ChrisH > ChrisH's Quotes

“Where do the feet of the lonely take them? As the body turns always homeward at evening when the crowds are gone, so perhaps there is a country of the spirit to which the spirit turns in desolation. Perhaps one needed to be desolate to find that country, for if one were always happy one would not bother to look for it.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist

“We are all shadows, his friend had said, flying towards the sun, and those who get there, thought Faithful, pass through flame.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist

“It is always love of something. . . that brings joy; love of some human being, of beauty or of learning. Love is the unchanging landscape. . . at which, among the changes and chances or this mortal life, we sometimes look through the peep-hole of joy; the love of God of which human love is a tiny echo. To be lost in it will be to have eternal live. One can know no more than that.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist

“Instead of bearing your poverty as a handicap, an obstacle, accept it and welcome it as a grace.”
― Jacques Philippe, The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux

“THERE IS SURELY NO MORE RELIABLE WAY TO KILL enthusiasm and interest in a subject than to make it a mandatory part of the school curriculum. Include it as a major component of standardized testing and you virtually guarantee that the education establishment will suck the life out of it.”
― Paul Lockhart, A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form

“Teaching is not about information. It’s about having an honest intellectual relationship with your students. It requires no method, no tools, and no training. Just the ability to be real. And if you can’t be real, then you have no right to inflict yourself upon innocent children.”
― Paul Lockhart, A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form

“The two main signs of pride are despising others and getting discouraged.13 Those who are humble and accept their littleness don’t get discouraged because they put their trust in God and not in themselves.”
― Jacques Philippe, The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux

“Whatever our personal limitations and situations, we can all love right where we are: in the kitchen, the bathroom, the office—it makes no difference. What the Church needs most is genuine love. We attach too much importance to externals, actions, and visible effectiveness, whereas all that counts, all that really bears fruit in the Church, is the truth and purity and sincerity of love; that is what we should ask God for most of all and put into practice.”
― Jacques Philippe, The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux

“every time we respond to a call from God, we receive grace and are interiorly strengthened. Because God is faithful: if he asks us to take this or that step forward, he comes to the aid of our weakness.”
― Jacques Philippe, The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux

“when we have a question to which we need to know the answer in order to do God’s will today, he always responds.”
― Jacques Philippe, The Way of Trust and Love: A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux

“I understand now that such men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose, and bind them by a force from without. Never, never should I have risen of myself!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments, the authorised object of their youth, could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition; and of the necessity of self-denial and humility, he feared they had never heard from any lips that could profit them.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’ ‘As he ever has judged,’ said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Quiet your heart. Is there anything that keeps coming to your mind about your family life, homeschooling, or a particular child? If the answer is yes, take some time to pray about what changes you could make that might be a better fit. Be willing to let go of expectations that may be unreasonable right now. James 1 tells us that if we ask God for wisdom, He will give it to us if we believe and do not doubt.”
― Durenda Wilson, The Unhurried Homeschooler: A Simple, Mercifully Short Book on Homeschooling

“there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Teach us to understand the sinfulness of our own hearts, and bring to our knowledge every fault of temper and evil habit which we have indulged in to the discomfort of our fellow creatures and the danger of our own souls. —Jane Austen, an original prayer”
― Haley Stewart, Jane Austen's Genius Guide to Life: On Love, Friendship, and Becoming the Person God Created You to Be

“The problem is that nothing ever justifies abandoning objective morality in favor of relativism. It is never licit to use evil means for a good end. The moment that we do so, we are no longer fighting against evil but are becoming evil.”
― Joseph Pearce, Frodo's Journey: Discover the Hidden Meaning of The Lord of the Rings

“The motto was ‘Pax’ but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: Peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort – seldom with a seen result: subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food: beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood, yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. ‘It is My own peace I give unto you.’ Not, notice, the world’s peace.”
― Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede

“My dear,” he said, “love, your God, is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, ‘Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into Thy hands.’ Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water

“Habitual associates are known to exercise a great influence over each other’s minds and manners. Those whose actions are for ever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears, will naturally lead us, albeit against our will, slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, perhaps, to act and speak as they do.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“I hate talking where there is no exchange of ideas or sentiments, and no good given or received.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“Though it may be better for [children] to read some things, especially fairy-stories, that are beyond their measure rather than short of it. Their books like their clothes should allow for growth, and their books at any rate should encourage it.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories

“It came on me then how futile were our actions, if God chooses to interpose His will between us and our desires.”
― Emmuska Orczy, The Collected Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel: Omnibus Edition of Sir Percy's Adventures

“Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest." "What?" asked the thief, almost gaping. "You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Father Brown: Essential Tales

“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

“I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Father Brown: Essential Tales

“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization—it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.”
― Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory