“But the cultivation and expression of virtue (and vice) and the formation of conscience is not merely an individual act but also a communal one. In addition to shaping individual experience and character, great literature has a role in forming the communal conscience and public virtue. We can understand a great deal about culture—its strengths, its weakness, its blind spots, and its struggles—when we examine the literature it not only produces but reveres.”
― On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books
― On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books
“To be pilgrims means that men must perpetually return to the starting-point of that naked humanity which is absolute poverty and utter insecurity. God must not be sought as though he sat enthroned upon the summit of religious attainment. He is to be found on the plain where men suffer and sin. The veritable pinnacle of religious achievement is attained when men are thrust down into the company of those who lie in the depths. The true faith is the "faith of Abraham which he had in uncircumcision"; the true children of Abraham are thy whom God is able to raise up "of these stones". Where this is overlooked, the first must become the last, for only the last can be first.”
― The Epistle to the Romans
― The Epistle to the Romans
“But except in rare circumstances, you can train until you’re blue in the face and you’d never be as good as if you just focused on one thing at a time.” What we’re doing when we multitask “is learning to be skillful at a superficial level.” The Roman philosopher Seneca May have put it best two thousand years ago: “To be everywhere is to be nowhere.”
― The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
― The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
“...the terms heterosexual and homosexual originate from a secular anthropology that elevates sexual desires as a legitimate way to categorize humanity...Are we in fact defined by our sexual desires and behaviors?...The Bible does not categorize humanity according to our sexual desires—-or any other sort of desire.”
― Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God's Grand Story
― Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God's Grand Story
“What is good is only a matter of opinion in secular society. Using society’s own standard of goodness, careful observation of the bigger picture may reveal that a particular good has been outweighed by general evil. When a society defines its own morality and then applies it to itself, that society can justify its own serious breaches of character. It is able to lower the standard to the detriment of all.”
― Real Christianity
― Real Christianity
Charles Dickens
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— last activity Nov 28, 2022 09:12AM
This is a group for those fascinated by Dickens works or want to start reading Charles Dickens' books. In this group we read books only by Charles Dic ...more
Sharon’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sharon’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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