Since
college days I have collected sayings that I find edifying and entertaining. My
file contains scores of cards, dashed off with no concern for careful documentation
and no thought of ever sharing—till now. As a result, the fifty sayings that I
share here are often loosely documented or undocumented. I offer my thanks and,
where necessary, my apologies to the originators.
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Vital religion is like good music: it needs no defense, only rendition. A wrangling controversy in support of religion is as if the members of an orchestra should beat folks over the head with their violins to prove that the music is beautiful. Play the music! (Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick)
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Church marquee: "Tithe. Anyone can honk."
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A prig is a person whose opinions we always know, though we never ask.
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It is the part of wisdom not to bewail nor to deride, but to understand. (Benedict Spinoza, Ethics)
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An Amish man is asked, "Are you saved?" He responds, "I'm not the one to ask. Ask people who know me."
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Peace is not an end to differences; it is a way of dealing with differences. (Roger Fisher, Harvard Magazine, March-April 2004)
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Confusion we can clear up. Mystery we cannot. Be clear, and revere mystery. (Scott Russell Sanders)
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The best things in life are not things.
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Don't believe everything you think. (Allan Lokos)
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Our world neglects vastly too many people, leaving them to swallow their tears and live on the salt.
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Savoring the world and saving the world are profoundly connected. (E. B. White)
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The Devil comes to a Legislator and says, "I can offer you unlimited special interest money, money impossible to trace; in return I ask for your soul and the souls of your children." The Legislator ponders for a moment and asks, "What's the catch?"
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The only remedy for the irreversibility of history is forgiveness. (Hannah Arendt)
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We must tangibilitate the Gospel. (Father Divine)
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To tell a lie is easy. To tell only one lie is difficult.
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Reality is that which, when you don't believe in it, doesn't go away. (Peter Viereck)
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This is grace: new chances in life. (Rev. Hans Küng, On Being a Christian)
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What right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is but a deficiency of temptation. (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair)
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Seven Social Sins:
Wealth without works(From a sermon by Rev. Frederick Lewis Donaldson, Westminster Abbey, March 20, 1925; promulgated by Mahatma Gandhi.)
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We must build that kind of society where it is easier for people to be good. (Peter Maurin, often quoted by Dorothy Day)
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As far as I can tell, the only time Jesus wants people in the closet is when they are praying. (Rev. Dan Ivins, referring to Matthew 6:6)
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A text out of context becomes a pretext. (Rev. Jesse Jackson)
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The Church should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. (Adapted by Martin Marty from a saying about newspapers.)
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Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but we must take it because conscience tells us it is right. (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at the Poor People's March in Washington DC, 1968)
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The trickle-down theory of economics is at variance with the prophetic message "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:24)
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Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. (George Santayana, Life of Reason)
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The problem with much Christian mission work is that it's all mouth and no ears. (Prof. Diana Eck)
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Christian discipleship: a realistic, reverent, reconciling life of service.
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I wonder if Muslims look at us and think, "You're going
to have to look a lot more redeemed before I'll believe in your redeemer."
(Rev. William Willimon)
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A raindrop plunged in greyness may not know~~~~~~~~~~
Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. (Teddy Roosevelt)
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We have to believe in free will. We have no choice. (Isaac Bashevis Singer)
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A sense of mystery keeps strength gentle and certitude vulnerable. (John Dominic Crossan)
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The problem with ideology: it does not represent or conform to or even address reality. It is a straight-edge ruler in a fractal universe. (Marilynne Robinson)
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God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason. (Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings)
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Being a pacifist between wars is like being a vegetarian between meals. (Ammon Hennacy)
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We are not punished for our sins, but by them. (Elbert Hubbard)
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I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest—I mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds and brings in the most people as sharers. It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much. (George Eliot, Middlemarch)
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Political activist and community organizer Virginia Walker Broughton was told by her husband "You need to stay home." She replied, "I've had a talk with God. God told me this is my calling. I have to do this. So you and God work this out." (Told by Prof. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in The Black Church, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
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We know that it is wrong to cheat, to steal, to lie; that people are precious in the sight of God and must always be treated as such; that manners matter; that kindness counts; that knowledge is superior to ignorance; and that the simplest courtesies are superior to the most sophisticated arguments. (Rev. Peter Gomes, welcoming service for new students, Harvard University Memorial Church)
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A reporter asked Rev. Hoyt Blackwell, President of Mars Hill College, about rumors of friction among the faculty. He answered: "Yes, we have enough friction to give us traction."
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We are of one heart but of two minds. (Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Jr. on discussions of homosexuality at New York's Riverside Church)
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Several friends visited W. C. Fields at a sanatorium where he had gone after a bad binge. They were astounded to find him sitting up in bed reading the Bible. When they asked why he was reading that particular book, Fields replied: "Looking for loopholes."
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Wisdom from the movies:
"God loves you just as you are, and loves you too much to leave you that way." (Junebug)
"Sometimes we must just keep on living until we feel alive again." (Call the Midwife)
"Do your best each day, and see what tomorrow brings." (Riding the Bus with My Sister)
"Have courage and be kind." (Cinderella, 2015)
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Wealth is not a sin, but it is a problem. (Rev. Peter Gomes, The New Yorker, 11/11/96)
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Too often our Christian social ethics seems to extend little further than the maxim to leave the rented beach cottage as clean as we found it.
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What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
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