Jon Carlson > Jon's Quotes

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is really fear.”
― Gandhi

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
― Steve Jobs

“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Nothing is so ruinous to progress in which effort is needed, as satisfaction with apparent achievement. It always stops momentum.”
― George MacDonald, Thomas Wingfold Curate

“Edna more willingly believed in Elohim's beneficence. When the river had returned to its natural southward current, she wondered how many other miracles they would take for granted with such lack of gratitude. The provision of food to fill their bellies? More salvation from the enemy's mace? The devoted love of a man with a woman? The conception of a new human life? The birth of a child? It seemed everything kept pointing back to Methuselah in her heart.”
― Brian Godawa, Enoch Primordial

“Where is Edna?” The beauty glared at him with incredulity, exotic make up accentuating her every breath-taking feature. “Are you mocking me?” “I am sorry, what?” he replied. “Are you that thickheaded? It is me, silly,” said the girl. It hit him like a ton of mud bricks. This gorgeous vision of feminine transcendence frowning at him was none other than the transformed presentation of his immature scrawny little boyish girl Edna. His little Pedna. How could he have never seen her this way before? He stumbled back a step and almost fainted. He knew at that very moment that he would never be happy in this life again until he married this goddess.”
― Brian Godawa, Enoch Primordial