Quotes
Quotes to inspire and reflect
A temple is a landscape of the soul.
10
Christianity in the suburb is cheerful. The church is a centre of social activity and those who go to church need never be lonely.
29
If a Jew is fascinated by Christians it is not because of their virtues, which he values little, but because they represent anonymity, humanity without race.
15
The true Christian is in all countries a and a stranger.
6
The Catholic must adopt the decision handed down to him; the Protestant must learn to decide for himself.
10
Christianity in particular should be dubbed a great treasure-chamber of ingenious consolations, such a store of refreshing, soothing, deadening drugs has it accumulated within itself.
9
’Tis faith alone that vividly and certainly comprehends the deep mysteries of our religion.
6
No kingdom has ever suffered as many civil wars as Christ’s.
16
Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.
9
Christianity supplies a Hell for the people who disagree with you and a Heaven for your friends.
14
The difficulty comes from this, that Christianity (Christian orthodoxy) is exclusive and that belief in its truth excludes belief in any other truth. It does not absorb; it repulses.
8
Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise it would have no power over them.
11
No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual’s individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only.
11
It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists.
8
Instead of making Christianity a vehicle of truth, you make truth only a horse for Christianity.
6
Every stoic was a stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?
5
By the irresistible maturing of the general mind, the Christian traditions have lost their hold.
6
Christ beats his drum, but he does not press men; Christ is served with voluntaries.
7
Some of necessity go astray, because for them there is no such thing as a right path.
17
It is your own conviction which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.
14
As a man thinketh so is he, and as a man chooseth so is he.
6
Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.
11
The difference between a childhood and a boyhood must be this: our childhood is what we alone
13
If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.
13
A child hasn’t a grown-up person’s appetite for affection. A little of it goes a long way with them; and they like a good imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse knows.
8
Life’s aspirations come / in the guise of children.
22
Children are natural mythologists: they beg to be told tales, and love not only to invent but to enact falsehoods.
4
A child is not frightened at the thought of being patiently transmuted into an old man.
9
Children, after being limbs of Satan in traditional theology and mystically illuminated angels in the minds of educational reformers, have reverted to being little devils—not theological demons inspired by the Evil One, but scientific Freudian abominations inspired by the Unconscious.
8
Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
16
Children are God’s apostles, day by day / Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
12
No one, at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since, in spite of the fact that children are now comparatively sanely treated, no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child’s point of view.
5
A little girl without a doll is almost as unfortunate and quite as impossible as a woman without children.
6
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
24
Who knows whether there may not be a moment in childhood when the world changes forever, like making a face when the clock strikes?
15
If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who’s coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race—give that child some help.
16
That child whose mother has never smiled upon him is worthy neither of the table of the gods nor the couch of the goddesses.
20
Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.
18
As soon as a child has left the room his strewn toys become affecting.
7
It is difficult for young people to live things down. We will tolerate vice, grand larceny and the quieter forms of murder in our contemporaries....but our children's friends must show a blank service record.
7
It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.
4
Boys like romantic tales; but- babies like realistic tales—because they find them romaYitic.
7
The life of children, as much as that of intemperate men, is wholly governed by their desires.
5
I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
6
Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines.
10
A woman’s chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
14
Chastity is not chastity in an old man, but a disability to be unchaste.
7
Chastity more rarely follows fear, or a resolution, or a vow, than it is the mere effect of lack of appetite and, sometimes even, of distaste.
10