SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: FAITH

  • Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our [the devil] Enemy’s will [God], looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

    —C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

  • Radical Waiting

    I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen in me.

    To wait with openness and trust is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is choosing to hope that something is happening for us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness, and moves us away from the sources of our fear.

    Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.

    —Henri Nouwen

  • “It’s not God I don’t accept. Understand this,” says Ivan. “I do not accept the world that He created, this world of God’s, and cannot agree with it.”

    The Brothers Karamazov

  • He left behind his worldly understanding and took with him his faith

    —Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

  • Thou wert not to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God.

    —St. Augustine, Confessions

  • “On Sunday morning I went out for a while in the neighbourhood; I bought some raisin bread. The day was warm but a little sad, as Sundays often are in Paris, especially when one doesn’t believe in God.”

    Whatever
    Michel Houellebecq

  • Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

    —Emil Cioran

  • Elijah was so confident, he prayed 5 times knowing the rain would come. The Bible teaches us confidence and how to pray.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • In life we pass through stages. The heart, thoughts, feelings and spirit all pass through them. Each stage has its impact and effect. It has a duration of time beyond which it does not go.

    Happy is the one who looks continually with hope for the next stage. 

    Happy is the one whom difficulties do not send to the other extreme. For a difficulty is only a stage in life and the solution of that difficulty is yet another stage. 

    Live with faith that there will be a solution and rejoice as you look forward to what cannot be seen. 

    The world itself is only a stage in life that will arrive at another stage, that of eternity.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life

  • Fr. Bishoy was away from the monastery for a short time, and upon his return he was told a monk had passed away. In the world, even though a person who has died is enjoying the sights and splendor of Paradise, people on earth tend to ignore that and simply bemoan their death. For monastics, however, death is not treated in the usual manner; they regard it as simply leaving the monastery and returning home to Paradise. Hence, upon hearing that his friend had died, Fr. Bishoy simply said, “Oh what a shame, I wish I could have said goodbye before he left.” But that was it: no tears, no big deal.

    Orthodox Afterlife
    John Habib