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The Crystal Pointers
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1929
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 6, 2020
Well, another Boreham under by belt and I could not be more appreciative.
Many great quotes from this one and I did narrow it down, I promise, but I want to be able to access these so I recorded them here.
"Was it not Thomas à Kempis who said that if every man would set to work to cultivate one new virtue, or weed out one old vice, each year, he would be a saint in not time."
"For every man is a mob. Those who, like Mr. Bernard Shaw and Stevenson's Jekyll/Hyde, have only two personalities to deal with, are to be congratulated on the simplicity of their problem."
"A Scottish writer says that Man is neither logical nor illogical; he is analogical; 'his mind sweeps forward, not in the rigid iron line of the railway excavation, but with the curves of a river that follows the solicitation of the ground'. That may be so. But, whether Man be illogical or analogical or supra logical, I only know that he is not logical. Man is not logical; never was and never will be."
"There is a law of life which ordains that, the higher we lift a thing, the greater is the damage if it falls."
"The Bible is full of kisses because life is full of kisses."
"Conscience, according to Hamlet, makes cowards of us all. So do kisses. At least they have made a coward of me."
"If he really desires to transform the Church as it is not the Church of his ideal, he can only do it by pouring something from his life into its life; he will never do it by taking something out."
"You cannot cure a patient by enlarging, in grim and ghastly detail, on the loathsomeness of his disease. He needs a positive prescription."
"The waters can only be cleansed by addition: they can never be cleansed by subtraction."
"We are not really rich unless we know that we are rich. In the same way, we are not really strong unless we know that we are strong. To be of any use to the world, a man must not only be able to do things; he must know that he is a able to do them."
"A man should think justly of himself. It is just as great a mistake to say that two and two make three as to say that they make five. It is just as serious a defect for a man to think too little of himself as to think too much. I am prepared to argue that, of the two, the man who thinks too little of himself it is the greatest menace to the public good."
"When there was no divine work going forward in the heart of Job, he talked all day long of his integrity and charity; but when a spiritual illumination broke upon him, he abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes."
"Herein lies the weakness of monasticism. I may prevent the dust and defilement of the world from settling on my soul by imprisonment myself in a cloister. But, separated from the world, I can no longer serve the world. I have stultified and disqualified myself. I have rendered it impossible for me to do the work that I was sent into the world to do. It is better for me to enter into the hurly-burly and to do my work, even though my soul gets somewhat dusty in the doing of it. By entering a convent a woman may render indelible the virgin sweetness of her chastity. But it is the hand of that rocks the cradle that rules the world."
"That is why Jesus emphasized the hardships of His service. He stamped the sign of the Cross upon everything. 'If any man will come after Me,' He said, 'let him take up his cross and follow Me!' He appealed to our passion for the risky road, and, as a consequence, the knightliest souls of all the ages have thronged to His banner."
"It is better to think, for the simple reason that it is better to think wrongly that not to think at all. It is better to believe; I can but believe wrongly; and it is better to believe wrongly that not to believe at all. It is better to believe in anything than to believe in nothing; it is better to believe in anybody than to believe in nobody. It is better to love those who cannot appreciate our love than never to love anyone at all."
"Mr. Chesterton says that the best way in which a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random and get on as well as possible with the people inside. 'And that,' he adds, 'is essentially what each of us did on the day on which he was born.'"
"When I reflect on all the loves and the hates, the births and the deaths, the comedies and the tragedies, that had to take place through the long agony of the ages in order to produce me, I am astounded that I did not lose my way along that difficult and tremendous stretch of the road."
"David's fool is the Fool Positive; Bunyan's is the Fool Comparative. The Fool Superlative is the man who, convinced by the dictates of his reason, of his conscience, and of his heart that there is a God who made him and a Saviour who died for him, lives every day of his life as though there were neither."
"And Goethe used to say that a man reveals his character most clearly in the things that he considers laughable."
"There is evidently a vast amount of wisdom underlying the arrangement by which, in the case of humans, several generations dwell upon the face of the earth contemporaneously, enjoying a possibility of cultivating each other's society to their mutual advantage."
"No stage, with all the magic of its wires and lights, is equal to the arm-chair of grandfather. The little ones climb on his knees. Their eyes are fixed on his, and they prize the permission to handle the head of his cane or stroke his long white beard. Never again in our lives do we find anything so interesting. What are the romances that we read later on, all made of transparent fictions and cumbered with literature? What are the most famous plays or thrilling dramas compared with what we listed to as children, with that freshness of impression to which everything is new and with the naive trust to which everything is true?"
"There are times when a man should make up his mind to make up his mind; and there are times when a man should make up his mind to do nothing of the sort. The making of a decision is like the taking of a photograph; it needs a good light - a light that is neither too fierce not too feeble. The man who understand precisely when to take a photograph is the man who understand precisely how to take a photograph. And, in the same way, the man who understands precisely when to make up his mind is the man who understands precisely how to make up his mind."
"Why should the whole world be dotted with churches - each church a 'means of grace' - unless the great Lord of all the Churches is eager that, of His grace, all men should taste?"
"Those books," says Dickens, in David Copperfield, "those books were my only and my constant comfort. They were glorious companions; they kept alive my fancy; they gave me hope of something beyond that place and time."
Many great quotes from this one and I did narrow it down, I promise, but I want to be able to access these so I recorded them here.
"Was it not Thomas à Kempis who said that if every man would set to work to cultivate one new virtue, or weed out one old vice, each year, he would be a saint in not time."
"For every man is a mob. Those who, like Mr. Bernard Shaw and Stevenson's Jekyll/Hyde, have only two personalities to deal with, are to be congratulated on the simplicity of their problem."
"A Scottish writer says that Man is neither logical nor illogical; he is analogical; 'his mind sweeps forward, not in the rigid iron line of the railway excavation, but with the curves of a river that follows the solicitation of the ground'. That may be so. But, whether Man be illogical or analogical or supra logical, I only know that he is not logical. Man is not logical; never was and never will be."
"There is a law of life which ordains that, the higher we lift a thing, the greater is the damage if it falls."
"The Bible is full of kisses because life is full of kisses."
"Conscience, according to Hamlet, makes cowards of us all. So do kisses. At least they have made a coward of me."
"If he really desires to transform the Church as it is not the Church of his ideal, he can only do it by pouring something from his life into its life; he will never do it by taking something out."
"You cannot cure a patient by enlarging, in grim and ghastly detail, on the loathsomeness of his disease. He needs a positive prescription."
"The waters can only be cleansed by addition: they can never be cleansed by subtraction."
"We are not really rich unless we know that we are rich. In the same way, we are not really strong unless we know that we are strong. To be of any use to the world, a man must not only be able to do things; he must know that he is a able to do them."
"A man should think justly of himself. It is just as great a mistake to say that two and two make three as to say that they make five. It is just as serious a defect for a man to think too little of himself as to think too much. I am prepared to argue that, of the two, the man who thinks too little of himself it is the greatest menace to the public good."
"When there was no divine work going forward in the heart of Job, he talked all day long of his integrity and charity; but when a spiritual illumination broke upon him, he abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes."
"Herein lies the weakness of monasticism. I may prevent the dust and defilement of the world from settling on my soul by imprisonment myself in a cloister. But, separated from the world, I can no longer serve the world. I have stultified and disqualified myself. I have rendered it impossible for me to do the work that I was sent into the world to do. It is better for me to enter into the hurly-burly and to do my work, even though my soul gets somewhat dusty in the doing of it. By entering a convent a woman may render indelible the virgin sweetness of her chastity. But it is the hand of that rocks the cradle that rules the world."
"That is why Jesus emphasized the hardships of His service. He stamped the sign of the Cross upon everything. 'If any man will come after Me,' He said, 'let him take up his cross and follow Me!' He appealed to our passion for the risky road, and, as a consequence, the knightliest souls of all the ages have thronged to His banner."
"It is better to think, for the simple reason that it is better to think wrongly that not to think at all. It is better to believe; I can but believe wrongly; and it is better to believe wrongly that not to believe at all. It is better to believe in anything than to believe in nothing; it is better to believe in anybody than to believe in nobody. It is better to love those who cannot appreciate our love than never to love anyone at all."
"Mr. Chesterton says that the best way in which a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random and get on as well as possible with the people inside. 'And that,' he adds, 'is essentially what each of us did on the day on which he was born.'"
"When I reflect on all the loves and the hates, the births and the deaths, the comedies and the tragedies, that had to take place through the long agony of the ages in order to produce me, I am astounded that I did not lose my way along that difficult and tremendous stretch of the road."
"David's fool is the Fool Positive; Bunyan's is the Fool Comparative. The Fool Superlative is the man who, convinced by the dictates of his reason, of his conscience, and of his heart that there is a God who made him and a Saviour who died for him, lives every day of his life as though there were neither."
"And Goethe used to say that a man reveals his character most clearly in the things that he considers laughable."
"There is evidently a vast amount of wisdom underlying the arrangement by which, in the case of humans, several generations dwell upon the face of the earth contemporaneously, enjoying a possibility of cultivating each other's society to their mutual advantage."
"No stage, with all the magic of its wires and lights, is equal to the arm-chair of grandfather. The little ones climb on his knees. Their eyes are fixed on his, and they prize the permission to handle the head of his cane or stroke his long white beard. Never again in our lives do we find anything so interesting. What are the romances that we read later on, all made of transparent fictions and cumbered with literature? What are the most famous plays or thrilling dramas compared with what we listed to as children, with that freshness of impression to which everything is new and with the naive trust to which everything is true?"
"There are times when a man should make up his mind to make up his mind; and there are times when a man should make up his mind to do nothing of the sort. The making of a decision is like the taking of a photograph; it needs a good light - a light that is neither too fierce not too feeble. The man who understand precisely when to take a photograph is the man who understand precisely how to take a photograph. And, in the same way, the man who understands precisely when to make up his mind is the man who understands precisely how to make up his mind."
"Why should the whole world be dotted with churches - each church a 'means of grace' - unless the great Lord of all the Churches is eager that, of His grace, all men should taste?"
"Those books," says Dickens, in David Copperfield, "those books were my only and my constant comfort. They were glorious companions; they kept alive my fancy; they gave me hope of something beyond that place and time."
June 5, 2020
A gem of a book - some of his finest essays!
March 24, 2021
Classic Boreham. Full of fascinating insights, practical wisdom, and some wonderful everyday illustrations. Every essay is like a blast of fresh air!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews