'. . . every developed and maturing people ought to have its politics derived from its firm principles which do not float in the air as so many abstractions but which have deep roots in the soil of national life. Our thinking mind, after all, is not some kind of hutch with drawers and cubbyholes in which we have a separate compartment for politics and another for social affairs and a third for spiritual questions. Everything in our minds is interconnected, and our deepest life-principle is nothing but the root from which the fullness of our thoughts shoot up, to spread themselves over the many areas of life. Your political ideas are connected with your social insights; your social insights with your thoughts on marriage and family; those thoughts with your views about the church; your views about the church with your spiritual convictions; and your spiritual convictions with the relation of your heart to God.' --- Abraham Kuyper Ons Program (1879)

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "The best day on which the sun has risen is Friday. On that day Adam was created, he was admitted to Jannah, and he was expelled therefrom.''- Abu Hurraira hadith (It seems Islam has nothing better to celebrate than creation.)

I have learned by mournful experience that the last thing a man finds out and understands, is his own state in the sight of God. Well says the Holy Spirit, that we are all by nature "blind," and "deaf," and "dumb," and "asleep," and "beside ourselves," and "dead!" Nothing, nothing will ever convince man of his sin but the power of the Holy Spirit. Show him hell, and he will not flee from it; show him heaven, and he will not seek it; silence him with warnings, and yet he will not stir; prick his conscience, and yet he will remain hard. Power from on high must come down and do the work. To show man the sinner which he really is - is the special work of the Holy Spirit of God.~ J.C. Ryle,Old Paths, “Our Sins”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 154, 155.

In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future..-Stendhal, 1783 - 1842

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.- Edith Wharton, 1862 - 1937