Thursday, December 28, 2023

"God gave me a plan."

"God gave me a plan."

~ Phyllis Duncan, Schwenkfelder Mission Church, 9/25/2022

Marriage - Martin Luther

Marriage

"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.

Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, 
and let him make her sorry to see him leave."

~ Martin Luther

Albert Einstein quote about "a holy curiosity"

Albert Einstein quote about "a holy curiosity"

Curiosity

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

~ Albert Einstein

https://www.azquotes.com/author/4399-Albert_Einstein/tag/curiosity

"When it rains gold, put out the bucket."

"When it rains gold, put out the bucket."

~ Warren Buffett

"democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried"

Winston S. Churchill said the following famous quip about democracy (House of Commons, 11 November 1947)—but he was quoting an unknown predecessor (note bold face below). Credit Churchill as publicist for an unsourced aphorism. 

From Churchill by Himself, 574:

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/12/08/democracy-worst/

"Don’t let that slip become a slide."

"Slips are totally normal. 

When you have a slip, it’s just that. A slip. It doesn’t define you. It doesn’t make you a failure. 

The most important thing is that you don’t let that slip become a slide."

~ Jennette McCurdy

"Always look for the helpers," she'd tell me.

In 1986, Fred Rogers wrote this in a syndicated newspaper column:

I was spared from any great disasters when I was little, but there was plenty of news of them in newspapers and on the radio, 
and there were graphic images of them in newsreels.

For me, as for all children, the world could have come to seem a scary place to live. 

But I felt secure with my parents, and they let me know that we were safely together whenever I showed concern about accounts of alarming events in the world.

There was something else my mother did that I've always remembered: 

"Always look for the helpers," she'd tell me. 
"There's always someone who is trying to help." 

I did, and I came to see that the world is full of doctors and nurses, 
police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends 
who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/look-for-the-helpers/

The central tenet of Christianity as it has come down to us

"The central tenet of Christianity as it has come down to us
is that we are 
to reach out when our instinct is to pull inward; 
to give when we want to take; 
to love when we are inclined to hate; 
to include when are tempted to exclude."

~ Jon Meacham

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live in.”

“Take care of your body.
It’s the only place you have to live in.”

 ~ Jim Rohn

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

~ Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Monday, November 27, 2023

Did Gandhi Say This About Christians?

 "Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians, you are not like him." 

~ Indian philosopher Bara Dada, quoted in the mid-1920s 


Did Gandhi Say This About Christians?

"I like your Christ, but not your Christianity."


Harvard University newspaper The Harvard Crimson, 1927, uses the quote confusingly, as though it might be a paraphrase from a Swarthmore College philosophy professor named J.H. Holmes:

"I like your Christ, but not your Christianity." In these words of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. J.H. Holmes summed up the Indian leader's view of Christianity in a recent interview with a CRIMSON reporter. Dr. Holmes, professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College and a member of the Society of Friends, has just completed a tour around the world, during which he spent some time in India. He had several opportunities of conversing with Gandhi. He was present at the meeting of the All-Indian Congress and had the honor of being the only westerner ever allowed to speak from their platform.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-christians/

"Do what you love"

 "Do what you love, and put your whole heart into it, and then just have fun."

~ Tim Cook, Apple CEO

"The line separating good and evil passes . . . through every human heart."

 Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion, 2019, p. 213.

quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

My thoughts are not all bad: many are good and kind and true. But like a bag of flour infested by maggots, no part of me is pure. This dawned on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he was lying on rotting straw in a Soviet gulag: 

"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either--but right through every human heart.”3 

This realization leaves us with another problem: all our relationships hinge, to some extent, on hiding.

3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, trans. Harry Willetts, vol. 3 (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 615.

"This is the path to heaven"

On Reading St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life:

One phrase from it really stuck with me. He wrote, “Say frequently in the midst of your contradictions, ‘This is the path to heaven.'”

https://aleteia.org/2023/01/23/st-francis-de-sales-6-words-to-hold-onto-when-life-is-really-hard/amp/

“I swore never to be silent . . . "

 quote from Elie Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: 

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

A Wise Woman

 "A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy,
a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim."

~ Maya Angelou

Bruce Lee on Goals

 “A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

 - Bruce Lee

Abraham Lincoln's praise for the Bible

 "In regards to The Great Book, I have but to say: it is the best gift God has given to man.  All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book.  But for it we could not know right from wrong.  All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it."

~ Abraham Lincoln

St. Augustine’s words from his Confessions

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” 

 St. Augustine, Confessions

Billy Graham’s Unto the Hills

“God wants us to long for Him because it is in that longing that we are fulfilled and overwhelmed by God and the reflection of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in our lives.

We are never more fulfilled than when our longing for God is met by His presence in our lives.”

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills

Thomas Hobbes quotes

 “God put me on this Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I'm so far behind that I'll never die".”

~ Thomas Hobbes

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“Life is nasty, brutish, and short”

~ Thomas Hobbes

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“Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark”

~ Thomas Hobbes

Bill Watterson quotes

“God put me on earth to accomplish certain things. Right now, I’m so far behind, I’ll never die.”

~ Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes

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“I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. 

If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. 

And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.”

~ Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

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“You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.

What mood is that?

Last-minute panic.”

~ Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes