Quotes 1 Oct

The special mark of the modern world is not that it is sceptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.- Chesterton

People do their country more service by pleading for it in prayer--than by finding fault with things they have no power to alter!- John Newton

Better be pruned to grow, than cut up to burn! - John Trapp (1601-1669)

Quotes 30 Sep

Pleasure, profit and preferment are the worldling's trinity!- John Trapp (1601-1669)

To see Him as He is, and to be like Him! This is worth dying for--and worth living for!- John Newton

I long for the death of Hefner's hedonistic, misogynistic, philosophy. It was from the pit of hell; that is where it belongs and that, ultimately, is where it will return. It was a fragmented, broken and perverted anti-human (and especially anti-woman) way of thinking. May God grant the Church the ability to proclaim and live a view of humanity which is the antithesis of Hefner's - holistic, healthy and beautifully holy. For Christ's sake. And ours.- David Robertson

HB Confucius 28 Sep 551 BC

An angry man is full of poison. -- Confucius

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake. Confucius

When a student asked of Confucius:"What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed by kindness?" The Master replied:"With what, then, will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice and recompense kindness with kindness"
Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude. --Confucius (551-479 BC)

The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home. Confucius

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. Confucius

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice. --Confucius, _Analects_, c. 500BC

The greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fall. - Confucius

Quotes 27 Sep

... there are no atheists. There are only people who know, and don't know, which God the serve. - Jordan B Peterson,12 Rules for Life, p225

 Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he
never shows to anybody.
     --Mark Twain (1835-1910)
_Following the Equator_ [1897], Chapter 66

"This world is all the hell that a true Christian is to ever endure, and it is all the heaven that unbelievers shall ever enjoy."
—Jonathan Edwards

HB T .S. Eliot 26 Sep 1888

Success is relative: it's what we can make of the mess we have made of things. -T. S. Eliot

It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are; and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be. Thomas Stearns Eliot

Give, Sympathise, Control - T S Eliot, The Wasteland

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot Little Gidding V, Four Quartets. (1943)

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot, 'The Hollow Men'

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. T.S. Eliot

If you find examples of humanism which are anti-religious, or at least in opposition to the religious faith of the place and time, then such humanism is purely destructive, for it has never found anything to replace what it has destroyed. -- T. S. Eliot, "Humanism of Irving Babbit," _Selected Essays_, 1917-1928

Humor is also a way of saying something serious. T. S. Eliot

HB William Faulkner 25 Sep 1897

The past is never dead. It's not even past. William Faulkner:_Requiem For A Nun_.

Only vegetables are happy.-William Faulkner

Quoes 24 Sep HB F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896

All things come to him who mates. F. Scott Fitzgerald

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Quotes 23 Sep

“The purpose of those who argue for cultural diversity is to impose ideological uniformity.”― Dr Theodore Dalrymple

I was old for so long that me sexual desires were what defined my humanity. But as a Christian, I learned the giving ourselves to God completely and rusting Him with our same sex desires is precious in His eyes.It helps us see He is our greatest treasure and what we are really longing for. The goal of our lives isn't to fulfil our culture's expectations and worship our own desires but o follow Jesus and worship God. I have given up a portion of myself. But in return I found my whole humanity, - David Bennett, A War of Loves, p204

With some of the Corinthian Christians, Paul was celebrating the moral empowering of he Holy Spirit in heterosexual tears, with other of the Corinthians, today's homosexuals are called to prove, live out, and celebrate he moral empowering of he Holy Spirit in homosexual arms. - J I Packer on 1 Cor 6:9-11.

Quotes 21 Sep

Many Christians estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt. All of God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God, because they reckoned on His power and presence with them.- Hudson Taylor

‘Come, Holy Spirit, come, we can do nothing without thee; but if we have thy wind, we spread our sail, and speed onward towards glory’. - Spurgeon.

The essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.-Timothy Keller@timkellernyc

Quotes 20 Sep

Historically, he church has more often tan not dealt with moral issues like homosexuality by focusing on sin management than emphasising Chris's transforming grave through the Holy Sprit. - David Bennett, A War of Loves, p114

Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.-Hudson Taylor

The one principle of hell is--I am my own.  I am my
own king and my own subject.
     --George MacDonald (1824-1905)
      _Unspoken Sermons_, Series Three [1891]

Quotes Sep 19

I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realise the Lord is able to carry out His will--and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions, He must give me His grace; -Hudson Taylor
Tomorrow, if all literature was to be destroyed and it was left to me to retain one work only, I should save Job.—Victor Hugo,

“We cannot help it if the truth offends people, but we must always make sure that it is the truth that is offending them and not us.” - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quotes 18 Sep

Depend on it! God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply!-Hudson Taylor

Be not any wise terrified by your adversaries; the king of the church has them all in a chain: be kind to them, pray for them; but fear them not.- George Whitefield@WhitefieldG

“What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.”- Oliver Cromwell

Quotes 17 Sep

Depend on it! God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply!-Hudson Taylor

Bae not any wise terrified by your adversaries; the king of the church has them all in a chain: be kind to them, pray for them; but fear them not.- George Whitefield@WhitefieldG

“What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.”- Oliver Cromwell

Quotes 16 Sep

The greatest joy of the believer in this world is to enjoy the presence of Christ - not seen or heard, but still real - the real presence of the unseen Saviour. It is this that makes secret prayer and sermons and sacraments sweet - we meet Jesus in them.- Robert Murray M'Cheyne@NearToGod

"The grace of God runs in the dried up river beds of his creation" Ferguson quoting Bavinck

The happiest of human fates is to find something to love; but the second happiest fate is certainly to find something to fight.- G. K. Chesterton@GKCdaily

IM Arthur Wellesley 13 Sep 1852

Being born in a stable does not make one a horse.-- The Duke of Wellington, when referred to as Irish
Educate men without religion and you make of them but clever devils. --Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)

Publish and be damned. (when being blackmailed) --Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)

Sparrowhawks, Ma'am. --Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852) (attrib. remark to Q. Victoria on how to remove birds from the newly built Crystal Palace)

I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they frighten me.--Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)(attrib.)

[of the British army, 1831] Ours is composed of the scum of the earth. --Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)

I always say that, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.--Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)

Quotes Sep 13 HB Dante Alighieri 1265

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground. Dante Alighieri

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality.-- attributed to Dante

Here lamentation, groans, and wailings deep
Reverberated through the starless air,
So that it made me at the beginning weep.
Uncouth tongues, horrible shriekings of despair,
Shrill and faint voices, cries of pain and rage,
And, with it all, smiting of hands, were there,
Making a tumult, nothing could assuage,
To swirl in the air that knows not day or night,
Like sand within the whirlwind's eddying cage."Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY, translation by Lawrence Binyon, Copyright 1947 Viking Press Inferno, Canto III, Lines 22-30

What more impiety can he avow
Whose heart rebelleth at God's judgment dread?
Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY, translation by Lawrence Binyon, Copyright 1947 Viking Press Inferno, Canto XX, Lines 7-30

Predestination! how remote and dim
Thy root lies hidden from the intellect
Which only glimpses the First Cause Supreme!
And you, ye mortals, keep your judgment checked,
Since we, who see God, have not therefore skill
To know yet all the number of the elect."
Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY, translation by Lawrence Binyon, Copyright 1947 Viking Press Paradiso, Canto XX, Lines 130-135

HB Herbert Henry Asquith 12 Sep 1852

[The War Office kept three sets of figures:] one to mislead the public, another to mislead the Cabinet, and the third to mislead itself. Herbert Henry Asquith (1852 - 1928)

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. - Herbert Henry Asquith (1852 - 1928)

There is no more striking illustration of the immobility of British institutions than the House of Commons. - H. H. Asquith

Quotes Sep 11

I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving: having, from the earliest
time almost that I can remember, been forming plans of a better life. I
have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the
time of doing is short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my
resolutions, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Samuel Johnson

While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round
stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of
the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true
of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been
surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its
benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it.
The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been
hardened by materialism and intellectualism.
Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)


Who is there that ever receives a gift and tries to make bargains about it?
Let us, then, return thanks for what He has bestowed on us. Who can tell
whether, if we had had a larger share of ability or stronger health, we
should not have possessed them to our destruction. Alphonsus Liguori

Crosses release us from this world and by doing so bind us to God.
Charles de Foucauld

Thanks people, that confirms my worst fears re my creeping senility. These
days I walk into a room full of people and the only name I can remember is
Alzheimer. pavlov@hotmail.com

(first posted 2 Jan 1999)

Quotes Sep 10

There is nothing in this world which death cannot take from us. But if you have Christ, you have the only imperishable portion! Oh may the Holy Spirit give you a firm hold of Jesus!- Robert Murray M'Cheyne@NearToGod

To trust God is to obey him in whatever he says and to submit to his will in whatever he sends.- Tim Keller Wisdom@DailyKeller

“My confidence in the future rests in my confidence in the God who controls history.” —
@RCSproul

Quotes Sep 9 HB Leo Tolstoy 1828

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.--Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

The more is given the less people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.-Leo Tolstoy,"Help for the Starving, Part II" January, 1892

Would reason ever have proved to me that I must love my neighbour instead of strangling him? I was told that in my childhood and I believed it gladly, for they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law demanding that I should strangle all who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction of reason. But loving one's neighbour reason could never discover, because it's unreasonable.-- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

It is by those who have suffered that the world has been advanced. Leo Tolstoy
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. -- Leo Tolstoy

The creation and sale of most art today is pure prostitution. The comparison is true in every detail. Real art can only rarely be created even by a real artist; like a child in a mother's womb, it is the ripened fruit of his prior life. False art, though, can be ceaselessly produced by craftsmen, according to the dictates of a market. Like a faithful wife who loves her husband, real art does not need any excess decoration; like a prostitute, false art demands to be decorated. True art comes out of an artist's urgent need to express the feelings that have formed inside him, just as a mother needs to give birth to her baby. False art answers only to profit. Real art brings new feelings into our life, as a woman brings a new person into the world. False art corrupts; it makes a person dissipated, distracts him, weakens his spiritual power. Everyone must understand this, in order that they shun the terrible proliferation of this dirty, dissipated type of art which is, on its face, prostitution.--Leo Tolstoy, "A Calendar of Wisdom"

The problem of the meaning of life is intractable, but life's purpose becomes very simple when we ask ourselves what we should do. -Tolstoy

HB Queen Elizabeth I, 7 Sep 1533

I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.-Queen Elizabeth I Speech to her armies shortly before the sea battle in the English that defeated the Armada, 1588

I have known many persons who turned their gold into smoke, but you are the first to turn smoke into gold. - Queen Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603), to Sir Water Raleigh

I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that I, having tasted the sweetenes, l may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life. ~Elizabeth I 1533-1603 - written in copy of the Epistles of St Paul, ( c.August 1576 )

Sep 6 Quotes

The devil's snare does not catch you, unless
you are first caught by the devil's bait.
     --Saint Ambrose (c. 340-397)

...the authority of government does not derive from the consent of the governed or a social contract. ; it derives from he one who 'requires' justice. - Jonathan Leman, Political Church, p196

Lot had the paradise, such as it was, but Abram had the promise. - Mathew Henry on Gen 13:14-15.

]Sep 5 Quotes

The way of sin is downhill; a man cannot stop himself when he will. - Mathew Henry on Gen 3:6

Politics refers to (1) the institutional activity of governance (2) over an entire population (3) backed by the power of coercion. which in varying degrees will be regarded as legitimate. - Quentin Skinner, he Foundations of Modern Political Thought, p.352

'Anything on which your heart relies and defends, I say, that really is your God.'(Luther). By his definition, everybody has a god - something that they worship, sorting that justifies the, something that claims the first fruits of their income, and the commands all their obedience. - Jonathan Leeman, Political Church, p78

Quotes Sep 4

A shepherd will carry a sheep on his shoulders. He encounters many rocks and thorns and streams on the way, but the sheep feels no difficulty; it is carried above all. So it is with every soul that yields itself to Christ - the only difficulty is to remain on His shoulders.- Robert Murray M'Cheyne@NearToGod

A survey of 64,000 people in 65 nations found that 70% of people are content with their lives. Africa is the place where people are happiest (83%), while people in Western Europe are the least happy , with 11% saying they are unhappy or very unhappy. In Africa 75% expect life to get beer, compared with 26% in Europe. - Patrick Dixon, The Future of Almost Everything, p.280
·
Global sea levels are rising at an alarmingly fast rate — 6.7 inches in the last century alone and going higher. Surface temperatures are setting new heat records about each year. The ice sheets continue to decline, glaciers are in retreat globally, and our oceans are more acidic than ever. We could go on…which is a whole other problem.
The majority of scientists are in agreement that human contributions to the greenhouse effect are the root cause. Essentially, gases in the atmosphere – such as methane and CO2 – trap heat and block it from escaping our planet.
So what happens next? More droughts and heat waves, which can have devastating effects on the poorest countries and communities. Hurricanes will intensify and occur more frequently. Sea levels could rise up to four feet by 2100 – and that’s a conservative estimate among experts.- Earth Day website

Quotes Sep 3

"The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else."— Oswald Chambers

Kenneth Watt warned around 1970 about a pending Ice Age in a speech. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

Seasons vary, circumstances change, feelings fluctuate, friendships cool, friends die--but Christ is ever the same!- Octavius Winslow (1808-1878)

Quotes 2 Sep

Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul--and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life!- Octavius Winslow (1808-1878)

Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look around 1970 that, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

“The carnal mind will always instinctively and automatically mobilize every possible reason it can possibly conceive for not praying at a particular time. For example, you are too busy; your mind is too preoccupied; your heart is not inclined toward prayer......later on you will have more time, your mind will be more calm and collected, and you will be able to pray in a more devotional frame of mind. Before we know it, the entire day is gone, and we have not had a single quiet hour alone with Christ.” - O. Hallesby