Leandra > Leandra's Quotes

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo

“But now you love a hyacinth. So much the better. You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

“There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It does good to no woman to be flattered [by a man] who does not intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The only indestructible palace is in the heart.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Strangers and Sojourners

“In my experience, it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate the people who 'happen to be there.' Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.”
― C. S. Lewis

“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”
― Gandhi

“An eternal question about children is, how should we educate them? Politicians and educators consider more school days in a year, more science and math, the use of computers and other technology in the classroom, more exams and tests, more certification for teachers, and less money for art. All of these responses come from the place where we want to make the child into the best adult possible, not in the ancient Greek sense of virtuous and wise, but in the sense of one who is an efficient part of the machinery of society. But on all these counts, soul is neglected.”
― Thomas Moore

“Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Examine your heart often to see if it is such toward your neighbor as you would like his to be toward you were you in his place. This is the touchstone of true reason.”
― St. Francis de Sales

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to avow them and half doubtful if they can after all be right. Put me back among my Friends and in half an hour - in ten minutes - these same views and standards become once more indisputable. The opinion of this little circle, while I am in it, outweighs that of a thousand outsiders: as Friendship strengthens, it will do this even when my Friends are far away. For we all wish to be judged by our peers, by the men "after our own heart." Only they really know our mind and only they judge it by standards we fully acknowledge. Theirs is the praise we really covet and the blame we really dread.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.”
― Fulton J. Sheen

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved”
― George Elliot

“We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.”
― Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock

“This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love.”
― Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock

“The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. He [C.S. Lewis] says elsewhere that that's the very definition of humility. Humility does not mean to have a low view of your self. It means to have no view of yourself. Having a low view of yourself is miserable--psychologists know that. And that's also the solution to the problem of introspection. If I ask myself, how am I doing, I come out with one of three answers: well, terribly, or so-so.

If I say I'm doing well, I'm a proud, self-righteous, arrogant, self-satisfied, priggish Pharisee; if I say I'm doing lousy, I'm a miserable worm with a guilt complex and I need some psychiatry; and if i say I'm sort of fair to midland then I'm dull, wishy-washy, Charlie Brown. So what's the solution? Don't look at yourself. Take your temperature when you're sick, otherwise look at other people and God. They're much more interesting. The first step is to try to forget about yourself altogether. Your real self, your new self, will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come only when you're looking for Him.”
― Peter Kreeft

“The national anthem of Hell is 'I did it my way.”
― Peter Kreeft

“Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice" people, not heroes.”
― Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock

“We are all insane. That is what original sin means. Sin is insanity. It is preferring finite joy to infinite joy, creatures to the Creator, an unhappy, Godless self to a happy, God-filled self Only God can save us from this disease. That is what the name "Jesus" means: 'God saves'.”
― Peter Kreeft

“Love gives you eyes.”
― Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock