitter herbs, as pointing back to the bitterness of the bondage in Egypt. So when we feed upon Christ, it should be with contrition of heart, because of our sins. The use of unleavened bread also was significant. It was expressly enjoined in the law of the Passover, and as strictly observed by the Jews in their practice, that no leaven should be found in their houses during the feast. In like manner the leaven of sin must be put away from all who would receive life and nourishment from Christ. So Paul writes to the Corinthian church, "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump ... For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 1 Corinthians 5:7, 8. ~ Ellen G. White

Your purpose is to become a spiritual leaven to permeate the whole world ~ Sunday Adelaja

I begin to suspect," said the curate, after a pause, "that the common transactions of life are the most sacred channels for the spread of the heavenly leaven. ~ George MacDonald

The laity are called to become a leaven of Christian living within society. ~ Pope Francis

How do we receive the highest mystery of Divine love to us ? the mystery of the Christian faith? With our mind, heart and life; with our free will? Are all the three powers of our souls penetrated by holy faith, as were the souls of the saints? The kingdom of heaven 'is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened' (Lk. 13:21). The three measures are the three powers of the soul. ~ John Of Kronstadt

In Heaven all reviews will be favorable; here on earth, the publisher realizes, plausibility demands an occasional bad one, some convincing lump in all that leaven, and he accepts it somewhat as a theologian accepts Evil. ~ Randall Jarrell

I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader. ~ Stephen Covey

[Jews are] murderers of the Lord, assassins of the prophets, rebels against God, God haters, ... advocates of the devil, race of vipers, slanderers, calumniators, dark-minded people, leaven of the Pharisees, sanhedrin of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners, and haters of righteousness. ~ Gregory Of Nyssa

I think you need humour and a sense of fun, which is what I try to bring to my books to leaven the danger and action. The ones that really transcend the genre always have a great laugh in them, such as 'Fright Night,' 'Lost Boys,' 'American Werewolf in London' - just to name a few. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you must hate, if hatred is the leaven of your life, which alone can give flavor, then hate what should be hated: falsehood, violence, selfishness. ~ Ludwig Borne

Continue to walk in the faith and, faithful to the mandate that has been entrusted to you, go out with solicitude and joy toward all creatures and pass on to them the gifts of salvation ... Let yourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit to be the leaven of new life, salt of the earth and light of the world. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. If human nature cannot be improved by institutions, democracy is at best a more than usually safe form of political organization ... But if it is to work better as well as merely longer, it must have some leavening effect on human nature; and the sincere democrat is obliged to assume the power of the leaven. [Progressive] ~ Herbert Croly

Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven. ~ Robert Browning

Of all the works by Victor Hugo the poetic generation of 1880 preferred above all the Chansons des Rues et des Bois ('Songs of the Streets and Woods') and the late poems such as Ce que dit Ia Bouche d'Ombre ('What says the mouth of shadow'), written during a period of intense spiritualism. Quite apart from drawings done during seances, for the most part caricatures, hob-goblins and ghouls, the graphic work of Hugo is that of a visionary. Wood engravers beautifully reproduced these visions as illustrations for Le Rhin ('The Rhine') or Les Travailleurs de la Mer ('The Toilers of the Sea'). Drawn beside cursed romantic castles and storm-tossed lighthouses, ink blots become angels or skeletons, accidental stains become souls or flowers, ambiguities and metamorphoses provide prodigious leaven for the imagination: 'The magnificent imagination which flows through the drawings of Victor Hugo like the mystery in the sky' (Baudelaire). ~ Philippe Jullian

What we get, we members of the Church, compared with the total mass that is distributed, is almost microscopic, but the spirit in which we might take it, the spirit in which we might spend it, is the leaven that might leaven the whole lump. Let us be patriotic; let us love the government under which we live. ~ J. Reuben Clark

I preached at First Congregational Church of Battle Creek, Michigan, in June 2017, and they shared this version of "Come Thou Fount" with me. I share it with you here as a call to action and as an invitation to the politics of resilience in an age of the tyranny of the now:

Come thou fount of every blessing, give me courage to resist.
Oh dear God they came and killed you, but at death you shook your fist.
Make me clever like the steward, make me angry like the poor,
teach me to unbind the captive, teach me to unbar the door.

O dear God, I have such power, that I never toiled to earn.
Help me wield it for liberation, may the fires of your justice burn.
Guide me God to read you truly, may your truth be named and heard,
When I read the holy scripture, help me God to hear your Word.

Moving Wind, your seed of justice, grows into a mustard tree -
it is so big, and obnoxious, is there room there, God, for me?
O my Jesus, come like leaven, infiltrate our hearts and minds
as we struggle to be human, help us to decolonize.

When the powers stand against us, when we join hands with the meek,
help us God against their fury; wield the weapons of the weak.
As we stand up to oppression, as we speak the truth to power -
Holy One, you walk beside us: we need you every hour.

While I struggle with my hatred, with my fear and bigotry:
help me Lord to join your struggle, help m ~ Robyn Henderson-Espinoza