R. Spangler > R.'s Quotes

“Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by a genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition and settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"
A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—
is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the
friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and
all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties
you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no
human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with
heaven, if Christ were not there? ”
― John Piper, God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
― Martin Luther

“Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."
... It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision - it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
― Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

“Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
― John Harington

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Really Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“What you need is a gramme of soma.”
“All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him”
― John Piper

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
― Augustine of Hippo

“It is no great feat to burn a little man. It is a great
achievement to persuade him. ERASMUS, LETTER”
― Os Guinness, Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

“everyone is now in the business of relentless self-promotion—presenting themselves, explaining themselves, defending themselves, selling themselves or sharing their inner thoughts and emotions as never before in human history.”
― Os Guinness, Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

“Even the best of pursuits can become the worst of diversions. But whatever the source of the diversion, diversion is the most common reason for what Socrates called the “unexamined life”
― Os Guinness, Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

“Once when the great slaver turned abolitionist John Newton was praised for what he had achieved, he responded quickly: “Sir, the devil already told me that.” In a similar situation, when the eminent Scottish preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne was congratulated by a parishioner for his saintliness, he replied sharply, “Madame, if you could see in my heart, you would spit in my face.” In each case, they refused to let others think that they were what they weren’t. They resisted hypocrisy by exposing the gap that was its essence—the gap between the inner and the outer, appearance and reality.”
― Os Guinness, Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

“Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we. Every single person is unique and individual and deserves an approach that respects that uniqueness.”
― Os Guinness, Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

“The age of the Internet, it is said, is the age of the self and the selfie. The world is full of people full of themselves. In such an age, “I post, therefore I am.”
― Os Guinness, Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

“In his commentary on Titus 1:12, for example, Calvin states: “All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God.”
― Keith A. Mathison, A Reformed Approach to Science and Scripture