Category: My Commonplace Book
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Voltaire: “I don’t believe in God, but I hope my valet does so he doesn’t steal my spoons.”
“I don’t believe in God, but I hope my valet does so he doesn’t steal my spoons.”
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Rosenstock-Huess: “By falling in love…one’s eyes are opened…”
“By his falling in love, one’s eyes are opened. He can read the riddles, he can decipher the flowers and the stars.” -Rosenstock-Huess
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John Wesley: “…I felt my heart strangely warmed…”
May 24, 1738 In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely…
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Christian Wiman: “‘The task is not to “believe” in a life beyond this one; the task is to perceive it. …”
‘The task is not to “believe” in a life beyond this one; the task is to perceive it. Perception is not projection: We are not meant to project our experience of this life into another, nor are we meant to imag- ine, by means of the details of this life (which is the only…
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Bruce Charlton: “…continuous revelation…to sustain scripture, reason, tradition…”
[I’ve stolen the entire post.] “This assertion is based on my experience, as well as my understanding of history. In my brief time as a Christian I have tried – at times – to give my allegiance to a bottom line – whether scripture, reason, tradition etc – and found it almost immediately impossible. It…
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Hazlitt: on Government Credit, from “Economics”
[Bold is mine.] But there is a decisive difference between the loans supplied by private lenders and the loans supplied by a government agency. Each private tender risks his own funds. (A banker, it is true, risks the funds of others that have been entrusted to him; but if money is lost he must…
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Jürgen Habermas: “…and the Christian ethic of love…everything else is idle postmodern talk”
“For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic…
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Alexis de Tocqueville: “…bribe the public with the public’s money…”
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. Alexis de Tocqueville
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Thomas Merton: “The Trappist Abbey: Matins”
When the full fields begin to smell of sunrise And the valleys sing in their sleep, The pilgrim moon pours over the solemn darkness Her waterfalls of silence, And then departs, up the long avenue of trees. The stars hide, in the glade, their light, like tears, And tremble where some train runs, lost, Baying…