“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
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“Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.”
― Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers
― Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”
― War and Peace
― War and Peace
“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― The Four Loves
― The Four Loves
“Thérèse (of Lisieux) told her sister, Celine, who was upset with her own faults, "If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus." If you observe yourself, you will see how hard it is to be "displeasing" to yourself, and that this is the initial emotional snag that sends you into terribly bad moods without even realizing the origins of these moods. So to resolve this common problem, both Francis and Thérèse teach you to let go of the very need to "think well of yourself" to begin with! That is your ego talking, not God, they would say. Only those who have surrendered their foundational egocentricity can do this, of course. Psychiatrist and writer Scott Peck once told me that Thérèse's quote was "sheer religious genius" because it made the usual posturing of religion well-nigh impossible.”
― Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
― Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
Lance’s 2025 Year in Books
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