The Nature Of God Quotes

Eternity is never having to show up because there was never a time that you were not there. And because this is the nature of God, it's not about asking Him to show up in our lives. Rather, it's about asking Him to shine through our lives. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift. ~ Gene Robinson

The generous giver, demonstrating the nature of God by his behavior, can never outgive God. ~ Max Anders

[T]he question of the existence of God can be neither asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being. On this basis a first step can be taken toward the solution of the problem which usually is discussed as the immanence and the transcendence of God. As the power of being, God transcends every being and also the totality of beings - the world. Being-itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it. Being-itself infinitely transcends every finite being. There is no proportion or gradation between the finite and the infinite. There is an absolute break, an infinite "jump." On the other hand, everything finite participates in being-itself and in its infinity. Otherwise it would not have the power of being. It would be swallowed by nonbeing, or it never would have emerged out of nonbeing. This double relation of all beings to being-itself gives being-itself a double characteristic. In calling it creative, we point to the fact that everything participates in the infinite power of being. In calling it abysmal, we point to the fact that everything participates in the power of being in a finit ~ Paul Tillich

We are convinced that all of our race who die in infancy partake in the redemption wrought out by our Lord Jesus. Whatever some may think, we believe that the whole spirit and tone of the Word of God, as well as the nature of God Himself, lead us to believe that all who leave this world as babes are saved. ~ Charles Spurgeon

The call of God is a call according to the nature of God; where we go in obedience to that call depends entirely on the providential circumstances which God engineers, and is not of any moment. The danger is to fit the call of God into the idea of our own discernment and say, "God called me there." If we say so and stick to it, then it is good-bye to the development of the life of God in us. ~ Oswald Chambers

What mortal claims, by searching to the utmost limit, to have found out the nature of God, or of his opposite, or of that which comes between, seeing as he doth this world of man tossed to and fro by waves of contradiction and strange vicissitudes? ~ Euripides

The essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of God's agency in the world. The record is fragmentary, inconsistent, and uncertain ... But there can be no doubt as to what elements in the record have evoked a response from all that is best in human nature. The Mother, the Child, and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self-forgetful, with his message of peace, love, and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victory. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

In an anxious attempt to justify Joseph Smith's use of seer stones, apologists have typically described them as mundane objects that only hold cultural significance. They have generally disregarded them as if they were unrelated to the Nephite interpreters and the seer stones described in the Book of Mormon by generations of prophets who valued them. This chapter will tie the threads of the previous chapters together in order to demonstrate that Joseph Smith's seer stones were sacred objects, connected to a broader Mormon understanding of the nature of God, ultimately making the argument that Joseph could not transcend the use of his seer stones. ~ Michael Hubbard MacKay

Most preachers say the nature of God is unknowable, but I'm certain of one thing at least. God almighty has a sense of humor. ~ Robert Ferrigno

Rhetoric worked beautifully when applied to simple things like the nature of God, but how was one to use it in the chaos of human actions? ~ Sharan Newman

It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God. Frequently this is because they have thought of God solely in terms of thunderings at Sinai without pondering substance ... ~ Neal A. Maxwell

To understand the nature of God, it is necessary only to know the nature of love itself. To truly know love is to know and understand God; and to know God is to understand love. ~ David Hawkins

That not adhering to those notions Reason dictates (concerning the nature of God), has been the occasion of all superstition, and those innumerable mischiefs that mankind (on account of religion) have done to themselves or to one another. ~ Matthew Tindal

No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere. ~ Empedocles

Rather than trying to master nature we should start with the basics of trying to understand nature, cooperate with nature. ~ Bryant McGill

The sun only shines, just as God only loves. It is the nature of the sun to shine, to offer warmth and light. And it is the nature of God to love. We are free to get away from the sun, we can lock ourselves in a dark room, but we do not keep the sun from shining just because we put ourselves in a place where it cannot reach us. So it is with God's love. We can reject it, but God keeps on loving us. No matter what our choices, God still loves. And because God loves us, a relationship with God is possible. ~ Les Parrott III

But I believe also the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always a sense of the sacredness of the person who is the object... When you love someone to the degree you love her, you see her as God sees her, and that is an instruction in the nature of God and humankind and of Being itself. ~ Marilynne Robinson

We must learn to interpret our experiences by what we know about God through His Word instead of interpreting what God is like by our experiences. If we do not ground our belief about the nature of God and His disposition to us in the Scriptures, we will reject much of what He says about Himself when we face difficulty. ~ Jim Berg

When the Holy Spirit comes to live within you, He will come with the ability to produce righteousness. Righteousness is the nature of God, which when imparted to the human spirit, produces the rightness of God in the human spirit. It gives man right standing with God; it gives him the ability to stand in the presence of God without a sense of guilt, inferiority or condemnation. It means rightness in God. The righteousness of God is wrought in you. ~ Chris Oyakhilome

Everything in the universe is good to the degree it conforms to the nature of God and evil as it fails to do so. - A.W. Tozer ~ John Bevere

In all of these centuries there has not been the slightest shadow of change in the nature of God or in His attitude toward sin.
The Bible teaches from the beginning to the end that adultery and fornication are sin, and the attitude of churchmen does not alter its character. ~ Billy Graham

Holy anger has its roots in genuine love. Both are part of the nature of God. Jesus' love for the man with the withered hand aroused His anger against those who would deny him healing. Jesus' love for God's house made Him angry at the sellers and buyers who had turned the temple into a "den of robbers" (Matthew 21:13). Yet in both these cases and others, it was ultimately Jesus' love for those doing wrong that caused Him to be angry with them. His anger got their attention!
Great leaders -- people who turn the tide and change the direction of events -- have been angry at injustice and abuse that dishonors God and enslaves the weak. William Wilberforce moved heaven and earth to emancipate slaves in England and eliminate the slave trade -- and he was angry! ~ J. Oswald Sanders

God is not silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Holy Trinity is called "The Word." The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case; for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties. ~ Denis Diderot

In my thinking, the nature of things, the nature of God if you will, must be common to all. ~ Jeffrey R. Anderson

I must look at the 'nature' of God, not the 'nature' of the challenge. For the former means everything and the latter means nothing. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is now generally admitted, at any rate by philosophers, that the existence of a being having the attributes which define the god of any non-animistic religion cannot be demonstratively proved ... [A]ll utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical. ~ A.J. Ayer

To live the life of God we must have the nature of God. ~ Billy Graham

If you meditate on your ideal, you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God. ~ Ramakrishna

The nature of God is in every man ~ Sunday Adelaja

I do not bother my head with speculations about the nature of God. I simply attach myself to the human Christ, ~ Martin Luther

Humans naturally reflect their nature upon the nature of their God. So to know a person, just ask what the person thinks about their God. It's either that, or an individual aims to reflect the nature of their God onto themselves; in either case, just ask about the God and you will know the person, or at least, what the person thinks of himself. ~ C. JoyBell C.

It is not enough just to read the Bible; it is even just as important to understand it. As to living it- that is accomplished in and through us by the Holy Spirit."


~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

No one knows the nature of God, or even if God exists. In a sense, all of our religions are literary works of the imagination. ~ Alan Lightman

That's the place to begin, then. You have to decide what you believe about the nature of God before you can decide how to proceed. If God is good, then He can - and will - use your brokenness, whatever form that takes because we're all broken in some way - for your good and His glory. It may not be the way you want or expect. You may not even think, at first, that it is for your good, but over time He'll reveal Himself if you let Him. ~ Elizabeth Maddrey

Christendom and heathendom now stand face to face ... At bottom is a violent and irreconcilable quarrel about the nature of God and the nature of an and the ultimate nature of the universe; it is a war of dogma. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I think people who write programs do have at least a glimmer of extra insight into the nature of God ... because creating a program often means that you have to create a small universe ~ Donald Knuth

Train yourself by blessing those who treat you badly and you will take on the nature of God. ~ Sunday Adelaja

There is an intense relationship between proximate objects, a much weaker one between objects further away, and as for the really distant ones there is none at all, and that is the nature of God. ~ Laszlo Krasznahorkai

When I conform to truth, I do not conform to an abstract principle; I conform to the nature of God. ~ Kenneth L. Pike

The nature of God understood in Islam is not the same as the conceptions of God understood in the various religious traditions of the world; nor is it the same as the conceptions of God understood in Greek and Hellenistic philosophical tradition; nor as the conceptions of God understood in Western philosophical or scientific tradition; nor in that of Occidental and Oriental mystical traditions. The apparent similarities that may be found between their various conceptions of God with the nature of God understood in Islam cannot be interpreted as evidence of identity of the One Universal God in their various conceptions of the nature of God; for each and everyone of them serves and belongs to a different conceptual system, which necessarily renders the conception as a whole or the super system to be dissimilar with one another....

Nor is there a 'transcendent unity of religions', if by 'unity' is meant 'oneness' or 'sameness'; and if by 'unity' is not meant 'oneness' or 'sameness', then there is plurality or dissimilarity of religions even at the level of transcendence. If it is conceded that there is plurality or dissimilarity at that level, and that by 'unity' is meant 'interconnectedness of parts that constitute a whole', so that the 'unity' is the interconnection of the plurality or dissimilarity of religions as of parts constituting a whole, then it follows that at the level of ordinary existence, in which mankind is subject to the limitations of humanity and th ~ Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

The animals have desire, or appetite. But only humans have the ability not merely to desire things, but also the creative will to take responsibility for that desire and bring about the achievement of it. That creative ability resides in the nature of God, and he has passed it on to us. ~ Henry Cloud

Some folk learned the nature of God, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having sent signs of the hunger beforehand, that He was just, having sent the hunger in the first place, or having sent the whales and the teeming reindeer in the end. Some folk learned that He was to be found in the world-in the richness of the grass and the pearly beauty of the Heavens, and others learned that He could not be found in the world, for the world is always wanting, and God is completion. ~ Jane Smiley

But where good is promoted and evil is fought against for the healing of humanity, this historical praxis in fact confirms the nature of God- God as salvation for men and women, the basis of universal hope - and people moreover receive God's salvation: in and through a love which is put into practice. ~ Edward Schillebeeckx

Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The seventh day of creation is the most eloquent and insightful as to the nature of God. From a literary perspective, the Sabbath forms the pinnacle of the story. Like the dramatic kiss of a soldier returning from war, this is the moment we're not meant to miss. In choosing rest as the grand finale, God reveals himself as one driven by neither anxiety nor fear but one who finds gladness in both the work of creation and the creation of work. ~ Margaret Feinberg

Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God. ~ Thomas Huxley

The first theological insight I learned from Gregory of Nyssa - and I suspect the last to which I shall cling when all others fall away - is that the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not merely a cosmological or metaphysical claim, but also an eschatological claim about the world's relation to God, and hence a moral claim about the nature of God in himself. In the end of all things is their beginning, and only from the perspective of the end can one know what they are, why they have been made, and who the God is who has called them forth from nothingness.

(from Radical Orthodoxy 3.1 (2015): 1-17) ~ David Bentley Hart

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. ~ Alan Watts

When I realized this fear, this uncertainty, this potential of dying, I guess I needed something greater to hold onto than what we can see, touch, and smell-and that was the spiritual aspect of God, the nature of God and his relationship to humans. ~ Goldie Hawn

Some Christians have taken all the justice, judgment and hatred of sin out of the nature of God and have nothing left but a soft god. Others have taken love and grace out and have nothing left but a god of judgment. Or they have taken away the personality of God and have nothing left but a mathematical god - the god of the scientists. All these are false, inadequate conceptions of God. ~ A.W. Tozer

Within the nature of God is a strength that is fashioned in His perfection. Strength flows from the fountain of God's integrity. Honest people are the strongest people. ~ James MacDonald

Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be ... a prudent insurance policy. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Ideas should be freely and dispassionately considered on their own merits, since after all, one generation's heretic is another generation's hero. Mystics like the Ramchal disagreed with rationalists like the Rambam on what exactly is the highest mode of being. The Rambam believed that the ultimate existence is purely spiritual, in Olam HaBah, while the Ramchal believed it to be corporeal resurrection in this world.1 In his time, the Ramchal was labeled a heretic and had his works burned by fellow Jews, but nevertheless lives on today as one of the most respected Jewish philosophers in history. The Rambam before him suffered the same fate, not just for his views on the afterlife, in which corporeal resurrection only played a minor role, but also for his "radical" belief that God does not have a body. It seems possible that his debate may find a sister in modern times: I would not be surprised if future generations view the figurative nature of Olam HaBah with the same certainty as modern Jews now view the Rambam's "heresy" about the nature of God. Because frankly, these Talmudic passages make no sense unless viewed as metaphor, and the Rambam provides a kind of Rabbinic precedent to do so. It is precisely the same dialectic: as our scientific view of reality expands and sharpens, our religious teachings must evolve and conform. If the evidence confirms a literal reading, then so be it. If it refutes it, then so be it. Truth is truth, and we must cherish our integrity just as ~ Shmuel Pernicone

The West, for many centuries, has been dominated by a highly rationalistic mindset that presumes to express and explain the nature of God through words. The East has only recently begun to express its understanding of God in those ways. For the most part, Eastern Christianity has always recognized that it can only say so much about God in finite, human ways before it must go silent before the mystery of the Infinite and Unspeakable. Instead of defining ultimate reality in theological concepts, the East has relied upon its artists, musicians, and poets to proclaim what can only be understood in the heart. ~ Peter Pearson

Nothing being less accordant with the nature of God than to cast off the government of the world, leaving it to chance, and so to wink at the crimes of men that they may wanton with impunity in evil courses; it follows, that every man who indulges in security, after extinguishing all fear of divine judgment, virtually denies that there is a God. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Though the cross and everything leading up to it violate our sensibilities and we are rightly aghast, the reality is that human beings have never liked God very much. At the cross, the nature of God was most fully revealed. As a result, human contempt was also most fully revealed and brought to a laser-like focus and intensity. ~ Edward T. Welch

I don't understand what the nature of God is. But I do have the feeling that I'm at some feet, and lucky to be there. ~ Andrew Solomon

Jesus Christ knew the only way He would stop Satan is by becoming one in nature with him ... He became one with the nature of Satan, so all those who had the nature of Satan can partake of the nature of God. ~ Benny Hinn

Acceptance of the nature of God, the world, and others seems integrally connected to an acceptance of the nature of one's self, too. And this, I think, is where freedom, ultimately, is found. Freedom is not an endless sea of choices, but an acceptance, embrace even, of both the nature and the grace at the core of our being and our becoming. ~ Karen Swallow Prior

'Nature is conquered by obedience' - and her resistless energies are at our bidding, as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success. ~ Annie Besant

...I lived for those long casual walks down the beach and the sight of her small footprints in the glistening wet sand... ~ Pat Conroy

In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are somtimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary. ~ Frank Herbert

What I build upon I shall be told is a folly that wise men are not guilty of: I own it; but whilst it proceeds from a real passion inherent in our nature, it is sufficient to demonstrate that we are born with a repugnancy to the killing, and consequently the eating of animals; for it is impossible that a natural appetite should ever prompt us to act, or desire others to do, what we have an aversion to, be it as foolish as it will. ~ Sylvester Graham

All the great and beneficent operations of Nature are produced by slow and often imperceptible degrees. The work of destruction and devastation only is violent and rapid. ~ Albert Pike

Part of the terrible irony of war is that it enlists the best in human nature for purposes of mutual destruction. ~ Lesslie Newbigin

Through some strange and powerful principle of mental chemistry which she has never divulged, nature wraps up in the impulse of strong desire, that something which recognizes no such word as impossible, and accepts no such reality as failure. ~ Napoleon Hill

The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The outstanding examples are still Cardozo's Nature of the Judicial Process18 ~ Richard A. Posner

Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act, an act of the whole nature.-Belief or unbelief is a test of a man's whole spiritual condition, because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience, as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it. ~ Alexander MacLaren

Everything about her is captivating, like the aftermath of a storm. People aren't supposed to get pleasure out of the destruction Mother Nature is capable of, but we want to stare anyway. Charlie is the devastation left in the wake of a tornado. ~ Colleen Hoover

And that's the terrible myth of organized society. That everything that's done through the established system is legal. And that word has a powerful psychological impact. It makes people believe that there is an order to life and an order to a system. And that a person who goes through this order and is convicted has gotten all that is due him and therefore society can turn its conscious off and look to other things and other times. And that's the terrible thing about these past trials that they have this aura of legitimacy an aura of legality. I suspect that better men than the world has known and more of them have gone to their deaths through a legal system then through all the illegalities in the history of man. Six million people in Europe during the Third Reich, legal, Sacco and Vanzetti, quite legal, the Haymarket defendants, legal, the hundreds of rape trials throughout the south where black men were condemned to death all legal, Jesus legal, Socrates legal and that is the kaleidoscopic nature of what we live through here and in other places because all tyrants learn that it is far better to do this thing through some semblance of legality than to do it without that pretext. ~ William M. Kunstler

If Nature denies eternity to beings, it follows that their destruction is one of her laws. Now, once we observe that destruction is so useful to her that she absolutely cannot dispense with it from this moment onward the idea of annihilation which we attach to death ceases to be real what we call the end of the living animal is no longer a true finish, but a simple transformation, a transmutation of matter. According to these irrefutable principles, death is hence no more than a change of form, an imperceptible passage from one existence into another. ~ Marquis De Sade

Nature confesses that she has bestowed on the human race hearts of softest mould, in that she has given us tears. ~ Juvenal

Autumn is not nobody, but a real, actual force of nature. She is so much more than just some run-of-the-mill person. She's Bette David and Dorothy Parker and Madonna. Autumn is Tyler Durden and Tony Soprano. Autumn is Cthulhu, Destroyer of Worlds. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

For many intelligences,the thought of homely intimacies is associated with a spontaneous disgust at too much sweetness-which is why there is neither a philosophy of sweetness nor an elaborated ontology of the intimate. One must assess the nature of this resistance if one is to get past typical initial aversions. From a distance,the subject appears so unattractive and inconsequential that for the time being,only suckers for harmony or theophilic eunuchs would get stuck on it. An intellect that spends its energy on worthy objects usually prefers the sharp to the sweet; one does not offer candy to heroes ~ Peter Sloterdijk

No sky Leila had seen before could compare to the beauty she was seeing above her. It didn't feel like some accident of nature but rather something that was purposefully unleashed on the world. ~ Adi Alsaid

You don't understand the true awesomeness of nature until you watch the sun rise on water that stretches across half the world. Or until you lay back on the board in the pitch black of night and listen to the world sleep. Until you feel the tug of water and know that you are dancing with a partner that could dip you into death should it feel the need. It is intoxicating, the heartbeat of the ocean. It flows through my blood, it sucks at my heart and pumps breath through my lungs ~ Alessandra Torre

If you are on the side whence the wind is blowing you will see the trees looking much lighter than you would see them on the other sides; and this is due to the fact that the wind turns up the reverse side of the leaves which in all trees is much whiter than the upper side. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

And what is the use of knowing many things if, when you have learned the dimensions of heaven and earth, the measure of the seas, the courses of stars, the virtues of plants and stones, the secrets of nature, you still don't know yourself? ~ Francesco Petrarca

The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. ~ Oswald Chambers

1. a.Never throw shit at an armed man.
b.Never stand next to someone who
is throwing shit at an armed man.

2.Never fire a laser at a mirror.
3.Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.
4.F x S = k. The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. To gain more freedom of thought and/or action, you must give up some security, and vice versa.
5.Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.
6.It is easier to destroy than create.
7.Any damn fool can predict the past.
8.History never repeats itself.
9.Ethics change with technology.
10.There Ain't No Justice. (often abbreviated to TANJ)
11.Anarchy is the least stable of social structures. It falls apart at a touch.
12.There is a time and place for tact. And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced.
13.The ways of being human are bounded but infinite.
14.The world's dullest subjects, in order:
a.Somebody else's diet.
b.How to make money for a worthy cause.
c.The Kardashians.

15.The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
Niven's corollary: The gene-tampered turkey you're talking to isn't necessarily one of them.
16.Fuzzy Pink Niven's Law: Never waste calories.
17.There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
in variant form in Fallen Angels as "Niven's Law: No cause is so noble that it won ~ Larry Niven

What we're now starting to see, as online retailers begin to capitalize on their extraordinary economic efficiences, is the shape of a massive mountain of choice emerging where before there was just a peak ... By necessity, the conomics of traditional, hit-driven retail limit choice. When you dramatically lower the costs of connecting supply and demand, it changes not just the numbers, but the entire nature of the market. This is not just a quantiative change, but a qualitative one, too. Bringing niches within reach reveals latent demand for noncommercial content. Then, as demand shifts toward the niches, the economics of provided them improve further, and so on, creating a positive feedback loop that will transform entire industries - and the culture - for decades to come. ~ Chris Anderson

We will suffer a sharp painful disullisionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the fleshthat shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, the horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them. ~ Oswald Chambers

Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom and trade and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you and all men and all events. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Golden Mean was considered a fundamental constant by the Egyptians and the fundamental division of the whole into two parts. ~ Richard Heath

The problems that stand in the way are not of economical or technological nature. The deepest sources of the global crisis lie inside the human personality and reflect the level of consciousness evolution of our species. ~ Stanislav Grof

Why had this penguin come to mean so much? That, at least, is easy to explain. Anybody who suddenly moves far from family and friends and the pets they love, feels a .. vulnerable emptiness. It is inevitable; even despite the sensational compensation. Nature upholds a vacuum and it was into this space that Juan Salvador rushed. At first, he occupied it, and then he filled and dominated it. It was not big enough for him, and so he stretched it; expanded it beyond the measure. I didn't think about it, it just happened; and then, he was gone. Of course, time moves on and new family and friends and pets jostle for position in our heart, but the vacancy left by previous occupants never fills. We keep our loved ones alive throughout our memory, our conversations and our stories, but we don't necessarily choose to reveal how much they really meant. We don't have to. Anybody who lost a pet knows. ~ Tom Michell

According to the traditional philosophy of the Magicians, every man is a unique autonomous center of individual consciousness, energy, and will - a soul, in a word. Like a star shining and existing by its own inward light, it pursues its way in the star-spangled heavens, solitary, uninterfered with, except in so far as its heavenly course is gravitationally modified by the presence, near or far, of other stars. Since in the vast stellar spaces seldom are there conflicts between the celestial bodies, unless one happens to stray from its appointed course - a very rare occurrence - so in the realms of humankind there would lie no chaos, little conflict, and no mutual disturbance were each individual content to be grounded in the reality of his own high consciousness, aware of his ideal nature In the his true purpose in life, and eager to pursue the road which he must follow. Because men have strayed from the dynamic sources inhering within themselves and the universe, and have forsaken their true spiritual wills, because they have divorced themselves from the celestial essences, betrayed by a mess of more sickly pottage than ever Jacob did sell to Esau, the world in this day presents a people with so hopeless an aspect, and a humanity impressed with so despondent a mien. Ignorance of the course of the celestial orbit, and the significance of that orbit inscribed in the skies forever, is the root which is at the bottom of universal dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and race-nostalgia ~ Israel Regardie

Since McDougall contrasts the behaviour of a
highly organised group with what has just been described,
we shall be particularly interested to learn
in what this organisation consists, and by what
factors it is produced. The author enumerates five
principal conditions '
for raising collective mental
life to a higher level.
The first and fundamental condition is that there
should be some degree of continuity of existence in
the group. This may be either material or formal:
the former, if the same individuals persist in the
group for some time; and the latter, if there is
developed within the group a system of fixed positions
which are occupied by a succession of individuals.
The second condition is that in the individual
member of the group some definite idea should be
formed of the nature, composition, functions and
capacities of the group, so that from this he may
develop an emotional relation to the group as a
whole.
The third is that the group should be brought
into interaction (perhaps in the form of rivalry) with
other groups similar to it but differing from it in
many respects.
The fourth is that the group should possess
traditions, customs and habits, and especially such as
determine the relations of its members to one
another.
The fifth is that the group should have a definite
structure, expressed in the specialisation an ~ Sigmund Freud

It has been too easy letting distance form a chasm between our souls. Like digging a hole in the sand, the walls crumble in no time at all. I don't want our separation to be the nature of things. I want us to transcend the gap in distance. ~ Alex Z. Moores

If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it. If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the Legislature as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty. ~ Alexander Hamilton

This time of year, the purple blooms were busy with life- not just the bees, but butterflies and ladybugs, skippers and emerald-toned beetles, flitting hummingbirds and sapphire dragonflies. The sun-warmed sweet haze of the blossoms filled the air.
"When I was a kid," said Isabel, "I used to capture butterflies, but I was afraid of the bees. I'm getting over that, though." The bees softly rose and hovered over the flowers, their steady hum oddly soothing. The quiet buzzing was the soundtrack of her girlhood summers. Even now, she could close her eyes and remember her walks with Bubbie, and how they would net a monarch or swallowtail butterfly, studying the creature in a big clear jar before setting it free again. They always set them free.
As she watched the activity in the hedge, a memory floated up from the past- Bubbie, gently explaining to Isabel why they needed to open the jar. "No creature should ever be trapped against its will," she used to say. "It will ruin itself, just trying to escape." As a survivor of a concentration camp, Bubbie only ever spoke of the experience in the most oblique of terms. ~ Susan Wiggs

What you are is a human being, sensitive and alive, with genius inside of you. Not only that, but you are one of a kind. There has never been anyone like you before. You see the world in a unique way because you have unique gifts. That's the way nature made you. And it will feel like nothing less than fulfilling your destiny to follow those gifts to a rich and exciting life, full of purpose and meaning and enjoyment. ~ Barbara Sher

The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all. ~ Rollo May

That sort of overintellectualization obscures the patterns of the Wild Woman and the instinctual nature of women. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Science is exploration. The fundamental nature of exploration is that we don't know what's there. We can guess and hope and aim to find out certain things, but we have to expect surprises. ~ Charles H. Townes

Why did Plato say that poets should be chased out of the republic? Precisely because every poet and every artist is an antisocial being. He's not that way because he wants to be; he can't be any other way ... and if he really is an artist it is in his nature not to want to be admitted, because if he is admitted it can only mean he is doing something which is understood, approved, and therefore old hat - worthless. Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized. ~ Pablo Picasso