quotes G gambling garden genius Germany giving glory gluttony God golf good works goodness gospel gossip government grace grandparent gratitude greatness Greece greed grief growth guidance guilt gullible guns

gambling Investments, pensions and life insurance are just acceptable forms of gambling Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something. When there is a lot of money involved the odds of "winning" matter very little to many people. The whore and gambler, by the state Licensed, build the nation's fate. William Blake, Auguries of Innocence The solid wealth of insurance companies and the success of those who organsie gambling are some indication of the profits to be derived from the efficient use of chance.~Edward de Bono I have sometimes frequented the gaming houses just to watch the on-goings of those mad votaries of chance - Anne Bronte ,The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Lotteries, a tax upon imbeciles. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810-1861) Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. W. C. Fields The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.--Horace Greely Lady Godiva put everything she had on a horse. W. C. Fields (1880-1946) "The Manager's Book of Quotations," by Lewis D. Eigen and Jonathan P. Siegel, 1989. After the French Revolution, the state lottery was abolished. 'It is all the more dangerous.'a leading opponent argued, 'since it devours the substance of the poor. It was born of despotism, and used with perfidity to drown out the cry of misery, deluding the poor with false hope. The lottery, an odious financial trick, invades the product of the poor man's toil and brings despair upon innumerable families. The Guardian of 11.11.95. Gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind. ~ Thomas Jefferson State run lotteries: think of them as tax breaks for the intelligent. -- Evan Leibovitch Gambling ought never to be an important part of a man's life. If it is a way in which large sums of money are transferred from person to person without doing any good (e.g., producing employment, goodwill, etc.) then it is a bad thing. If it is carried out on a small scale, I am not sure that it is bad. I don't know much about it, becauseit is about the only vice to which I have no temptation at all, and I think it is a risk to talk about things which are not in my own make-up, because I don't understand them. If anyone comes to me asking to play bridge for money, I just say: "How much do you hope to win? Take it and go away." --Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) _God in the Dock_ [1948], "Answers to Questions on Christianity," Question 13 One of the worst things that can happen in life is to win a bet on a horse at an early age. Danny McGoorty Gambling challenges the view of life which the Christian Church exists to uphold and extend. Its glorification of mere chance is a denial of the Divine order of nature. To risk money haphazard is to disregard the insistence of the Church in every age of living faith that possessions are a trust, and that men must account to God for their use. The persistent appeal to covetousness is fundamentally opposed to the unselfishness which was taught by Jesus Christ and by the NewTestament as a whole. The attempt (which is inseparable from gambling) to make a profit out of the inevitable loss and possible suffering of others is the antithesis of that love of oneís neighbor on which our Lord insisted. ... Archbishop William Temple (1881-1944) There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can." -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" garden Garden: A thing of beauty and a job forever. A GARDEN, by Eugenie Prime For best results, this garden should be planted every day: Five rows of "P"eas: Preparedness, Promptness, Perseverance, Politeness, Prayer. Three rows of squash: Squash gossip, Squash criticism, Squash indifference. Five rows of Lettuce: Let us love one another, Let us be faithful, Let us be loyal, Let us be unselfish, Let us be truthful. Three rows of turnips: Turn up for church, Turn up with a new idea, Turn up with the determination to do a better job tomorrow than you did today genius Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front? Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.--Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds. David Hume (1711-1776) In "Wisdom of the Ages at Your Fingertips," MCR software, 1995 Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.- George Henry Lewes (1817-1878) The Spanish Drama. Genius is eternal patience -- Michelangelo Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one. -- E. B. White (1899-1985) "Lime," 1944. Germany Christianity has occasionally calmed the brutal German lust for battle, but it cannot destroy that savage ecstasy.... When once the restraining talisman, the Cross, is broken... the old stone gods will leap to life among forgotten ruins, and Thor will crash down his mighty hammer on the Gothic cathedrals. Heinrich Heine, in Robert Carr, The Paths of Dictatorship How merrily we headed for catastrophe!--Albert Speer   giving My church welcomes all denominations, but mainly we prefer tens and twenties. When we place our contribution in the collection plate, we are not giving to the Lord; we are just taking our hands off that which belongs to Him. The world says, The more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are. Frederick Buechner Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based on the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of Jesus that it is more blessed to give than to receive is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that Jesus tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too. Frederick Buechner Would the Congregation please note that the bowl at the back of the Church, labeled "For The Sick", is for monetary donations only. Churchdown Parish Magazine Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find it out. -Frank A. Clark There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving.--Henry Drummond Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much. -Erich Fromm If our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our charitable expenditure excludes them. C.S. Lewis Feel for others--in your pocket. Charles Haddon Spurgeon The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.-- Charles Dudley Warner glory I will not glory because I am righteous but because I am redeemed, not because I am clear of sin, but because my sins are forgiven. AMBROSE To lift up the hands of prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand or a woman with a slop pail gives him glory, too. He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should. - GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Glorification. Finally, it is in Christ that the people of God will be resurrected and glorified. It is in Christ that they will be made alive when the last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible (1 Cor. 15:22) John Murray, (Redemption Accomplished and Applied ) Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first time or the last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory. Betty Smith One thing is past all question; we shall bring our Lord most glory if we get from Him much grace. C. H. SPURGEON Godliness is glory in the seed, and glory is godliness in the flower. - THOMAS WATSON gluttony Gluttony kills more than the sword. 16th century proverb Many a man digs his grave with his teeth Puritan Proverb I am not a glutton -- I am an explorer of food. -- Erma Bombeck A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.-- Fredereck Buechner As the Babylonians used daily to sacrifice to their Bel; so the glutton to his belly; making it his God, Phil 3:19 - John Boys Gluttons no longer gorge themselves; they are simply suffering from one of a variety of eating disorders.- Frank Furedi, "Making a virtue of vice" The Spectator 12 Jan 2002 The Glutton digs his grave with his owne teeth. Thomas Fuller--A Glasse for Gluttons Man fell by eating, and that way we often sin, Mt. Henry on Matt.4:2 'Tis not the eating, nor 'tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess.~John Selden 1584-1654, Table Talk, LIV   God IF GOD HAD A REFRIGERATOR If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it. God sends you a sunrise every morning. He sends you flowers every spring. God could live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart. When you want to talk, God will listen. And that Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem? . . . Face it, friend, God is crazy about you! God loves us not because of who we are, but because of who He is. The 23rd Psalm The Lord is my Shepherd THAT'S RELATIONSHIP! I shall not want THAT'S SUPPLY! He maketh me to lie down in green pastures THAT'S REST! He leadeth me beside still waters THAT'S REFRESHMENT! He restoreth my soul THAT'S HEALING! He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness THAT'S GUIDANCE! For His name sake THAT'S PURPOSE! Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death THAT'S TESTING! I will fear no evil THAT'S PROTECTION! For Thou art with me THAT'S FAITHFULNESS! Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me THAT'S DISCIPLINE! THou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies THAT'S HOPE! Thou anointest my head with oil THAT'S CONSECRATION! My cup runneth over THAT'S ABUNDANCE! Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life THAT'S BLESSING! And I will dwell in the house of the Lord THAT'S SECURITY! Forever THAT'S ETERNITY The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us. It's my business to do God's business and it's His business to take care of my business This generation has forgotten the sovereignty of God and exalted the sovereignty of man's free will. We have forgotten the holiness of God amd exalted man's personal happiness to the chief goal and obligation of the gospel. We are so occuppied with ourselves and our own pleasure that we literally believe that God exists for the sole purpose of making us happy by giving us whatever our selfish hearts desire. He is viewed as a heavenly bellhop. It is not possible ... to trace the wonders of the Lord. When a man has finished, he is just beginning. Sirach 18:6 The distinction between Christianity and other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men. THOMAS ARNOLD To see God is the promised goal of all our actions and the promised height of all our joys. AUGUSTINE God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.--- Augustine O God, Thou hast made us for thyself, and ours hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. ---AUGUSTINE The statement that God is dead comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them. KARL BARTH According to Scripture, God is incomprehensible yet knowable, absolute yet personal. HERMAN BAVINCK You may know God, but not comprehend Him. - Richard Baxter Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship, that he is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and truth; and that he is most great and terrible, and therefore to be worshipped with seriousness and reverence, and not to be dallied with, or served with toys or lifeless lip-service; and that he is most holy, pure, and jealous, and therefore to be purely worshipped; and that he is still present with you, and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do. The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy. RICHARD BAXTER I remember myself, that when I was young, I had sometime the company of one ancient godly minister, who was of weaker parts than many others, but yet did profit me more than most; because he would never in prayer or conference speak of God, or the life to come, but with such marvelous seriousness and reverence, as if he had seen the majesty and glory which he talked of. - RICHARD BAXTER One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.-- Ps. 62:11,12. Were the holiest heart upon earth enlarged to the vast comprehension of this great world's wideness; nay, made capable of all the glorious and magnificent hallelujahs and hearty praises offered to Jehovah,both by all the militant and triumphant church, yet would it come infinitely short of sufficiently magnifying, admiring, and adoring the inexplicable mystery and bottomless depth of this free, independent mercy, and love to God, the Fountain and First Mover of all our good. - ROBERT BOLTON God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfil all His promises . . . leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.-- David Brainerd Many refuse to accept the reality of a personal God because they are unwilling to submit to His authority - Kurt Bruner What is God's majesty to a sinful man, but a consuming fire? And what is sinful man in himself, or in his approach to God, but as stubble fully dry. Since the name of God is that by which his nature is expressed, and since He naturally is so glorious and incomprehensible, His name must needs be the object of our fear;and we ought always to have a reverent awe of God upon our hearts at what time soever we think of or hear his name; but most of all when we ourselves do take his Holy and fearful name into our mouths, especially in a religious manner; that is, in preaching, praying, or Holy conference. Make mention then of the name of the Lord at all times with great dread of His majesty on your hearts,and in great soberness and truth. To do otherwise is to profane the name of the Lord, and to take his name in vain.-- John Bunyan The most perfect way of seeking God, and the most suitable order, is not for us to attempt with bold curiosity to penetrate to the investigation of His essence, which we ought more to adore than meticulously to search out, but for us to contemplate Him in His works, whereby He renders Himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates Himself . John Calvin (1509-1564) However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts. -- John Calvin, Commentary, Erh 3:21. Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God. -- JOHN CALVIN We are consecrated and dedicated to God; therefore, we may not hereafter think, speak, meditate or do anything but with a view to his glory...We are God s; to him, therefore, let us live and die. JOHN CALVIN, The Institutes When God and his glory are made our end, we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us; the beauty of God will, by degrees, enter upon our soul. STEPHEN CHARNOCK In nature, we see God, as it were, like the sun in a picture; in the law, as the sun in a cloud; in Christ we see Him in His beams; He being 'the brightness of His glory, and the exact image of His person. - STEPHEN CHARNOCK Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself.--G. K. Chesterton,_Orthodoxy_ [I] had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician...I had always felt life firs as a story; and if there is a story there is a storyteller. G. K. CHESTERTON A comprehended god is no god. St. John Chrysostom (345?-407) Here is a God who has both firmness and feeling. If we cannot comprehend we can perhaps apprehend, at least enough to adore. - Dale R Davis, Commentary on 1 Sam 15.p. 131 Let God operate in thee; Hand the work over to Him and do not disquiet thyself as to whether or no He is working with nature or above nature, for His are both nature and grace. .. Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327? The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These arebut streams. But God is the ocean. JONATHAN EDWARDS True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures. JONATHAN EDWARDS - Religious Affections Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes -- ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself. ... Jim Elliot (1927-1956) Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere. Emerson (1803-1882) If the men of our time had their way, God would be on the carpet all the time offering soothing explanations to angry questions.--Walter Farrell, _The Looking Glass_, 1951 God loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way. Leighton Ford The Christian must trust in a withdrawing God. - WILLIAM GURNALL He's [God] a hedonist at heart...He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are pleasures forevermore...He's vulgar, Wormwood. He has bourgeois mind. There are things for humans to do all day long...sleeping, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it's of any use to us. C. S. LEWIS, Screwtape Letters We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. - C S Lewis 'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver...'Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. but he's good. He's the King, I tell you.' C S Lewis--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. C.S.Lewis: The Problem of Pain The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. --C. S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_, September 1948 An "impersonal God"-- well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads -- better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap -- best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps, approaching an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband -- that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ("Man's search for God!") suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us? C. S. Lewis, "Miracles" (New York: Macmillan, 1960), p.94 We keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. We do not know who are the major and who the minor characters. The Author knows. _The World's Last Night_, C. S. Lewis One needs the sweetness to start one on the spiritual life but, once started, one must learn to obey God for his own sake, not for the pleasure. -- C. S. Lewis, Letter of 11/9/1931 In God you come up against something which is in every way immeasurably superior to yourself...As long as you are proud you cannot know God. --C. S. Lewis, _Mere Christianity_, Chapter 8, The Great Sin We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind. C. S. LEWIS, Mere Christianity Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God. --Martin Luther (1483-1546) _Large Catechism_ [1529], "The First Commandment" It is the most ungodly and dangerous business to abandon the certain and revealed will of God in order to search into the hidden mysteries of God. MARTIN LUTHER A God must have a God for company. And lo! thou hast the Son-God to thy friend. Thou honour'st his obedience, he thy law. Into thy secret life-will he doth see; Thou fold'st him round in live love perfectly-- One two, without beginning, without end; In love, life, strength, and truth, perfect without a flaw. George Macdonald, Diary of an Old Soul [1905] God is the ruler of history. His times are well chosen The Roman Empire was an instrument in his hand. And so are the nations of the modern world. --J. Gresham Machen Happily for us, the fundamental Christian message concerns not what we ought to do, but what God has done and what God is willing to do. In fellowship with Him and with others who are likewise trying to be like Him, we can be lifted up above our native possibilities.... Hugh Martin Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men, Unless there be who think not God at all. If any be, they walk obscure; For of such doctrine never was there school, But the heart of the Fool,And no man therein doctor but himself. John Milton. (1608 -1674). Samson Agonistes for God (Nothing more certain) will not long defer To vindicate the glory of his name Against all competition, nor will long Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord John Milton. (1608 -1674). Samson Agonistes Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment;....but trust in GOD, and you are never to be confounded in time or eternity. Give your life to God; he can do more with it than you can! ---Dwight L. Moody The ethic of the bible reflects the character of the God of the Bible. Remove from Scripture the transcendent holiness, righteousness and truth of God and its ethic disappears. JOHN MURRAY In the absence of any other proof, the thumb would convince me of God's existence. ... Isaac Newton (1642-1727) We, as Christians, need to stop telling God how big our mountains are and start telling our mountains how big our God is!" --John Osteen Faith keeps the soul at a holy distance from these infinite depths of divine wisdom, where it profits more by reverence and holy fear than any can do by their utmost attempt to draw nigh to that inaccessible light wherein these glories of the divine nature do dwell. John Owen (1616-1683) A god whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a god in man's image, and therefore an imaginary god. ~J. I. Packer, Knowing God. There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. -- BLAISE PASCAL For the Scriptures, . . . the existence of God is both a historical truth (God acted into history), and an existential truth (God reveals himself to every soul). His existence is both objectively and subjectively evident. It is necessary logically because our assumption of order, design, and rationality rests upon it. It is necessary morally because there is no explanation for the shape of morality apart from it. It is necessary emotionally because the human experience requires an immediate and ultimate environment. It is necessary personally because the exhaustion of all material possibilities still cannot give satisfaction to the heart. The deepest proof for God's existence, apart from history, is just life itself. God has created man in his image, and men cannot elude the implications of this fact. Everywhere their identity pursues them. Ultimately, there is no escape. .. Clark H. Pinnock (1937- ), Set Forth Your Case It has been observed that nowhere does Scripture attempt a deductive argument for the existence of God, like those of Thomas Aquinas, for example. This fact ought not to be taken to imply, however, that such an effort is unjustifiable and necessarily useless. The distinctiveness of the Biblical approach is its immediacy. The theistic proofs for God's existence constitute a laborious, painstaking, and patient justification of theism. They attempt to set forth in rational argument what the soul grasps intuitively. But for the Bible, the deepest proof of God's existence is just life itself. The knowledge of God and man's knowledge of himself are closely intertwined. If only God could be written off neatly and cleanly, how simple things would be! But the hound of heaven pads after us all. He does not let us go. There is no escaping him...; when least expected, he closes in. The explanation for this is man's creation in the image of God. His identity is known theologically, in relation to the God who as a man in his true significance cannot survive permanently in isolation from his Maker. Without God, man is the chance product of unthinking fate, and so of little worth. The current loss of identity and the emergence of the faceless man in today's culture are testimony to the effects of losing our God. The knowledge of God is given in the same movement in which we know ourselves.... Clark H. Pinnock (1937- ), Set Forth Your Case It is clear that there is one main message creation has to communicate to human beings, namely, the glory of God. Not primarily the glory of creation, but the glory of God. The glory of creation and the glory of God are as different as the love poem and the love, the painting and the landscape, the ring and the marriage. It would be a great folly and a great tragedy if a man loved his wedding band more than he loved his bride. --John Piper in _The Pleasures of God_ God has no deficiencies that I might be required to supply. He is complete in himself. He is overflowing with happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity.. The upshot of this is that God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. --John Piper _The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God_ p. 208 God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him....the capacity to taste a thing must precede our desire for its sweetness...the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever and of living by faith in future grace...the essence of faith is being satisfied with all God is for us in Jesus. -- JOHN PIPER - Future Grace How can man understand God, since he does not yet understand his own mind, with which he endeavors to understand Him?--John Ruskin (1819-1900) Think it not hard if you get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself.... Samuel Rutherford, a letter [1630] The abstract metaphysical monotheism, the constant emphasis laid on God's unity and infinite and incomprehensible essence, could not give light to the mind or peace to the heart... How human is the God of the Old Testament -- the God who appears, speaks, guides, who loves and is loved, even as the Man of the New Testament, Christ Jesus, is divine! This difference between the idea of an absolute and infinite God and the God of Scripture is, after all, that which separates the true believer and Christian from the natural man. Adolph Saphir, Christ and Israel [1911] In saying God is there, we are saying God exists, and not just talking about the word God, or the idea God. We are speaking of the proper relationship to the living God who exists. In order to understand the problems of our generation, we should be very alive to this distinction. Semantics (linguistic analysis) makes up the heart of modern philosophical study in the Anglo-Saxon world. Though the Christian cannot accept this study as a total philosophy, there is no reason why he should not be glad for the concept that words need to be defined before they can be used in communication. As Christians, we must understand that there is no word so meaningless as the word "god" until it is defined. No word has been used to reach absolutely opposite concepts as much as the word "god". Consequently, let us not be confused. There is much "spirituality" about us today that would relate itself to the word god or to the idea god; but this is not what we are talking about. Biblical truth and spirituality is not a relationship to the word god, or to the idea god. It is a relationship to the one who is there, which is an entirely different concept. ... Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There [1968] God of the Universe! I believe again! Though I renounced You, You were with me! = A Solzhenitsyn We are called to live Coram Deo - in the presence of God, under the authority of God and to the glory of God. R. C. SPROUL Some people tend to think that Muslims have one God and Christians another. While agree that the two CONCEPTS are very different indeed from each other, I cannot agree that they really worship two utterly different gods . . . When reading through the book of Psalms and Job I learnt anew the meaning of trust in God, and came to worship Him at the foot of the Cross, the basis of it all was the same God . . . my spiritual pilgrimmage in the faith in the Christian God was not absolutely disconnected with what was already in me.-Hassan Dehghani Tafti:, "Design of My world", London: Lutterworth, 1959, pp. 66-67. We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.... Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any handling of material substance.- Reuben Archer (R. A.) Torrey The interior journey of the soul from the wilds of sin into the enjoyed presence of God is beautiful. Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948] When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM". "I am that I am," says God, "I change not." Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point. ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948] You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him. --A. W. Tozer Constantly practice the habit of inwardly gazing upon God. You know that something inside your heart sees God. Even when you are compelled to withdraw your conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs, there is within you a secret communion always going on.... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948] Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Haven fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it's because God is good. From His goodness, His lovingkindness, His good-natured benevolence, God does it! That's the source of everything. - A.W. Tozer The Works of A.W. Tozer The Attributes of God Page 47 So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about - He is looking for us. SIMON TUGWELL Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality, with all its difficulties, opportunities, and implications. The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him. ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The School of Charity [1934] God has made thee to love Him, and not to understand Him. --Voltaire (1694-1778), _La Henriade_ God keeps open house for hungry sinners (Isa. 45:1,2). - THOMAS WATSON Our generation is rapidly growing deaf to the summons of the external God. He has been so internalised, so tamed by the needs of religious commerce, so submerged beneath the traffic of modern psychological need that he has almost completely disappeared. All too often, he now leans weakly upon the church, a passive bystander, a co-conspirator in the effort to dismantle two thousand years of Christian thought about God and what he has declared himself to be. That is to say, God has become weightless. The church continues its business of satisfying the needs of the self--needs defined by the individual--and God, who is himself viewed and marketed as a product, becomes powerless to change the definition of that need or to prescribe the means by which it might be satisfied. When the consumer is sovereign, the product (in this case God himself) must be subservient. David Wells, God in the Wasteland Q. 7. What is God? A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. WESTMINSTER LARGER CATECHISM People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards. Oscar Wilde We worship a mysterious not an anthropomorphic God ~Frances Young golf In Africa some of the tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering savage cries. Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression. In America they call it golf.   good works People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway. We can do noble acts without ruling the earth and sea. -- Aristotle Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you. -- Augustine of Hippo The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others; he best way to gather is to scatter. - Thomas Brooks A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions. Thomas Brooks Till men have faith in Christ, their best services are but glorious sins. THOMAS BROOKS The world invents its own good works and persuades itself that they are good. But Paul declares that good and right according to the world are to be judged by the commandments of God. JOHN CALVIN No, Sir; to act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive. Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson) The father of every good work is discontent, and its mother is diligence.-Lajos Kassak Works before conversion cannot engage God, and works after conversion can not satisfy God - all the endeavour and labour of the creature will never procure it. - Thomas Manton I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore, there be any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.--William Penn The "good" man, the man whose god is righteousness, has as his life's ambition the keeping of rules and commandments and the keeping of himself uncontaminated by the world. This sounds admirable; but, as the truth of Christ showed, the whole of such living, the whole drive and ambition, the whole edifice, is self-centered. That entire process of effort must be abandoned if a man is to give himself in love to God and his fellows. He must lose his life if he is ever going to find it... J. B. Phillips, When God was Man [1954] Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few more upon it. Dr. Albert Schweitzer Love to Jesus is the basis of all true piety, and the intensity of this love will ever be the measure of our zeal for His glory. Let us love Him with all our hearts, and then diligent labor, and consistent living will be sure to follow. -- Charles Spurgeon The common excuse of those who bring misfortune on others is that they desire their good. -- Vauvenargues Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can. - John Wesley Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand! GEORGE WHITEFIELD goodness Men have never been good, they are not good, they never will be good.- Karl Barth (1886 &endash; 1968) The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. The mob and the intellectuals derived from it the vision of a Golden Age which would arrive without fail once the noble human race could act according to its whims. Jakob Burckhardt Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong. -- Democritus The more vigour you need, the more gentleness and kindness you must combine with it. All stiff, harsh goodness is contrary to Jesus.... Francois Fenelon (1651-1715) Goodness is the only investment that never fails.--Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862),Walden: Higher Laws, 1854 gospel The Christian message is for those who have done their best and failed! The Law gives menaces. the gospel gives promises. Thomas Adams If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christ's riches are unsearchable, and this doctrine of the gospel is the field this treasure is hidden in. THOMAS GOODWIN The Gospel is not something we come to church to hear; it is something we go from church to tell. ~ Vance Havner Over the centuries, Calvin has been accused of having intellectualized, legalized and doctrinalized the Gospel to the point that the salvation of Christ became a formula, something held in the head rather than in the heart. This charge represents not only a gross oversimplification, but also a diversion from the real issue. The issue, certainly in North America, is not whether the Gospel is perceived by the head or the heart, but whether the Gospel, however perceived, is an objective cosmic reality or a subjective knowledge (emotion) of the individual soul. On this question, Calvin is not in the least ambiguous. Everything for him rests on what God has accomplished in history. As to the individual's mode of grasping the event, Calvin is indifferent. Nowhere does he indicate that an experience of conversion is necessary for salvation. The marks of salvation are the same as the marks defining the Church itself: doctrine sacrament and discipline. -- Philip Lee, Against the Protestant Gnostics, p. 102. The gospel is not speculation but fact. It is truth, because it is the record of a person who is the Truth. Alexander Maclaren This Christian claim [of universal validity] is naturally offensive to the adherents of every other religious system. It is almost as offensive to modern man, brought up in the atmosphere of relativism, in which tolerance is regarded almost as the highest of the virtues. But we must not suppose that this claim to universal validity is something that can quietly be removed from the Gospel without changing it into something entirely different from what it is... Jesus' life, his method, and his message do not make sense, unless they are interpreted in the light of his own conviction that he was in fact the final and decisive word of God to men... For the human sickness there is one specific remedy, and this is it. There is no other.- Stephen Neill The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever. ... Massey H. Shepherd, Jr. (1913- ), Far and Near gossip More people are run down by gossip than by automobiles. Who gossips to you, will gossip of you. GOSSIP: Something that goes in one ear, out the other, and over the back fence. What should not be heard by little ears should not be said by big mouths. A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.Prov. 11:13 A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.Prov. 16:28 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts.Prov. 18:8 A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much.Prov. 20:19 Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down. Prov. 26:20 For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. 2Cor. 12:20 A trouble shared is...gossip.-- Just a Minute, BBC Radio 4, 26 February 2001 There's so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it little behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us. John Brantingham. And there 's a lust in man no charm can tame Of loudly publishing our neighbour's shame; On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly, While virtuous actions are but born and die. Stephen Harvey (circa 1627): Juvenal, Satire ix If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me. Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980) Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them. Louis Nizer (1902-1994) In "Webster's Electronic Quotebase," ed. Keith Mohler, 1994. Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.- ROGERS, WILL (1879-1935, ) There is so much good in the worst of us, an so much bad in the best of us, that it behooves all of us not to talk about the rest of us. - Robert Louis Stevenson   government Republicans think people are fundamentally evil, and that if government leaves them alone, they will do the right thing. Democrats on the other hand think that people are fundamentally good, but they can't possibly do the right thing without government intervention. I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave cries give, give, give. The great fish swallows up the small, and he who is most strenuous for the Rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of Government. == Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, November 27, 1775 Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.-- Ambrose Bierce The principal purpose of the Democratic Party is to use the force of government to take property away from the people who earn it and give it to people who do not.--Neal Boortz The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. -- William H. Borah Libertarians understand a very simple fact of life: Government doesn't work. It can't deliver the mail on time, it doesn't keep our cities safe, it doesn't educate our children properly. But people love to play a gigantic game of "let's pretend": Let's pretend the War on Poverty really does help poor people. Let's pretend the War on Drugs really does reduce drug abuse and crime. Let's pretend the right government program can keep the wrong people out of the country. --Harry Browne WorldNetDaily.com (6/20/2002) Whenever Parliament is persuaded to assume the offices of executive government, it will lose all the confidence, love and veneration which it has ever enjoyed whilst it was supposed to be the corrective and control on the acting powers of the state. This would be the event though its conduct in such a perversion of its functions would be tolerable, just and moderate; but if it should be iniquitous, violent, full of passion and full of faction it would be considered as the most intolerable of all modes of tyranny. - Edmund Burke. A wise man distrusts his neighbor. A wiser man distrusts both his neighbor and himself. The wisest man of all distrusts his government. --Taylor Caldwell, _The Devil's Advocate_ (1952) Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) In his veto of the Texas Seed Bill, 16 Feb 1887 YOU HAVE BEEN SAT TO LONG HERE FOR ANY GOOD YOU HAVE BEEN DOING. DEPART, I SAY, AND LET US HAVE DONE WITH YOU. IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO!. OLIVER CROMWELl 1599-1658 Addressing the Rump Parliament. April 1653. Memorials of English Affairs. WEEDS AND NETTLES, BRIARS AND THORNS, HAVE THRIVEN UNDER YOUR SHADOW, DISSETTLEMENT AND DIVISION, DISCONTENTMENT AND DISSATISFACTION, TOGETHER WITH REAL DANGERS TO THE WHOLE. Cromwell's speech dissolving the 1st Protectoral Parliament. IN EVERY GOVERNMENT THERE MUST BE SOMEWHAT FUNDAMENTAL, SOMEWHAT LIKE A MAGNA CHARTA, THAT SHOULD BE STANDING AND UNALTERABLE...THAT PARLIAMENTS SHOULD NOT MAKE THEMSELVES PERPETUAL IS A FUNDAMENTAL. Cromwell in a speech to the first Protectorate Parliament, 12 September 1654 The discontent of the people is more dangerous to a monarch than all the might of his enemies on the battlefield. --Isabella d' Este (1474-1530) (In a letter to her husband, February 1495) The most powerful men are not public men: a public man is responsible, and a responsible man is a slave. It is private life that governs the world. Benjamin Disraeli The less government we have, the better. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'Politics' The less government we have, the better the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is, the influence of private character, the growth of the individual. R. W. Emerson. We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society, only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society, some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief, all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.-- Emerson The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. -Milton Friedman (1912-____) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.-Milton Friedman (1912-____) - In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software,1994. Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.- Milton Friedman If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand.    - Milton Friedman I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship,but none where the State has really lived for the poor.--Mahatma Gandhi, Interview to Nirmal Kumar Bose _The Hindustan Times_ 10/17/1935 It is the Parliamentary majority which has the potential for tyranny. The thing that the Courts cannot protect you against is Parliament - the traditional protector of our liberties. But Parliament is constantly making mistakes and could in theory become the most oppressive instrument in the world. Lord Hailsham, former Lord Chancellor. Sunday Times 19 July 1970. If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual. --Frank Herbert,"The Dosadi Lesson: A Gowachin Assessment" _Dosadi Experiment_ (1978) Let us go forth not as defenders of the status quo,but as crusaders with a revolution idea - that government should be the servant and not the master of the people; that its purpose is to protect, not deny, each man's freedom; that the purpose of a free press is to liberate, not enslave the human spirit. A. S. Hills Lyndon Johnson used the War on Poverty to enslave blacks as dependent Democratic voters and succeeded in destroying many black families by pushing fathers out of the house and encouraging children to have children in exchange for welfare checks. The Republicans are fighting back with the War on Drugs, which has permanently disenfranchised 11% of the black vote with felony convictions. Congratulations, Demopublicans for proving once again that government is here to help. --Bill Holmes He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favorable hearers.--Richard Hooker (c. 1554-1600)_Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ [1593], Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1 By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments. The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments, that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity. --John Hospers I used to believe the government was the answer to all our problems. But the . . . government, I've concluded, is now an insufferable jungle of self-serving bureaucrats. - Chet Huntley (1911 &endash; 1974) It seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing . . . a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brain- washing enhanced by pharmacological methods. --Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. Thomas Jefferson It is not by the consolidation, or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected. Thomas Jefferson Sir, I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed. - Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson) How small of all that human hearts endure That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. Dr Johnson A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.- - Bertrand de Jouvenel The basis of effective government is public confidence, and that confidence is endangered when ethical standards falter or appear to falter. John F. Kennedy, message to Congress, April 27, 1961 The republican form of government, whether it be solely aristocratic or a mixture of aristocratic and democratic elements, seems to me to be much preferred." This belief was not rooted in some idea of human greatness but rather in his profound sense of sin. For he adds: "Because of sinful human nature, it is safer and better to let several people together steer the ship of state so that one may restrain the other when the lust for power might degenerate into tyranny. - Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism Source and Stronghold of our Constitutional Liberties, , 1874, quoting Calvin's Institutes, 4.20.8 Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure. -- Robert Lefevre Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.--John Lehman Every country has the government it deserves. - Joseph de Maistre, Lettres et Opuscules Inédits, 16 August 1811. The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency. - Eugene McCarthy Government is always religion applied to economics.--R. E. McMaster The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods. -- H. L. Mencken The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster. --Ludwig von Mises _Human Action_ (1949) Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good. -  Daniel Moynihan (1927-____) INY "Post," 14 May 1969. The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.-  Daniel Moynihan (1927-____) NY "Times," 2 Marc1976. The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop. --P. J. O'Rourke  The best government is that which governs least- John L. O'Sullivan (1813-1895). Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?--Axel Oxenstierna, letterr, 24 October 1648. Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. Tom Paine Governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments.-William Penn Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos." ~ Polybius, c. 125 BC Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. - Ronald Reagan (1911 &endash; ) There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. --Bertrand Russell It is undeniable that Parliament has suffered in the eyes of the general public a loss of prestige in the last seventy years...It must not be forgotten that there can be no check upon the unscrupulous use of power by a government which finds itself in command of a majority in the House of Commons". Professor Wade, introduction to 10th edition of Dicey's "Law and Constitution" 1960. Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government.--- George Washington, prayer after his first inauguration Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.--George Washington All government originates in families, and if neglected there, it will hardly exist in society...The foundation of all free government and of all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth. Noah Webster Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage.--Walter Williams   grace The will of God will never take you to where the grace of God will not protect you. Grace is what God gives us when we don't deserve and mercy is when God doesn't give us what we do deserve. I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me it was not I that found, O Saviour true; No, I was found of Thee O Christian, never be proud of things that are so transient, injurious, and uncertain as the riches of this evil world! But set your heart on the true and durable riches of grace in Christ Jesus. ISAAC AMBROSE A sculptor can leave his work and come back to it another day, and take up where he left off. But it is not so with the growth of the soul. The work of grace in us either waxes or wanes, flows or ebbs. ANDREW ANDERSON God is gracious beyond the power of language to describe.- Francis Asbury , journal: 2 Feb 1779 Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without grace.--- Augustine It is not that we keep His commandments first, and that then He loves; but that He loves us, and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace, which is revealed to the humble, but hidden from the proud.... Augustine (354-430) Every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Love someone who doesn't deserve it. Plant sequoias. Be joyful even though you've considered the facts. Practice resurrection. - Wendell Berry God's people fail a hundred times Before each day is done. But Grace, in whispers, lifts them up ˜ One hundred times and one. William D. Blake Let the Christian rest content with his worldliness and with this renunciation of any higher standard than the world. He is living for the sake of the world rather than for the sake of grace. Let him be comforted and rest assured in his possession of this grace˜for grace alone does everything. Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace! That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sins departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must the asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: „ye were bought at a price, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship 1937 Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like the cheapjack1s wares. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. D Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship, 1937 Grace and glory differ very little; the one is the seed, the other is the flower; grace is glory militant, glory is grace triumphant.- Thomas Brooks There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford. John Bradford 1510-1555 English reformer seeing criminals taken to execution. Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.--Jerry Bridges Grace is given to trade with; it is given to lay out, not lay up. -- THOMAS BROOKS The violence of the wind had the effect of making them afraid. For we are never rightly prepared to receive the grace of God unless the vain confidence of the flesh has been mastered. For as by faith we have open access to Him, so it is that humility and fear open the door for Him to come to us. He will have nothing to do with proud and careless men who please themselves. Calvin On Acts 1:2 I clearly recognize that all good is in God alone, and that in me, without Divine Grace, there is nothing but deficiency... The one sole thing in myself in which I glory, is that I see in myself nothing in which I can glory. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) God is gracious beyond the power of language to describe. - Francis Asbury journal: 2 Feb 1779 The almightiness of his mercy doth as much transcend our highest iniquities, as it doth our shallowest apprehensions. Our sins, as well as our substance, are but as the dust of the balance, as easily to be blown away by his grace, as the other puffed into nothing by his power.- STEPHEN CHARNOCK No one is safe by his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God. St. Cyprian  If it be enquired how man came to sin, seeing he had no sinful inclinations in him, except God took away his grace from him that he had been wont to give him and so let him fall, I answer there was no need of taking away any that had been given him, but he sinned under that temptation because God did not give him more. He did not take away that grace from him while he was perfectly innocent which grace was his original righteousness, but he only withheld his confirming grace given now in heaven, grace as shall surmount every temptation.... JONATHAN EDWARDS, Miscellany 290 He that returns good for evil obtains the victory. --Thomas Fuller Grace is what God gives us when we don't deserve and mercy is when God doesn't give us what we do deserve. What is Jordan that I should wash in it? What is the preaching that I should attend on it, while I hear nothing but what I knew before? What are these beggarly elements of water, bread, and wine? Are not these the reasonings of a soul that forgets who appoints the means of grace? William Gurnall The Christian, like a chalice without a base, cannot stand on his own nor hold what he has received any longer that God holds him in His strong hands. William Gurnall Great comforts do, indeed, bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree of it; the weak child is ofterner in the lap than the strong one. - WILLIAM GURNALL All grace grows as Love to the Word of God grows.-- Philip Henry The doctrines of grace humble a man without degrading him and exalt a man without inflating him. CHARLES HODGE Everyone is legalistic about something. I'm legalistic about grace. - Bill Jack  Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, 'I can clean that if you want.' And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin. --Max Lucado Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes. Martin Luther If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly. Martin Luther The first chapters of the Bible tell us of the sin of man. The guilt of that sin had rested upon every single one of us, it guilt and its terrible results..but..it also tells us of something greater still; it tells us of the grace of the offended God. J. GRESHAM MACHEN It is a sure mark of grace to desire more. --- ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love. John Milton Paradise Lost Good, the more Communicated, more abundant grows. John Milton. 1608-1674. Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 71. The first sort by thir own suggestion fell, Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd, By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace, The other none. John Milton. 1608-1674. Paradise Lost. Book III, 129 - 32 My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour. John Newton Newton's tombstone reads, "John Newton,Clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy. Our righteousness is in Him, and our hope depends, not upon the exercise of grace in us, but upon the fullness of grace and love in Him, and upon His obedience unto death. -- John Newton 1725-1807 Too often, dear Saviour, have I Preferred some poor trifle to thee; How is it thou dost not deny The blessing and birth-right to me? No better than Esau I am, Though pardon and heav'n be mine; To me belongs nothing but shame, The praise and the glory be thine. John Newton , Olney Hymn 8, ESAU Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, hut now am found, Was blind, but now I see. 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed! Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. The LORD has promised good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease, I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But GOD, who called me here below, Will be for ever mine. John Newton , Olney Hymn 41, Faith's review and expectation.. The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace. JOHN OWEN The doctrine of grace may be turned into wantonness; the principle cannot.-John Owen--On Communion with God, Works, v.2 p.31 Evangelical truth will not be honourably witnessed unto but by evangelical grace.- JOHN OWEN A river continually fed by a living fountain may as soon end its streams before it come to the ocean, as a stop be put to the course and progress of grace before it issue in glory. JOHN OWEN It is a throne of grace that God in Christ is represented to us upon; but yet is is a throne still whereon majesty and glory do reside, and God is always to be considered by us as on a throne. JOHN OWEN None but the Lord himself can afford us any help from the awful workings of unbelief, doubtings, carnal fears, murmurings. Thank God one day we will be done forever with "unbelief. Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952) Growth in grace is like the growth of a cow's tail Ä the more it truly grows, the closer to the ground it is brought. Arthur W. Pink letter: 23 Jan 1935 Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace; it is glory in its infancy. S. Rutherford Be not afraid for little grace. Christ soweth His living seed, and He will not lose His seed. If He have the guiding of my flock and state, it shall not miscarry. Our spilled works, losses, deadness, coldness, wretchedness, are the ground upon which the Good Husbandman laboureth.- Samulel Rutherford, Letters, XX. To lady KENMURE, ABERDEEN He is come down as rain upon the mown grass; He has revived my withered root, and He is as the dew of herbs. I am most secure in this prison. Salvation is for walls in it, and what think ye of these walls? He maketh the dry plant to bud as the lily, and to blossom as Lebanon. The great Husbandman's blessing cometh down upon the plants of righteousness: who may say this, my dear brother, if I, His poor exiled stranger and prisoner, may not say it? Though all the world should be silent, I cannot hold my peace. No preaching, no book, no learing could have given me that which it behaved me to come and get in this town.- Samulel Rutherford, Letters, XXII. To MR HUGH MACKAIL, ABERDEEN By grace we are what we are in justification, and work what we work in sanctification. - RICHARD SIBBES Once I knew what it was to rest upon the rock of God's promises, and it was indeed a precious resting place, but now I rest in His grace. He is teaching me that the bosom of His love is a far sweeter resting-place than even the rock of His promises.Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911) in a letter Ah! the bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. I can hear their trampings now as they traverse the great arches of the bridge of salvation. They come by their thousands, by their myriads; e'er since the day when Christ first entered into His glory, they come, and yet never a stone has sprung in that mighty bridge. Some have been the chief of sinners, and some have come at the very last of their days, but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support; it will bear me over as it has borne them.-- C.H. Spurgeon Saul of Tarsus was not on his knees in prayer, but hastening to shed innocent blood. Yet the Lord brought him down and made him seek salvation. Our Lord knows how to reach inaccessible persons. They may shut us out, but they cannot shut Him out! This should much encourage us in pleading for souls. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_ Volume 24 [1878] Grace will teach a Christian contentedly to take those potions that are wholesome, though they are not toothsome. - GEORGE SWINNOCK Jesus did not say 'You are the honey of the world'. He said 'You are the salt of the earth'. Salt bites, and the unadulterated message of the judgement and grace of God has always been a biting thing.--Helmut Thielicke He poureth not the oil of His grace but into broken vessels. - John Trapp on Matt.5:6 So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about - He is looking for us. SIMON TUGWELL Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. Mark Twain, in Albert B. Payne, Mark Twain: A biography, vol. 3. (1912)  None so empty of grace as he that thinks he is full. - THOMAS WATSON You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.John Wooden grandparent The simplest toy, one which even the youngest child can operate, is called a grandparent. Sam Levenson gratitude One act of thanksgiving made when things go wrong is worth a thousand when things go well. He who can give thanks for little will always find he has enough. If you can't be content with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped. Thank God for dirty dishes, They have a tale to tell, While others may go hungry, We're eating very well, With home and hearth and happiness, I shouldn't want to fuss, For by the stack of evidence, God's been good to us. Thanksgiving is possible only for those who take time to remember; no one can give thanks who has a short memory.. Some people complain that God put thorns on roses, while others praise Him for putting roses on thorns. Gratitude is the heart's memory. Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. --Aesop (c. 550 BC) We never know the worth of water till the well is dry. French Proverb Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. -- Henry Ward Beecher Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed.--W. C. Bennett ..give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1Ths. 5:18 NIV Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues. Cicero What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.-- Colette No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.-- Charles Caleb Colton (1780 - 1832) Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude. --Confucius (551-479 BC) Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.--- Charles Dickens I feel a very unusual sensation - if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift...of expressing all that is in me. Anne Frank, 14, diary:, April 4th 1944 Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep. -- Felix Frankfurter Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion. -- Benjamin Franklin Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we had better start to learn it if we are not to be mere dumb aliens there. ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954) All this, and Heaven too! --Philip Henry (1631-1696) (As quoted in Matthew Henry's _Life of Philip Henry_) Thou who hast given so much to me, give one thing more--a grateful heart. --George Herbert (1593-1633) Thou who hast given so much to me, give one thing more--a grateful heart. --George Herbert (1593-1633) The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. Eric Hoffer Not for the mighty world. O Lord, tonight, Nations and kingdoms in their fearful might-- Let me be glad the kettle gently sings, Let me be grateful for little things. Edna Jaques Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies.--Charles E. Jefferson (1860-1937) When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped. -- Samuel Johnson: Letter to Hester Thrale (July 14, 1770) Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.--Helen Keller (1880-1968) Be thankful for the smallest blessing, and you will deserve to receive greater. Value the least gifts no less than the greatest, and simple graces as especial favours. If you remember the dignity of the Giver, no gift will seem small or mean, for nothing can be valueless that is given by the most high God. -- Thomas a Kempis We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is "good," because it is good; if "bad" because it works in us patience, humility and contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country. --Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963)_Letter to Don Giovanni Calabria_ [August 10, 1948] 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 Men are slower to recognise blessings than evils. Livy He had a rose in his hand and marveled at it. "A glorious work of art by God," he said. "If a man had the capacity to make just one rose he would be given an empire! But the countless gifts of God are esteemed as nothing because they're always present. We see that God gives children to all men, the fruit of their bodies resembling the parents. A peasant is said to have three and four sons who look so much like him that they're easily mistaken for one another. All of these gifts are despised because they're always present. Luther's Tabletalk from No.4593 One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness.-- J. Robert Maskin Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy -- Jacques Maritain When thou has truly thanked the Lord for every blessing sent, But little time will then remain for murmur or lament. Hannah More When everything we receive from him is received and prized as fruit and pledge of his covenant love, then his bounties, instead of being set up as rivals and idols to draw our heart from him, awaken us to fresh exercises of gratitude and furnish us with fresh motives of cheerful obedience every hour.-- John Newton A man receiving charity always hates his benefactor- it is a fixed characteristic of human nature. George Orwell The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart. ---Plutarch Be thankful for the least gift, so shalt thou be meet to receive greater. --Thomas A' Kempis (1380-1471) G. K. Chesterton, when he wrote his autobiography near the end of a long and useful life, set himself the task of defining in a single sentence the most important lesson he had learned. He concluded that the critical thing was whether one took things for granted or took them with gratitude. --James Reston _Sketches in the Sand_ There are three kinds of giving: grudge giving, duty giving, and thanksgiving. Grudge giving says, "I hate to," duty giving says, "I ought to," thanksgiving says, "I want to." The first comes from constraint, the second from a sense of obligation, the third from a full heart. Nothing much is conveyed in grudge giving since "the gift without the giver is bare." Something more happens in duty giving but there is no song in it. Thanksgiving is an open gate into the love of God. --Robert N. Rodenmayer, _Thanks Be To God_ Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts: and no one to thank. -- Christina Rossetti O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness. -- William Shakespeare Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks. Hamlet Act ii. Sc. 2. Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass, But still remember what the Lord hath done. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) _King Henry VI_, Part II [1590-1591]; Act II, Scene I I can no other answer make but thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks. William Shakespeare, _Twelfth-Night_, Act III, sc. 3 Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. ~ Gladys Browyn Stern God has two dwellings: one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart. --Izaak Walton (1593-1683) Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. William Arthur Ward   greatness All rising to a great place is by a winding stair.-- Sir Francis Bacon, 'Of Great Place', _Essays_, 1597-1625 Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular. - Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789 &endash; 1849) Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers. Daniel Boorstin (1914-____) It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) They 're only truly great who are truly good. George Chapman. 1557-1634 Revenge for Honour. Act v. Sc. 2 Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim. Ralph Waldo Emerson Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown. Charles de Gaulle We all go to our graves unknown, worlds of unsuspected greatness. Frederick W. Faber Every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers. Mignon McLaughlin Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words and suffer noble sorrows. Charles Read Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes. -- Theodor Reik It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD)_Epistles_ The world knows nothing of its greatest men. Henry Taylor Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too can become great. Mark Twain Be great in little things. Francis Xavier Greece  The Hellenes paid homage first and foremost to external beauty and physical strength; the Judeans to inner beauty and spiritualheroism.--Simon M. Dubnow, _Jewish History_, 1903  All the wonders of the Greek civilization heaped together are less wonderful than the single book of Psalms...Greece had...all that this world could give her; but the flowers of Paradise...blossomed in Palestine alone. --Gladstone, _Place of Ancient Greece_, 1865 The Greeks were pre-eminently realists. The temper of mind that made them carve their statues and paint their pictures from the living human beings around them, that kept their poetry within the sober limits of the possible, made them hard-headed men in the world of every-day affairs. They were not sentimentalists. We, to whom poetry, all art, is only a superficial decoration of life, make a refuge from a world that is too hard for us to face by sentimentalizing it. The Greeks looked stright at it. They were completely unsentimental. It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies.- Edith Hamilton-The Greek Way, p.108  The Greeks stressed the holiness of beauty; the Jews emphasized the beauty of holiness. --Emil G. Hirsch, sermon, collected in _Students, Scholars,and Saints_, 1928 The wisdom of the Greeks, when compared to that of the Jews, is absolutely bestial; for apart from God there can be no wisdom, not any understanding and insight. --Martin Luther The Greek grasped the present moment, and was the artist; the Jew worshipped the timeless spirit, and was the prophet. --Isaac Mayer Wise, "The Wandering Jew", 1877, _Selected Writings_ greed What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.- Milton Friedman grief In youth, one has tears without grief; in age, grief without tears. French Proverb It is better to weep with wise men than to laugh with fools. Spanish Proverb Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens understanding and softens the heart. John Adams (1767-1848) The Dark Night of the Soul-between no longer and not yet.-Joan Borysenko Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us. Meister Eckhart Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger than common joys. Alphonse de Lamartine The only cure for grief is action. -- George Henry Lewes (1817-1878) The Spanish Drama. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. C S Lewis Shared grief diminishes, but shared joy increases. Spider Robinson Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened - Dr. Seuss Everyone can master a grief but he that hath it.- Shakespeare Tears are the safety valve of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it. - Albert Smith Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief. Hilary Stanton Zunin   growth Growth merely for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Edward Abbey Spiritual growth consists most in the growth of the root, which is out of sight. MATTHEW HENRY When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. Mark Twain   guidance The will of God will never lead you where the Grace of God cannot keep you. Don't trust in your ability to follow God--trust in His ability to lead you. If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.... Yogi Berra Who can love to walk in the dark? But providence doth often so dispose. Oliver Cromwell, in To Honour God- The Spirituality of Oliver Cromwell, Michael Haykin, 1999 If therefore, in doubtful cases, you would discover God's will, govern yourselves in your search after it by these rules: 1. Get the true fear of God upon your hearts; be really afraid of offending Him. 2. Study the Word more, and the concerns and interests of the world less. 3. Reduce what you know into practice, and you shall know what is your duty to practice. 4. Pray for illumination and direction in the way that you should go. 5. And this being done, follow Providence as far as it agrees with the Word, and no farther.-- John Flavel Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost (1874-1963), The Road Not Taken (1949) Oh Lord, may I be directed what to do and what to leave undone. - Elizabeth Fry In working out our callings, we are to perform for one audience, the audience of One.--Os Guinness And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light. that I may tread safely into the unknown." And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way." Minnie L. Haskins No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.--Agnes de Mille To some men it is hard seeing a call of God through difficulties; when if it would but clothe itself with a few carnal advantages, how apparent it is to them! They can see It through a little cranny. ... John Owen (1616-1683) He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright. -- Pascal Nothing could be madder, more irresponsible, more dangerous than this guidance of men by dreams.--George Santayana (1863-1952__Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies_ [1922], "Imagination" A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity. -- Sir Walter Scott God's will is in God's Word. --Ron Tottingham Each man is led by his own liking.... Virgil   gullible They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them! For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.--R. Clopton Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire. - Jean de la Fontaine (1621 &endash; 1695) To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.-- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Human Work" guilt We have only one person to blame, and that's each other. Larry Breck of he NY Rangers, on who started a brawl during the Cup Playoffs To take upon oneself not punishment, but guilt - that alone would be godlike. Nietzsche guns That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. --George Orwell in the democratic socialist weekly "Tribune" (1940)

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