Catherine Smith > Catherine's Quotes

“Earth's crammed with heaven...
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

“No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“God's gifts put men's best dreams to shame.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“My sun sets to rise again.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Browning: Poems

“Light tomorrow with today.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

“Sometimes you have to risk things for the gospel’s sake, to reach people. You know, in the early church there was a group of Christians who risked their lives just to help the sick and dying. They ran toward plague victims instead of away from them, and called themselves the Parabaloni, the Gamblers, because they were gambling with their lives to help their fellow men. If there were more Christians like that around today, Christians who were willing to actually get up off the couch and risk some things for others, the world might not be in such an evil state.”
― Catherine Gruben Smith, The Parabaloni

“A Christian’s death is never happy. Heaven is happy. Death is not. Death is a horrible reminder of everything wrong. It’s unnatural, the most jarring reminder of our fall and the presence of evil there is. Don’t try to be happy about it, Vincent. Hold to where they are, that you will certainly be there too. But here we have to live staring the effects of our sin in the face. Death is that effect at its strongest. It is a deep spiritual sorrow, as well as a real physical bereavement. Jesus is its conquer. Keep letting Him conquer it for you.”
― Catherine Gruben Smith, The Parabaloni

“Sometimes you just have to find a way to live with the fears.”
― Catherine Gruben Smith, The Parabaloni

“I can stand up like this, with P2’s gun pointed at my back knowing it will go off at the touch of a finger if he decides I’ve said too much, and you know what? I’m not in the least worried about it. If I die, I go into that vision of heaven. I go to meet my Savior who has met my needs and loves me more than His own life.”
― Catherine Gruben Smith, The Parabaloni

“Tests are for learning, not passing. Character is what counts.”
― Catherine Gruben Smith, The Parabaloni

“Storms make oaks take deeper root.”
― George Herbert

“Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

“Light itself was your first love: you paint only as a means of telling about light... Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only what they say about Him.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

“Christ's death is the Christian's life. Christ's cross is the Christian's title to heaven. Christ "lifted up" and put to shame on Calvary is the ladder by which Christians "enter into the holiest," and are at length landed in glory.”
― J.C. Ryle, John (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels): Vol. 1