Nathan McClallen

“If such as Thomas a Kempis and Bernard of Clairvaux are generous providers of the occasion of education, rather than reciters of precepts and beliefs, it is because they are seeking to be virtuous and to compose their own lives, rather than worrying that others might be vicious, leading discordant lives. Such teachers do the best that a teacher can do. In their own deliberations, they cast enough light that I may see something by it, if I happen to be looking.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire

“Always let your conscience be your guide" is advice of doubtful value. Conscience must be, among other things, a list of sayings, an anthology of quotations and precepts. Where did they come from, and who first wrote them on my empty slate, and why?”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire

“If we think only the thoughts that are customary to us, and listen only to the words of those who are "of our mind," we are little likely to find refreshment and renewal in our minds, and thus all too likely to suppose that we have come to the end of all deliberations that we have to make.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire

“I have made and accepted my own version of the natural order of things, and actually supposed a universe that has, or damn well ought to have, my convenience in mind.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire