Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human.
Do not lose heart, even if you must wait a bit before finding the right thing. Be prepared for disappointment also, but do not abandon the quest.
I am certain and have always stressed that the destination of mankind is to become more and more humane. The ideal of humanity has to be revived.
The law itself exhibits justice and teaches wisdom by abstinence from sensible images and by calling out to the Maker and Father of the universe.
[Only by] the good influence of our conduct may we bring salvation in human affairs; or like a fatal comet we may bring destruction in our train.
Scarcely is there any peace so unjust that it is better than even the fairest war. -Vix ulla tam iniqua pax, quin bello vel aequissimo sit potior
Baptize first the children; and if they can speak for themselves, let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them.
I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.
Money never stays with me. It would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find its way into my heart.
In Jesus, God wills to be true God not only in the height but also in the depth - in the depth of human creatureliness, sinfulness and mortality.
It’s hard to remember that Jesus did not come to make us safe, but rather to make us disciples, citizens of God’s new age, a kingdom of surprise.
Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success.
When we observe contemporary society one thing strikes us. We debate but make no progress. Why? Because as peoples we do not yet trust each other.
Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.
We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve but to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love.
If we are given gold, would we not test it to determine it's value? If we doubted its genuineness - we would test it by fire...and so God with us.
There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love.
[When I die] if I leave behind me ten pounds...you and all mankind [may] bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber.
We act unbelievingly and disobediently when, for whatever motive, we distort, falsify, or suppress the facts about our life in nature and history.
The desired Islamic state might be likened to an orchard planted with olive and palm trees that will take a relatively long time to produce fruit.
Whoever passes forty without his virtue overpowering his vice, let him get ready for hellfire. This advice contains enough for people of knowledge.
By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
In returning I read a very different book, published by an honest Quaker , on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the Slave-trade.
My praying friend, continue to make known your desires to God in all things. ... Let Him decide whether you are to receive what you ask for or not.
Whoever determines the truth from people alone will remain lost in the plains of bewilderment. Rather, know the truth, and you will know its people.
The mere physical man is like the ant crawling on the paper, who observes black lettering and attributes its production to the pen and nothing more.
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
The nuclear age has refuted the idea of progress and Marxism has been refuted by Stalinism. Therefore people have returned to the historic religion.
He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable hearers.
The majority of the common people loathe war and pray for peace; only a handful of individuals, whose evil joys depend on general misery, desire war.
The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart.
[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
I don't know whether any religious leader would say that we must ultimately win, because we're on God's side. If they do say that, it's bad religion.
Religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.
To come to terms with our beginning requires a truthful story to acquire the skills to live in gratitude rather than resentment for the gift of life.
We may rest assured that God would never have suffered any infants to be slain except those who were already damned and predestined for eternal death.
The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.
Man with all his shrewdness is as stupid about understanding by himself the mysteries of God, as an ass is incapable of understanding musical harmony.
Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.
In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said, "If you could only get rid of the Bishop, then you'd be a true Christian".
Today . . . we know that all living beings who strive to maintain life and who long to be spared pain - all living beings on earth - are our neighbors.
Modern man has not only thrown away Christian theology, he has thrown away the possibility of what our forefathers had as a basis for morality and law.
Sometimes it seems things go by too quickly. We are so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take the time to enjoy where we are.
The most accomplished in the Scripture are fools, unless they acknowledge that they have need of God for their schoolmaster all the days of their life.
[Christ] does not give [men] light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness.... God does not give them a stock of holiness.
I cannot worship the abstractions of virtue: she only charms me when she addresses herself to my heart, speaks through the love from which she springs.
Death threatens our speech with futility because death is not just a biological event - it is a reality we fear may rob our living of any significance.
Let me be clear: I am a Methodist. By that, I mean I think John Wesley was a recovery of Catholic Christianity through disciplined congregational life.
I teach in the Divinity School at Duke University, a very secular university. But before Duke, I taught fourteen years at the University of Notre Dame.