Amanda > Amanda's Quotes

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“I could not put the Bible down. I literally could not. It felt as if my heart would stop beating, perhaps implode, if I put it down.”
― Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

“The main effort of arranging your life should be to progressively reduce the amount of time required to decently maintain yourself so that you can have all the time you want for reading.”
― Norman Rush

“Believing in him is not the same as believing things about him such as that he was born of a virgin and raised Lazarus from the dead. Instead, it is a matter of giving our hearts to him, of come hell or high water putting our money on him, the way a child believes in a mother or a father, the way a mother or a father believes in a child.”
― Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

“If Mere Christianity helps make Christianity comprehensible, Orthodoxy makes it weird again.”
― Leah Libresco

“What, pray, can be more sacred than this sacred mystery? What can be more delightful than the pleasure found therein? What food, what honey can be sweeter than to learn of God’s wise plan, to enter into His sanctuary and gaze on the mind of the Creator, and to rehearse the words of your Lord, which, though derided by the wise of this world, are really full of spiritual wisdom! Let the others, if they will, have their wealth, and drink from jewelled cups, be clad in silk, and bask in popular applause, as if they could not exhaust their riches in all kinds of pleasures. Our delight shall be to meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night, to knock at His door when it is not open, to receive the bread of the Trinity, and, with our Lord going before us, to walk on the billows of the world.”
― St. Jerome

“The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologians to swim in without ever touching the bottom" St. Jerome”
― St. Jerome

“If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior. ”
― D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers

“Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.”
― Edith Stein

“All those who seek truth, seek God, whether this is clear to them or not.”
― Edith Stein

“To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one’s feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father’s right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels—this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth.”
― Edith Stein, The Hidden Life: Essays, Meditations, Spiritual Text

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World