Quotes by Theologians - Page 96

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.
Jalaluddin Rumi
There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.You feel it, don't you?
Jalaluddin Rumi
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
George Washington Burnap
Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.
Jalaluddin Rumi
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?
Jalaluddin Rumi
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
Jalaluddin Rumi
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
C.S. Lewis
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
C.S. Lewis
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
C.S. Lewis
The human heart is not unchanging (nay, changes almost out of recognition in the twinkling of an eye)...
C.S. Lewis
The rule of the universe is that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and one can paddle every canoe except one's own.
C.S. Lewis
The soul is like an uninhabited worldthat comes to life only whenGod lays His headagainst us.
Thomas Aquinas
The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Indo-European root ‘es-,’ meaning ‘to be.’ When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a [person] trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, ‘to be’ in the fullest sense is ‘to sin'.
Mary Daly
The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.
C.S. Lewis
A 'no' does not hide anything, but a 'yes' very easily becomes a deception.
Søren Kierkegaard
The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of biblical stories like Joseph and Job and Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ.
John Piper
Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.
Frederick Buechner
Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.
Søren Kierkegaard
Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: "Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.
Jürgen Moltmann
This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.
G.K. Chesterton
When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
C.S. Lewis
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!
Søren Kierkegaard
It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.
C.S. Lewis
You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.
Jalaluddin Rumi
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
C.S. Lewis
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Søren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Søren Kierkegaard
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
G.K. Chesterton
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.
Albert Schweitzer
Soul, if you want to learn secrets,
your heart must forget about shame
 and dignity. You are God's lover,
yet you worry what people are saying.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.
Augustine of Hippo
If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.
Frederick Buechner
I am yours.Don't give myself back to me.
Jalaluddin Rumi
In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best, none of the weak or deformed. Don't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.
Jalaluddin Rumi
In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.
C.S. Lewis
If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.
Jalaluddin Rumi
When someone beats a rug,the blows are not against the rug, but against the dust in it.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I choose to love you in silence…For in silence I find no rejection,I choose to love you in loneliness…For in loneliness no one owns you but me,I choose to adore you from a distance…For distance will shield me from pain,I choose to kiss you in the wind…For the wind is gentler than my lips,I choose to hold you in my dreams…For in my dreams, you have no end.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Like ThisIf anyone asks youhow the perfect satisfactionof all our sexual wantingwill look, lift your faceand say,Like this.When someone mentions the gracefulnessof the nightsky, climb up on the roofand dance and say,Like this.If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,or what "God’s fragrance" means,lean your head toward him or her.Keep your face there close.Like this.When someone quotes the old poetic imageabout clouds gradually uncovering the moon,slowly loosen knot by knot the stringsof your robe.Like this.If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,don’t try to explain the miracle.Kiss me on the lips.Like this. Like this.When someone asks what it meansto "die for love," pointhere.If someone asks how tall I am, frownand measure with your fingers the spacebetween the creases on your forehead.This tall.The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.When someone doesn’t believe that,walk back into my house.Like this.When lovers moan,they’re telling our story.Like this.I am a sky where spirits live.Stare into this deepening blue,while the breeze says a secret.Like this.When someone asks what there is to do,light the candle in his hand.Like this.How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?Huuuuu.How did Jacob’s sight return?Huuuu.A little wind cleans the eyes.Like this.When Shams comes back from Tabriz,he’ll put just his head around the edgeof the door to surprise us Like this.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Love comes with a knife, not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation!
Jalaluddin Rumi
Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.
Augustine of Hippo
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.
John Henry Newman
When I am with you, we stay up all night.When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.Praise God for those two insomnias!And the difference between them.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I know you're tired but come, this is the way.
Jalaluddin Rumi
God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one
Jalaluddin Rumi
Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Remember. The way you make love is the way God will be with you.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I am your moon and your moonlight tooI am your flower garden and your water tooI have come all this way, eager for youWithout shoes or shawlI want you to laughTo kill all your worriesTo love youTo nourish you.
Jalaluddin Rumi
In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.
Jalaluddin Rumi
This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.I'll meet you there.When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about.
Jalaluddin Rumi