John > John's Quotes

“This book is written from a changing town in Virginia, but this class of mine, these people--the ones who smell like an ashtray in the checkout line, devour a carton of Little Debbies at a sitting, and praise Jesus for a truck with no spare tire--exist in every state in our nation. Maybe the next time we on the left encounter such seemingly self-screwing, stubborn, God-obsessed folks, we can be open to their trials, understand the complexity of their situation, even have enough solidarity to pop for a cheap retread tire out of our own pockets, simply because that would be the kind thing to do and surely would make the ghosts of Joe Hill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mohandas Gandhi smile.”
― Joe Bageant

“The greatest danger that besets us does not come from believers or atheists; it comes from those who, under the guise of religion, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species.”
― Chris Hedges, I Don't Believe in Atheists

“We must fight their falsehood with our truth, but we must also fight the falsehood in our truth.”
― Niebuhr, H. Richard

“The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. ”
― Reinhold Niebuhr

“Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure. ”
― Reinhold Neibuhr