Iva

“Nor should we underrate the cohesive power that psalm-singing proved in the early communities; it was one of the most potent influences in gathering and holding the colonists together in love. And they reverenced their poor halting tunes in a way quite beyond our modern power of fathoming. Whenever a Puritan, even in road or field, heard at a distance the sound of a psalm-tune, though the sacred words might be quite undistinguishable, he doffed his hat and bowed his head in the true presence of God.”
― Alice Morse Earle, Sabbath in Puritan New England

“anything which we are taught by allegory or emblem affects and pleases us more, and is more highly esteemed by us, than it would be if most clearly stated in plain terms.”
― Augustine of Hippo, The Complete Works of Saint Augustine: The Confessions, On Grace and Free Will, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, Expositions on the Book Of Psalms, ...

“What the mass media–consuming public has seen from evangelical Christianity has often seemed like a play with three acts—Anger, Judgment, Insularity—restaged and reenacted over and over.”
― Tom Krattenmaker, The Evangelicals You Don't Know: Introducing the Next Generation of Christians

“Blaise rather liked the way that manners had been pared down to their essentials.”
― Gore Vidal, Hollywood