We profess that we know God, but by works we deny Him; for
beatitude doth not consist in the knowledge of divine things,
but in a divine life, for the devils know them better than man.- Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618), The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt., v. II, Oxford: The University press, 1829, p. 32

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 - 43 BC

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.- Edward R. Murrow, 1908 - 1965

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.- Edward R. Murrow, 1908 - 1965

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.- Edward R. Murrow, 1908 - 1965

We crave the velvet touch of grace for our own battered lives but instinctively want to hammer the struggling lives surrounding us with law.- Matt Redmond

Family life is the normal context in which we can learn that a life filled with thinking about others instead of ourselves is the sure road to the most fulfilling joys and satisfactions.- Alan Keyes

The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth ... it hardly seems to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills. - Anthony Brandt

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. - Erma Louise Bombeck, 1927 - 1996

The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding, and social peace. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1927 - 2003

The children have been a wonderful gift to me, and I'm thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family's future.- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, 1929 - 1994

I worry about people who get born nowadays, because they get born into such tiny families, sometimes into no family at all. When you're the only pea in the pod, your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope Diamond. And that encourages you to talk too much. - Russell Baker

To be sensible of our corruption and abhor our own transgressions is the first symptom of spiritual health.-J. C. Ryle

Keep your lamp burning, and let God place it where He will.-Unknown


Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.-Jonathan Swift, 1667 - 1745


When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.-Jonathan Swift, 1667 - 1745


Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.-Jonathan Swift, 1667 - 1745


Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself.-Jonathan Swift, 1667 - 1745


The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.-Jonathan Swift, 1667 - 1745


The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.-Jonathan Swift, 1667 - 1745

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by better men than himself. - John Stuart Mill

I often say my prayers
But do I ever pray?
And do the wishes of my heart
Go with the words I say?

I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of stone,
As offer to the living God
A prayer of words alone.

For words without the heart
The Lord will never hear,
Nor will He to those lips attend
Whose prayers are not sincere.

Lord teach me what I need,
And teach me how to pray;
Nor let me ask Thy grace,
Not feeling what I say."
John Burton

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.- Martin Luther King, Jr, 1929 - 1968

We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.- Martin Luther King, Jr, 1929 - 1968

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.- Martin Luther King, Jr, 1929 - 1968