Brandon > Brandon's Quotes

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
― Socrates

“I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal.”
― George MacDonald, Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women

“There are two days in my calendar: This day and that Day.”
― Martin Luther

“All that is not God is death.”
― George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth”
― Jeremy Taylor

“Television is the soma of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.”
― Robert MacNeil

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
― Blaise Pascal

“There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.”
― Quintilian

“So far from being able to answer for my sins, I cannot even answer for my righteousness!”
― Bernard of Clairvaux

“Go where thou wilt, thou canst not go out of thy Father's ground.”
― Thomas Boston

“I never cut my neighbor's throat;
My neighbor's gold I never stole;
I never spoiled his house and land;
But God have mercy on my soul!

For I am haunted night and day
By all the deeds I have not done;
O unattempted loveliness!
O costly valor never won!”
― Marguerite Wilkinson

“Think it not enough, that you can bear the denial of sinful desires; but presently destroy the desires themselves. For if you let alone the desires, they may at last lay hold upon their prey, before you are aware: or if you should be guilty of nothing but the desires themselves, it is no small iniquity; being the corruption of the heart, and the rebellion and adultery of the principal faculty, which should be kept loyal and chaste to God. The crossness of thy will to the will of God, is the sum of all the evil and impiety of the soul; and the subjection and conformity of thy will to his, is the heart of the new creature, and of thy rectitude and sanctification.”
― Richard Baxter, The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, Vol. 1: A Christian Directory

“Hell is truth known too late.”
― J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion

“Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.”
― J.C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer

“Knowledge is the eye that must direct the foot of obedience.”
― Thomas Watson

“Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooketh him who is the 'Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' and seeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be annhiliation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us.”
― Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

“Happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart.”
― J.C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer

“Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than truth itself.”
― Irenaeus of Lyons

“There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.”
― Helen Keller

“I do not think there is a demonstrative proof (like Euclid) of Christianity, nor of the existence of matter, nor of the good will and honesty of my best and oldest friends. I think all three are (except perhaps the second) far more probable than the alternatives. The case for Christianity in general is well given by Chesterton…As to why God doesn't make it demonstratively clear; are we sure that He is even interested in the kind of Theism which would be a compelled logical assent to a conclusive argument? Are we interested in it in personal matters? I demand from my friend trust in my good faith which is certain without demonstrative proof. It wouldn't be confidence at all if he waited for rigorous proof. Hang it all, the very fairy-tales embody the truth. Othello believed in Desdemona's innocence when it was proved: but that was too late. Lear believed in Cordelia's love when it was proved: but that was too late. 'His praise is lost who stays till all commend.' The magnanimity, the generosity which will trust on a reasonable probability, is required of us. But supposing one believed and was wrong after all? Why, then you would have paid the universe a compliment it doesn't deserve. Your error would even so be more interesting and important than the reality. And yet how could that be? How could an idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger, better, subtler than itself?”
― C.S. Lewis

“One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
― Martin Luther

“Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool's coat thither.”
― William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

“We are nothing with all our gifts be they ever so great, except God assist us.”
― Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians

“You’re not likely to err by practicing too much of the cross.”
― Alexander Whyte, Bunyan characters in the Pilgrim's progress

“Both Heaven and Hell are retroactive, all of one's life will eventually be known to have been one or the other.”
― Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy, and Triumph

“It is not possible to be 'incidentally a Christian.' The fact of Christianity must be overwhelmingly first or nothing. This suggests a reason for the dislike of Christians by nominal or non-Christians: their lives contain no overwhelming first but many balances.”
― Sheldon Vanauken