I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But, if I did on some one particular night, there is one sense at least in which I know what I should not find there. I apprehend that I should not find the work abounding in strong encouragements to the worship of idols; that the praises of polytheism would not be loudly sung; that the character of Mohammed would not be subjected to anything resembling hatred and derision; and that the great modern doctrine of the unimportance of religion would not be needlessly emphasised.
We are now at a point where because we in fact have been successful at stopping a number of plots, a threat has evolved. We do see these lone-wolf actors. We do see these encouragements for troubled individuals to pick up a gun and act out of this ideology.
You say you love your wife. You depend on her; she has given you her body, her emotions, her encouragement, a certain feeling of security and well-being. Then she turns away from you; she gets bored or goes off with someone else, and your whole emotional balance is destroyed, and this disturbance, which you don't like, is called jealousy. There is pain in it, anxiety, hate and violence. So what you are really saying is, 'As long as you belong to me I love you but the moment you don't I begin to hate you.
Man's freedom is never in being saved from troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy.
Pessimism is a form of mental dipsomania; it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection which thirsts for a stronger draught.
We are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness... We are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. He is dependent upon each of us
Men go forth to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the ocean, the course of the stars-and forget to wonder at themselves. Beware of despairing about yourself: you are commanded to put your trust in God, and not in yourself.
Wait and see whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every case what I say: the encouragement of small virtues supporting capitalism, the discouragement of the huge virtues that defy it.
Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
t's really an encouragement of discipleship, it looks like anything else that we're offering to anyone else, any other person struggling with any other issue in their life. It's about pursuing a relationship with Christ.
I choose to rise up out of that storm and see that in moments of desperation, fear, and helplessness, each of us can be a rainbow of hope, doing what we can to extend ourselves in kindness and grace to one another. And I know for sure that there is no them - there's only us.