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johnhardinsawyer · 5 years

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“By This Everyone Will Know. . .”

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

5 / 19 / 19

John 13:31-35

Acts 11:1-18

“By This Everyone Will Know. . .”

(Discovering the Wideness of God’s Mercy)

A friend of mine, Jim Dant, is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Greenville, SC. Now, in the day and age in which we live, if some of you were to hear the words “Baptist” and “Greenville, SC” you just might find yourselves making some assumptions about the kind of people who might lead and worship at that church. Alas, not even the Baptists are immune to stereotypes, even the Baptists of South Carolina. Anyway, a few years ago, my friend Jim invited the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus to come sing at his church in Greenville as part of a tour they were doing through the American South. His invitation to them was sincere. And, when all 200 men in the choir – some of whom had never been to a Baptist church in the South because they knew they would not be welcomed – were lined up across the front of the sanctuary, Jim stood up and said to a packed house,

I’ve obviously gotten a lot of phone calls in the last couple of weeks, [asking] “Why?” [As in, “Why did you invite this choir of gay men to come to your church?”] My simple answer to this question each time has been, “Because I am a Christian and a follower of Jesus Christ. . .”[1]

“Because I am a Christian and a follower of Jesus Christ. . . Hmmmm. . . that’s interesting. I don’t know if you were expecting Jim – the Baptist minister in the South – to say something different. There are plenty of ministers – not just Baptist – who would say the same thing as justification for why notto welcome the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

God often has a way of upending our expectations, though.

We see this at work in today’s reading from the Book of Acts. You might remember from last week’s story that Peter, one of the first disciples to follow Jesus, had been on a journey. It was on this journey, in the seaside town of Joppa where Peter met Tabitha in last week’s story. And, a little while later, it was in another seaside town, called Caesarea Maritima, where Peter met a Roman soldier named Cornelius. Now, the Romans had conquered the Jews, years before, and these two groups interacted in an official capacity – but, only when they had to. Both the Jews and the Romans knew what they could expect from one another: distrust and dislike. But, as I said a moment ago, God often has a way of upending our expectations.

You might be surprised to learn that Cornelius, the Roman soldier, “was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God,” (Acts 10:2) – not to the (small “g”) gods of the Romans, mind you, but the (big “G”) God of the Jews. Hmmm. . . a Roman soldier – a Centurion, an officer no less – praying to the God of a conquered people. . . That’s interesting. And, even more interesting, one afternoon, Cornelius had a vision, in which an angel said,

“Your prayers and neighborly acts have brought you to God’s attention. Here’s what you are to do. Send men to [the town of] Joppa to get Simon, the one everyone calls Peter.”[2]

So, Cornelius sent two servants and one of his soldiers – who also believed in the (Big “G”) God of the Jews – to go and find Peter. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were a person living in an occupied country and one of the occupying soldiers came looking for me, I would find it a little disconcerting, to say the least.

Thankfully, God had prepared Peter for this unexpected visit, because just as Cornelius had had a vision, Peter, too, had a vision. In his vision, he saw a large cloth coming down out of heaven. The cloth was filled with animals of every kind. Now, Peter was feeling kind of hungry at the time,[3]but the animals in his vision were not the kind of animals that good Jewish folks like Peter were allowed to eat. You see, there are all kinds of rules in the ancient laws of Moses about what should and should not be eaten, and Peter wasn’t about to even think about eating the food that was in this vision. But then he heard a voice that said, “Get up, Peter. . . and eat” (10:13) And Peter said – and I’m paraphrasing here – “Nu-uh! I’m not supposed to eat any of that stuff. It is unclean.” (10:14) Then the voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” (10:15)

When Peter awoke from his vision, who should be at the door, but the servants and the soldier sent by Cornelius to get him. When Peter got to Cornelius’ home, Cornelius – an officer in the Roman army – fell down at Peter’s feet and worshiped him. (10:25) Peter asked Cornelius to stand up. And then he said to everyone who had gathered at Cornelius’ home:

“You yourselves know that [according to the laws of my people] it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile [and all of you are Gentiles]; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” (10:28)

And then, the Holy Spirit came – filling the hearts and mind and spirits of everyone in the house. And Peter, seeing their faith, had everyone in the house – all of the Gentile believers – baptized.

When Peter gets back to Jerusalem in today’s story, word has spread about “how the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God” (11:1) – or, as Eugene Peterson translates it: that the “outsiders” are now “in.”[4] The Jewish disciples of Jesus – Peter’s friends – ask him: “What do you think you’re doing, rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?”

This is when Peter tells them the story of his travels, of the people he has met and the miraculous things God has done through him, and of the vision – the sheet, the animals, the visitors from Cornelius’ home, and the sudden revelation that maybe the differences we might think we have don’t seem to matter as much in the light of God’s grace. As Peter says in today’s story, “If then God gave them – the Gentiles, the outsiders, even the Romans – the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (11:17)

As today’s story goes, when the disciples heard this, “they were silenced and then they praised God.” (11:18) Because, if they went back and remembered the words and actions of Jesus, they would have seen and known that God does have a tendency to welcome the outsider. As my friend Jim told the packed house at the First Baptist Church in Greenville, SC, “Christ welcomed lepers and women, Christ welcomed Romans and Samaritans, Christ welcomed prostitutes and [even] lawyers. . .”[5] The “lawyers” line got a good laugh. Apparently, they love lawyer jokes down in South Carolina.

Anyway, the minds and hearts of the disciples are opened when Peter tells them that God’s grace is not just for those who belong to one group – one ethnicity, one nationality. Yes, the Jews were – and always have been – God’s “chosen people,” going all the way back to Father Abraham. But then Jesus came, upending everyone’s expectations, and – as today’s second reading reminds us – in him, God’s glory has been revealed.

When Jesus was at a meal with his friends, the disciples – including Peter and those who would later question the wideness of God’s mercy – he told them,

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

It should be noted, that Jesus gives us a “new commandment,” not a new suggestion, that we love one another. To be sure, there are some commandments that are easier to follow than others, but this one – the one to love as Jesus loves – is just about the hardest. I mean, what would you do, if you learned that God loves someone that you don’t even like and you are supposed to love them, too? This is hard stuff. It takes work – sometimes, the kind of deep down work that only the Holy Spirit can do on our hearts and souls. The Holy Spirit is the One who causes us to love one another in the first place. And the Spirit is the source of any love we have to share. When John Calvin wrote about this passage, he said that “the mutual exercise of love cannot exist but in those who are guided by the same Spirit.” And, “as the goodness of God extends to the whole world, so we ought to love all, even those who hate us.”[6]

This is not a romantic love or the kind of love you might have for a sports team or your favorite band. Jesus gives this new commandment to love right after his disciple Judas leaves to betray him and right before his other friends desert and deny him. He gives this new commandment to love knowing the kind of love that God is asking of him – a love that will lead Jesus to the cross, extending his arms wide to embrace all of humanity with God’s mercy and love. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another,” Jesus tells his friends – tells us – “with a love that is sacrificial, a love that brings peace, and wholeness, and healing, and forgiveness, and abundant life.” This is a love that is willing to risk it all, to lose it all. . . in order to gain it all. And, if we love in this way, Jesus tells us, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13:35)

This is not a love that we keep to ourselves. If all we are loving is ourselves or those who are like us,[7]then we are not working as hard on loving as Jesus calls us to love. To love as Jesus loves is a life-long pursuit. As Calvin writes, “Whoever. . . desires to be truly a disciple of Christ. . . let them form and direct their whole life to love others, and let them pursue this object with diligence.”[8] When it comes to the love that we have for other people – all people – this is to be something that we pursue with persistence, no matter what, so that our love is on display for all the world to see. How will everyone know who Jesus is if we do not show them? How will everyone know what God’s love is truly like? How will the world see us?

We so-called disciples don’t always have the best track record. In fact, there is a lot of work that God still has to do on us so that our love is truly the love of Jesus. But, God does have a way of upending expectations and using us – yes, even us – for good. This is where the Holy Spirit comes into the picture, giving us the strength, and courage, and love that we need so that when the world asks, “Why?” – “Why are you standing up for me?” “Why are you speaking up for me?” “Why are you giving yourself away for me?” “Why are you taking a risk for me?” “Why are you opening your arms wide in welcome for me when nobody else ever has?” The Spirit gives us the true and simple answer, “Because I am a Christian, and a follower of Jesus Christ.”

Love one another. . . just as Jesus loves us. By this, they will know, my friends. . . By this, everyone will know. . .

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdG5DF27UQ4. Jim speaks as soon as the choir is in place – in the first 5 minutes.

[2]Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition(Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1508. Acts 4-5.

[3]See Acts 10:10.

[4]Eugene Peterson, 1509. Acts 11:1.

[5]At this point, Jim also said, “The only people that Jesus never was really comfortable with were self-righteous, judgmental, religious people. Listen, listen really, it’s not that Jesus didn’t love those people as much as he loved everyone else in the 1stcentury. It’s just that they will annoy the [heck] out of you if you’re around them too long.

[6]John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVIII(Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009) 76.

[7]See Luke 6:32-36.

[8]Calvin, 77. Paraphrased, JHS for gender neutral language.

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decaffeinatedlightluminary-blog · 7 years

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GGS, SWAYAS –”He who constantly keeps in mind Intent upon Ever Awake Living Light of Consciousness And never swerves from the thought of One God; And he who is adorned with full faith in Him And is wholly steeped in the Love of the Lord, And even by mistake never puts his faith in fasting Or in worship of tombs, sepulcher or crematoriums, Caring not for pilgrimages, alms, charities, Penances or austerities; Or anything else but devotion to One God; And in whose heart and soul the Divine Light Shines forth as the full moon He is known as Khalsa, the purest of the pure.”

GHULAM RASOOL PADROO –”How can I not recognise my son? I can recognize even his bone. Here, it is his entire body.”

GIACOMO CASANOVA –”The reader of these memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system… has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life.”

GIACOMO LEOPARDI –”No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets, less, than intolerance.”

GIL ATKINSON –”The great companies and teams are those that celebrate the differences. They seek harmony not uniformity. They hire talent not colon. They strive for oneness not sameness.”

GIL ATKINSON –”You are one of a kind; therefore, no one can really predict to what heists you might soar. Even you will not know until you spread your wings!”

GILBERT CHESTERTON –”Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”

GILBERT K CHESTERTON –”It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON –” The way to love anything is to realise that it may be lost.”

GILBERT WHITE –”Floods are ‘acts of God’, but flood losses are acts of man.”

GILLIAN ANDERSON – “Be of service. Whether you make yourself available to a friend or coworker, or you make time every month to do volunteer work, there is nothing that harvests more of a feeling of empowerment than being of service to someone in need.”

GINA HOSKINS –”Why me? When something bad happens, we often think the situation is unfair. Yet, if we were to really look at life, realizing the amazing calling we have been given to know the truth of God, we would humbly be asking the same question: Why me? It’s amazing; but God “saved us and called us with a holy calling”, not because of anything we’ve done, but because of “His own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:8-9). We’ve done nothing to deserve it, yet He still chose us. Next time something bad happens that you think you don’t deserve… remember the many things you have to be thankful for. Count your blessings. Life is “unfair!”

GIOVANNI BATISTA FELICI –”Among the many disorders which the intemperance of mankind has introduced to shorten their lives, one of the greatest, in my opinion, is the use of chocolate.”

GIUSEPPE MAZZINI –”A country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which hinds together all the sons of that territory.”

GK CHESTERTON –”Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized.”

GK CHESTERTON –”The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

GK CHESTERTON –”The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.”

GK CHESTERTON –”There are philosophies as varied as the flowers of the field, and some of them weeds and a few of them poisonous weeds. But they none of them create the psychological conditions in which I first saw, or desired to see, the flower.”

GK CHESTERTON –”Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.”

GK CHESTERTON –”You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

GLADYS STAINES– “Because I have experienced forgiveness in my own life, it is possible for me to forgive others.”

GLADYS STAINES –”Experience forgiveness and forgive others. Grace is available. Once you forgive, there will be healing.”

GLADYS STAINES –”My prayer to the Lord is: Take me as I am. You know how precious stones become crystal clear? They go through polishing and hardship, and that’s how our lives should be… If we don’t experience the grace of God, we become bitter… Experience forgiveness and forgive others. Grace is available. Once you forgive, there will be healing.”

GLENWAY WESCOTT –”It is not love, but the lack of love, which is blind.”

GLORIA ALLRED –”The more I know about men, the more I like dogs.”

GLORIA STEINEM –”A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.”

GLORIA STEINEM –”Self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it.”

GLORIA STEINEM –”We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons. But few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”

GM TREVELYAN –”Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.”

GOATHE– “Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

GOETH –”Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.”

GOETHE –”A clever man commits no minor blunders.”

GOETHE –”Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.”

GOETHE –”Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”

GOETHE –”Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.”

GOETHE –”He who seizes the right moment, Is the right man.”

GOETHE –”If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.”

GOETHE –”It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.”

GOETHE –”It is only in misery that we recognize the hand of God leading good men to good.”

GOETHE –”Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.”

GOETHE –”Love is an ideal thing, marriage is a real thing.”

GOETHE –”Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things… For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

GOETHE –”Nothing is more revolting than the majority; for it consists of few vigorous predecessors of knaves who accommodate themselves, of weak people who assimilate themselves, and the mass that toddles after them without knowing in the least what it wants.”

GOETHE –”Nothing shows a man’s character more than what laughs at.”

GOETHE –”Only begin and then the mind grows heated; only begin and the task, will be completed.”

GOETHE –”Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.”

GOETHE –”The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

GOETHE –”There are nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure; wealth enough to support your needs; strength enough to battle with difficulties and I forsake them; grace enough to confess your sins and overcome them; patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished; charity enough to see some good in your neighbour; love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others; faith enough to make real the things of God; HOPE enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

GOETHE –”There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.”

GOETHE –”Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.”

GOETHE –”We are forced to participate in the games of life before we can possibly learn how to use the options in the rules governing them.”

GOETHE –”Whatever liberates our spirit Without giving self-control is disastrous.”

GOETHE –”Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though ’twere his own.”

GOETHE –”Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realise the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man’s life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.”

GOETHE, A.P. –”To get profit without risk, experience without dander, and reward without hard work is as impossible as it is to live without being born.”

GOETHE, FAUST –”No, no! The devil is an egotist, And is not apt, without why or wherefore, “For God’s sake”, others to assist.”

GOLDA MEIR –”Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop the plane, you can’t stop the storm, and you can’t stop time. So one must accept it calmly wisely.”

GOLDA MEIR -“Whether women are better than men I cannot say—but I can say they are certainly no worse.”

GOLDAMEIR –”I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an under taking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.”

GOLDEN NASH –”One would be in less danger from the wiles of the stranger. If one’s own kin and kith where more fun to be with.”

GOLDSTONE, W.E. –”The resources of civilization against its enemies are not yet exhausted.”

GOOD OMENS –”God does not play dice with the universe. He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”

GOODMAN ACE –”I have discovered the secret formula/or a carefree old age: ICR – FL “If you can’t recall it. Forget It”.”

GORDON ALLPORT –”Love received and love given comprises the best form of therapy.”

GORDON BETHUNE –”Do you know how much faster I can fix an airplane when I want to fix it than when I don’t want to fix it?”

GORDON L GLEGG –”There it was. Instantly, I knew I had a planet beyond the orbit of Neptune because I knew the amount of shift was what fitted the situation and that was the most instantaneous thrill you can imagine. It just electrified me! I realized that I’d made a great discovery that I’d become famous, and I didn’t know what would happen after that. It was a very intense thrill. You don’t have that kind of a thrill very often. Clyde Tom Baugh, who discovered Planet Pluto in 1930 A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do that.”

GORE VIDAL– “Whenever a friend succeeds something in me dies.”

GREEK SAYING– ” Memory and oblivion, all hail! Memory for goodness, oblivion for evil.”

GOSPEL OF EVE –”I am thou, and thou art I; and whosesoever thoumayestbe I am there. In all am scattered, and whensoever thou wiliest, thou gatherest me; and gathering Me, thou gatherest Thyself.”

GOSPEL ST LUKE –”Jesus said to them, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, the old is good’.”

GOSPEL, ST JOHN –”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

GOVINDAN KUTTY –”Vamana is Mahavishnu’s first incarnation in a human form. He was born in the mind of the rakshasa, Mahabali Chakravarti, who, despite being a rakshasa, believed in truth and charity That’s why Mahabali readies himself to sacrifice everything. He not only gave away to Vamana all the three worlds, he allowed Vamana to place his foot on his head, thereby making the supreme sacrifice of giving up his own ego. The three worlds stand for the three planes of consciousness, the waking, dreaming and deep-sleep states. Vamana, by placing his foot on the king’s head in a symbolic gesture, transcended not only these three planes of consciousness, but also dethroned King Bali or the egocentric existence… Onam is celebrated to commemorate this realisation.”

GRACE E EASLEY –”There is a happiness in me Which lives in spite of all The days of pain and misery That sometimes I recall. A little joy whose roots are deep, And keep on holding-on, And even though the times I weep, …Are solid as a stone. There is a happiness in me That’s near to having wings, And I’m convinced it’s sure to be Each time my Angel sings. Sometimes I feel it’s not enough, This meagre bit I give, And that this life so cold and rough, …Is not where I should live. I hunger for a different kind Of place than I have been, Not comprehended by the mind, With not a single sin To mar its pure perfection, Detract from all it is, And so in that direction,My feet must follow His. Because this happiness in me Was planted long ago, To shield me from things to be, While I remain below, God cut my earth-bond moorings, And granted I should be Attuned to Heaven’s voices, through …This happiness in me.”

GRACE HANSEN –”A wedding is just like a funeral except that you get to smell your own flowers.”

GRACE HOPPER –”A ship in port is safe, but this is not what ships are built for.”

GRACE LICHTENSTEIN –”Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices, your level of determination.”

GRACE MCGARVIE –”Tradition is an explanation for acting without thinking.”

GRAEME EDWARDS –”It’s not the plan that is important, it’s the planning.”

GRAFFITI –”As a rule a man’s a fool; When it’s hot he wants it cool; When it’s cool he wants it hot. Always wanting what is not.”

GRAFFITI –”It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”

GRAFFITI –”Well, we’ll have one more weekend ‘escape’ when soon, summer season at the North Pole is totally free of ice.”

GRAFFITI AT BROMLEY –”Join the army, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

GRAFFITO –”Man is preceded by forest, followed by desert.”

GRAHAM GREEN –”The world is not black and white. More like black and gray.”

GRAHAM GREEN –”There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and let the future in.”

GRAHAM GREENE –”I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect — it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior.”

GRAHAM LEE –”Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it… It’s the worst darn stuff I’ve ever seen. I like it.”

GRANTLAND RICE –”When the one Great Scorer comes to mite against your name, He marks – you won or lost — – not that but how you played the game.”

GRANVILLE HICKS –”We need to learn to make a distinction between disapproval and censorship.”

GRATTAN –”At 20 years of age the WILL reigns; at 30 the WIT; at 40 the JUDGEMENT; afterwards the proportion of character.”

GREAT LEARNING –”The accumulation of wealth is the way to scatter the people, and the letting it be scattered among them is the way to collect the people.”

GREG CHAPPELL –”The better you think, the better your game will be… After all, cricket is a sport where you’ve got to find solutions for problems…”

GREG NORMAN –”It’s not the victories that count to me. It’s the quality of how you deliver your losses and the quality of how you deliver your victories.”

GREGORY NUNN –”IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY THINK OF YOU, DIE BROKE, AND SEE WHO COMES TO YOUR FUNERAL.”

GRENVILLE KLESER –”Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life.”

GRETA GARBO –”There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans.”

GRO HARLEM –”A cigarette is the only consumer product which when used as directed kills its consumers.”

GROUCH MARX –”Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”

GROUCH MARX –”Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.”

GROUCH MARX -“Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.”

GROUCH MARX –”Growing old is something you do if you’re lucky.”

GROUCH MARX –”Humility is a strange thing. The moment you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it.”

GROUCH MARX –”I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read the newspaper.”

GROUCH MARX –”I have nothing but confidence in you, and very little of that.”

GROUCH MARX –”I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”

GROUCH MARX –”If they’d lower the taxes and get rid of the smog and clean up the traffic mess, I really believe I’d settle here until the next earthquake.”

GROUCH MARX –”If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.”

GROUCH MARX –”Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while…”

GROUCH MARX –”My mother loved children – she would have given anything if I had been one.”

GROUCH MARX –”Only one man in a thousand is a leader of man-the other 999 follow women.”

GROUCH MARX –”Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

GROUCH MARX –”The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

GROUCH MARX –”Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well I have others.”

GROUCH MARX –”What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic? Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog.”

GROUCH MARX –”Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, and I’m going to be happy in it.”

grouchomarx –”I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.”

GU BAILIE –”Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognising the violence for what it was.”

GURUNANAK –”We are human being neither Hindus nor Mussalmans. We are bodies and souls of the Supreme Being; call Him Allah or call Him Ram.”

GUSIAV KRUPP –”We want only loyal workers who are grateful from the bottom of their hearts for the bread which we let them earn.”

GUSTAVO FLAUBERT –”Art has no other end, for people of feeling, than to conjure away the burden and the bitterness.”

GUSTAVO FLAUBERT –”I have demanded much and one very little.”

GUY FAWKES– “A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.”

GW.CURTIS– “While we read history we make history.”

GWYN THOMAS –”Once you have heard of the lark, known the swish of feet through hill-top grass and smelt the earth made ready for the seed, you are never again going to be fully happy about the cities and towns that man carries like a crippling weight upon his back.”

GYPSY BOSE LEE –”Praying is like a rocking chair; it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.”

H JACKSON –”Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.”

H JACKSON BROWN –”Strive for excellence not perfection.”

H L MENCKEN –”A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”

H L MENCKEN –”The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.”

H L MENCKEN –”The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth — that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually Simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.”

H P BLAVATSKY –”Even in our day, science suspects beyond the Polar seas, at the very circle of the Arctic Pole, the existence of a sea which never freezes and a continent winch is ever green.”

H P LOVECRAFT –”The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

H STANLEY JUDD –”A good plan is like a road map: It shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.”

H W BEECHER –”Victories that are easy are cheap. Only those are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting… It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendancy in the world. Do not then be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.”

H W LONGFELLOW –”I shot an arrow into the air,/ It fell to earth, I knew not where;/ For so swiftly it flew the sight/ Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air,/ It fell to earth, I knew not where;/ For, who has sight so keen and strong That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak/1 found the arrow, still unbroke;/ And the song, from beginning to end,/1 found again in the heart of a friend.”

H W LONGFELLOW –”If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

H. H THE DALAI LAMA –”The compassionate mind is like an elixir; it is capable of transforming bad situations into beneficial ones.”

H. MANN –”If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.”

H. STANLEY JUDD –”You may be dead broke and thafs a reality, but in spirit you may be brimmmg over with optimism, joy and energy. The reality of your life may result from many outside factors, none ofwhich you ontrol. Your attitudes, however, reflect the ways in which you evaluate what is happening.”

H..D.THOREAU– “What a hero one can be without moving a finger!”

H.D. THOREAU– “Things do not change, we change.”

H.E. LUCCOCK –”N0 one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.”

h.g.wells –”Adapt or perish, now as ever, is natures inexorable imperative.”

H.G.WELLS –”It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not pay with their own.”

H.G.WELLS –”You have… a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable — but teach him, inoculate him with chess.”

H.JACKSON BROWN– “In trying to get our own way, we should remember that kisses are sweeter than whine.”

H.JACKSON BROWN Jr. –”Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”

H.L. MENCKEN –”Youth, though it may lack knowledge, is certainly not devoid of intelligence; it sees through shams with sharp and terrible eyes.”

H.L.MENCKEN– “Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

H.L.MENCKEN –”It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”

H.L.MENCKEN –”Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.”

H.L.MENCKEN –”No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes she were not.”

H.VAUGHAN –”If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

H.W.BEECHER –”A mother’s heart is a child’s schoolroom.”

HA WILLIAMS –”The joy which a man finds in his work and which transforms the tears and sweat of it into happiness and delight — that joy is God.”

HAITIAN PROVERB –”Beyond the mountains there are mountains again.”

HAKUIN –”If we really and truly understood what our true personal dignity is, we should at once spring to our feet and change our very hearts and minds. We should have compassion on the sick and poor. We should be merciful, honest and patient.”

HAL BORLAND –”Any river is really the summation of the whole valley To think of it as nothing but water is to ignore the greater part.”

HAL BORLAND –”You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”

HAL-9000 –”I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”

HALABELSON –”If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.”

HALFORD LUCCOCK –”An aggressive businessman told his doctor he was stressed with work. “I take my briefcase home every night and it’s packed with work,” he said with nervous inflection. “Cannot someone elsedo it or help you with it?” asked the doctor. “No”, the man snapped, “I am only one who can do it as it must be done, and it has to be done quickly”. The doctor’s prescription was: The patient was to take off two hours every working day and go for a long walk. He was to take off a half-day a week and spend that half-day in a cemetery In astonishment, the patient demanded, “Why should i spend a half-day in a cemetery?” “Because”, answered the doctor, “I want you to wander around and look at the gravestones of men who are there permanently I want you to meditate upon the fact that many of them are there because they thought even as you do, that the whole world rested on their shoulders. Meditate on the solemn fact that when you get there permanently, the world will go on just the same and, important as you are, others will be able to do the same work you are now doing”. The patient slowed his pace. He learned to delegate authority He stopped fuming and fretting. And it might be added, he now does better work.”

HAMARI SCOOTER –”Creative Expression No side mirrors to grieve about the past No rubber tyres to rush for a start No leather seats for kids to tear It’s the iron scooter that is so rare.”

HAMILTON MABIE –”Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

HAMILTON WEBB –”Man’s creation began as turbulence in a cloud of gas in infinite space and proceeded by condensation into a galaxy stars, planets, and finally the seas and continents of the earth… So man is the creature of the cosmos, not of the earth; the earth is only his womb, his chrysalis perhaps.”

HAMMAVADAKA –”Remember always that you are just a visitor here, a traveler passing through. Your stay is but short and the moment of your departure unknown.”

hand to translate. You find you run out of hands sometimes. But we love being up here. It’s beautiful looking back at the Earth. So good luck, DJ.”

HANK AARON –”My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.”

HANNAH ARENDT –”Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead to freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.”

HANNAH ARENDT –”Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”

HANNAH ARENDT –”Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanely possible.”

HANNAH ARENDT –”The fearsome, word and thought-defying banality of evil.”

HANNAH ARENDT– “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the days after the revolution.”

HANNAH ARENDT –”Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings … from within.The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other — until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

HANRIK IBSEN– “A community is like a ship. Everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”

HANS CAROSSA –”Good idea is like mushroom where you find one you often find more.”

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON –”Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

HANS CHRISTIAN ANIETEON –”Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.”

HANS HOFFMAN –”The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of colour…”

HANS HOJFMAN –”The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of colour… this quality of colour should find expression in a work of art.”

HANS MARGOLIUS –”One man all by himself is nothing. Two people who belong together make a world.”

HANS MARGOLIUS –”Only in quite waters do things mirror themselves in distorted. Only in quite mind is adequate perception of the world.”

HANS TAEGAR -“Caring for others is great. Sometimes not caring can also be a kind of care.”

HANS TAEGER –”It may sound paradoxical, but I’m quite sure that hate and ignorance are the father and mother of enlightenment.”

HANS TAEGER –”There is nothing like dead matter or empty space. Every thing is full of light, energy, chug, spirit and intercommunication.”

HANUMAN CHALISA –”0 Hanuman, Ocean of Wisdom. Hail to you 0 Kapisa! (fountainhead Of power, wisdom and ShivaShakti). You illuminate all) the three worlds (entire cosmos) with your glory You are the divine messenger of Sri Ram. The repository of immeasurable strength, though known only as Son of Pavan (Wind god), born of Anjani. With Limbs as sturdy as Vajra, the mace of God Indra, you are valiant and brave. Oh you attends good sense and wisdom. You dispel the darkness of evil thoughts.”

HARDEV SINGH –”If a person has a strong urge for God-realisation, he will find a true master to bless him with God-knowledge.”

HARE, W.A. –”The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the men.”

HARINDRANATH CHATTOPADHYAYA –”Time like a hind in sore distress Travels on solitary ways across a-tangled with nights and days. Dappled and stained with nights and days. I see that hind, a-trembling, run Tracked without respite late and soon By the red bloodhound of the sun, The spotted leopard of the moon.”

HARK TWAIN –”The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.”

HARLAN MILLER –”I wish we could put some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month. “

HARLES DE GAULLE– “Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”

HAROLD JSEYMOUR –”When the leadership is right and the time is right, the people can always be counted upon to follow to the end and at all costs.”

HAROLD MACMILLAN –”I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.”

HAROLD PAUTER– “Cricket is probably the greatest thing god ever invented on earth, certainly better than sex, though sex isn’t to be sneezed at.”

HAROLD PINTER –”I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth.”

HAROLD PINTER –”I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth —certainly greater than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either.”

HAROLD STEVENS –”A worried person sees a problem, a concerned person solves it.”

HAROLD TAYLOR –”The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.”

HAROLD WHITMAN –”Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

HAROLD WILSON –”Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scares to death.”

HAROLD WILSON –”The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

HAROLD WILSON –”We will negotiate not crawl.”

HARPER LEO –”Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE –”The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”

HARRIET MARTINEAU –”Readers are plentiful, thinkers are rare.”

HARRIET ROCHLIN –”Laughter can be more satisfying than honor; more precious than money; more heart-cleansing than prayer.”

HARRIET WOODS –”You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.”

HARROLD HILL –”You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”

HARRY E FOSDICK –”It is cynicism and fear that freeze life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free.”

HARRY FOSDICK –”Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must ‘have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world – making the most of one’s best.”

HARRY GOLDEN –”The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”

HARRY S. TRUMAN– “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

HARVEY GUSHING –”A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man — he must view the man in his world.”

HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKD –”When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady But when the breath is calmed the mind, too, will be still, arid the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, learn to control the breath.”

HAVELOCK ELLIS –”A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.”

HAVELOCK ELLIS –”The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.”

HAVELOCK ELLIS –”The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.”

HAVELOCK ELLIS –”When love is suppressed, Hate takes its place.”

HAVELOCK ELLIS–”The Promised Land always lies on the other side of the wilderness.”

HAZLITT –”Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.”

HAZLITT –”To be happy, m must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us.”

HAZRAT ABU BABAJI –”The way to become a king is through servant hood—when you submit to be a slave of the beloved, you become the beloved.”

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN –”The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love… As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget.”

HAZRAT LNAYAT KHAN –”The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.”

HD THOREAU –”The language of friendship is not words; but meanings.”

HEANFEIT SONG –”Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men’s natural abilities as to restrain them.”

HEATH LEDGER –”I’m not good at future planning. I don’t plan at all. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow I don’t have a day planner and I don’t have a diary I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future.”

HEBREWS –”Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

HEBREWS –”Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

HEBREWS-“Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

HECTOR LOUIS BERLIOZ –”Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”

HEGEL, G.W.F. –”Nation and governments have ever learned anything from history.”

HEIKE MONOGATARI –”The knell of the bells at the Gion temple/ Echoes the impermanence of all things/the colour of the flowers on its double-trunked tree/ Reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. / He who is proud is not so for, a passing dream on a night in spring.”

HEINE –”The Spring’s already at the gate With looks my care beguiling; The country round appeareth straight A flower-garden smiling.”

HEINRICH HEINE –”I called the devil, and he came,/ And with wonder his form did I closely scan;/ He is… really a handsome and charming man./ A man in the prime of life is the devil,/ Obliging, a man of the world, and civil;/ A diplomatist too, well skilled in debate,/ He talks quite glibly of church and state.”

HEINRICH KHUNRATH –”Sacred music causes flight to sadness and to the evil spirits because the spirit of Jehovah sings happily in a heart filled with holy joy.”

HEINZ R PAGELS –”There was emptiness more profound than the void between the stars, for which there was no here and there and before and after, and yet out of that void the entire plenum of existence sprang forth.”

HELEN HAYES –”What is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.”

HELEN HUNT JACKSON– “Words are less needful to sorrow than to joy.”

HELEN KEELER –”Don’t think of today’s failure, but of the success that may come tomorrow.”

HELEN KELLER –”Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

HELEN KELLER –”Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”

HELEN KELLER –”Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

HELEN KELLER –”I can see, and that is why I can be so happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a man-made world.”

HELEN KELLER –”I have often been asked, “Do not people bore you?” I do not understand quite what that means. I suppose the calls of the stupid and curious… are always inopportune. I also dislike people who try to talk down to my understanding. They are like people who, when walking with you, try to shorten their steps to suit yours; the hypocrisy in both cases is equally exasperating.”

HELEN KELLER –”I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest workers.”

HELEN KELLER –”I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”

HELEN KELLER –”Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.”

HELEN KELLER –”Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.”

HELEN KELLER –”Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

HELEN KELLER –”No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

HELEN KELLER –”Security is mostly a superstition… Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

HELEN KELLER –”So much has been given to me; I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.”

HELEN KELLER –”The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched… but are felt in the heart.”

HELEN KELLER –”The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.”

HELEN KELLER –”We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.”

HELEN KELLER –”We could never learn to be brave and patient if there was only joy in the world.”

HELEN KELLER –”When one door closes another opens. But often we look so long, so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.”

HELEN KELLER –”When one door of happiness closes another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

HELEN KELLER –”When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”

HELEN ROWLAND –”Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense.”

HEMACHANDRA –”At any time, in any form and accepted name, if one is shorn of all attachment, that one is You alone. My Lord, You are One although variously appearing.”

HEMAN HESSE– “If you hate a person, you hate some thing in him that is a part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”

HENE DESCARTES –”Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.”

HENIY BEECHER –”Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.”

HENK BEKEDAM –”It is very difficult to monitor the poultry in the backyards.”

HENNY TOUNGMAN –”When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.”

HENNY YOUNGMAN –”I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up- they have no holydays.”

HENRI BERGSON –”To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

HENRI DE MONDEVILLE –”Anyone who believes that anything can be suited to everyone is a great fool, because medicine is practised not on mankind in general, but on every individual in particular.”

HENRI F AMIEL –”The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are the willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbour by his own nature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists, in the ability to see clearly and soberly in the power of mental record.”

HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL –”Kindness is gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us.”

HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL –”Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.”

HENRI MATISSE –” There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

HENRI NOUWEN– “Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.”

HENRI POINCARE –”Thought is only a flash between two long nights but this flash is everything.”

HENRIK IBSEN –”Rob the average man of his life-illusion and you rob him also of his happiness.”

HENRIK IBSEN –”The majority is never right… Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population — the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it’s the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it’s the fools that form the overwhelming majority.”

HENRY A. OVERSTREET –”One of the most important phases of maturing is that of growth from self centering to an understanding of relationship to others. A person is not mature until he has both ability and a willingness to see himself as among others and to do unto those others as he would have them to him.”

HENRY ADAMS –”Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.”

HENRY BEECHER –”Compassion will cure more sin than condemnation.”

HENRY BEECHER –”Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile, some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident, others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.”

HENRY BOYLE –”The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people half-way.”

HENRY C LINK –”While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, another is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.”

HENRY CAHESTER –”Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power and influence.”

HENRY CATE –”The problem with political jokes is they get elected.”

HENRY D THOREAU – ‘I have learned this at last by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”

HENRY D THOREAU – “A man may esteem himself happy when that which is his food is also his medicine.”

HENRY D THOREAU – “Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent.”

HENRY D THOREAU – “To inherit property is not to be born … it is to be still-born, rather.”

HENRY D THOREAU – “What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

HENRY D THOREAU – “Why has every man a conscience, then? It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the low, so much as for the right.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Any fool can make ‘a rule, and any fool will mind it.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”If you built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each… Some men think that they are not well in spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter; it is only because they are not well in them.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Man have become the tool of their tools.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Men are probably nearer the central truth in their superstitions than in their science.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives since they have not discovered any continuous employment for man’s nobler faculties.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”None are as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviate from their graves …You may melt your I metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”There is no odour so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”When it is time to die, let us not discover that we never lived.”

HENRY D THOREAU –”You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. ”

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Civil war in the Vatican as conservatives battle Francis for the soul of Catholicism

As the pope leaves Rome for a retreat to mark Lent, rebellion and turmoil are in the air

When Pope Francis was elected nearly four years ago, on 13 March 2013, he was escorted like every pope before him from the Sistine Chapel to the Room of Tears. It is the place where a new pope pauses for a moment and no doubt many of them do shed a few tears, thinking of the momentous responsibility upon their shoulders before stepping out on to the balcony of St Peters to greet the world as the new leader of the Roman Catholic church.

When Francis, known until then as Jorge Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, first appeared that night, he appeared remarkably sanguine, joking that the cardinals had gone to the ends of the Earth to choose the next pope. If hed had any inkling of what these last four years would be like, he would surely have wept in that Room of Tears.

While hugely popular across the globe with Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Francis has struggled against fierce opposition from the Vatican establishment to haul the Roman Catholic church into the 21st century, fought to reform its government, tried to persuade cardinals to revise their thinking on the divorced and remarried, and been openly opposed by rebel prelates.

Last week marked the start of Lent, one of the most important periods of the churchs calendar, a time when Catholics fast, give alms and reflect on humanitys sinfulness in the run-up to their commemoration of the crucifixion and of Easter. It is usually marked by quiet prayerfulness, and on Sunday the pope, along with members of the Roman Curia, will leave Rome to begin a five-day retreat. He will leave a Vatican beset by tension, turmoil and rebellion. There are even rumours that growing numbers of Vatican hands think he should quit.

On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, came a big blow, in effect caused by the popes enemies: Marie Collins, the last abuse survivor on his commission into child abuse in the church, quit, frustrated at the lack of progress and what she calls shameful lack of cooperation from the officials most concerned with cases of abuse, highlighting the intransigence of the Roman Curia, or governing body, in the Vatican the body Pope Francis wants to reform.

With Collins gone from the Commission for the Protection of Minors, set up by the pope to investigate the worldwide scandal of sexual abuse by priests and religious brothers, and the other victim representative, the Briton Peter Saunders, on indefinite leave of absence, the commission has lost a certain integrity.

When she stepped down, Collins complained that the commission had been starved of resources, progress was slow and there was cultural resistance to its work in the Vatican.

The commissions recommendation that there should be a tribunal set up to deal with bishops who had been negligent over abuse has been impeded by Roman Curia officials despite the pope himself approving it. There is an area of the Curia that has not moved into the 21st century, said Collins. It is very resistant to working with the commission. There are people who still want to cover up.

Pope Francis leads the Ash Wednesday procession and mass at Santa Sabina church in Rome. Photograph: Alessandra Benedetti/Getty Images

The opposition Pope Francis is facing puts the church into uncharted territory. Massimo Faggioli, a leading theologian and Vatican-watcher, said: The Vatican status quo is behind this. It is a cultural and political opposition that was already visible a few weeks after Pope Franciss election. They are against changing the style and position of the church from a western one to a global religion.

In Franciss early days as pope, Vatican whispers focused on the financial reforms he wanted to make. Pope Benedict had resigned after a series of revelations, known as Vatileaks, which exposed financial malpractice in the Vatican, and Francis sought to end it.

But the most vocal opposition to the pope has developed over his desire for debate about marriage and divorce, gay people and the family.

After two synods on the issues in 2014 and 2015, Pope Francis produced the document Amoris Laetitia, in which in effect he told the churchs bishops to make local decisions about the divorced and remarried and their receiving of communion.

Traditional church teaching says that a Catholic who remarries after divorce can receive communion only if the church has also annulled his or her first marriage. Some bishops have seen Amoris Laetitia as a direction to compassionately welcome people without annulments to receive the eucharist.

That has outraged conservatives. A letter to Pope Francis from four cardinals hostile to change was made public. The communication took the form known as a dubia, expressing doubts, demanding yes and no answers and in effect challenging the popes authority by asking him to make points of church teaching clear on this issue and Christian life.

The four accusers included three retired cardinals, plus Cardinal Raymond Burke, an arch-conservative American canon lawyer who has gone as far as threatening to issue a correction to Pope Francis over Amoris Laetitia. Burke has been a thorn in the popes side for some time.

He was given a powerful judicial role in Rome by Benedict XVI, from which Pope Francis moved him. Last year Burke and other conservatives were ousted from the Vatican department that oversees worship. Then, earlier this year, during a row between the pope and the ancient Knights of Malta which led to the departure of the orders British leader, Matthew Festing, Cardinal Burke was sidelined in his role as envoy to the order. Within days anti-Francis posters appeared on the streets of Rome; so has fake news by way of spoof Vatican newspaper pages mocking him.

The rows are not just about personality clashes, or even divorce and communion. It goes much deeper than that. This is about the future of the church. If previous popes had enacted the wishes of the modernising Second Vatican Council, held 50 years ago, the domination of the wider church by the Vatican would have already diminished.

Now Francis is trying to move at least some decisions out to the bishops and local churches across the globe, by allowing priests and bishops to make the decisions about allowing divorcees communion. That, for the traditionalists, is the thin end of the wedge.

Christopher Lamb, Rome correspondent of the Catholic weekly the Tablet, said: The fundamental shift that Pope Francis is trying to make is for the church to be more pastoral. The Roman Curia should be serving the church universally, but Marie Collins in her resignation has exposed what is going on: a department has not even been willing to answer letters from abuse victims.

According to Tina Beattie, a British feminist theologian who organised fringe events in Rome before the 2015 synod to get womens voices heard, Pope Francis has a blind spot about women and hasnt listened enough to them, but she admires him for attempting to have some dialogue.

I dont want to say that the pope is defeated by the critics, but this is making him vulnerable. What they are doing is almost schismatic, she said.

On Sundaymorning in Rome, the pope will no doubt mark the first Sunday in Lent with a call to repent. But his critics are hardly in penitent mood; they want him to resign. There are rumours that even some of those who voted for Francis now have doubts.

It is true that some cardinals may regret their vote for him in the conclave, but I do not think they hope that he resigns, said Faggioli. They know it would be very hard to find a popular pope like him.

FLASHPOINTS: HOW CONSERVATIVES HAVE BEEN UPSET

Homosexuality

On the way home from his first trip abroad to Rio de Janeiro in July 2013, Francis told journalists that he did not have a problem with an inclination to homosexuality. Who am I to judge if theyre seeking the Lord in good faith? he said.

Communion for divorced and remarriedpeople

In April 2016 the pope issued his apostolic exhortation in response to the two synods of 2014 and 2015 on marriage and the family. Footnote 351 indicated it might be possible for the divorced and remarried to receive communion and moved decisions on this to local bishops and priests. Communion is not a prize for the perfect, he said. Six months later, four of his fiercest critics, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, issued a dubia, a document challenging Francis over his thinking on communion.

Cleaning up the Curia

After being elected on a reform mandate by the College of Cardinals in March 2013, Francis immediately started his reform of the Roman Curia, the churchs bureaucracy, with efforts to clean up finances and streamline departments. In December 2016, Francis accused the leaders of the Curia of malicious and hidden resistance to reform, a resistance that was a sport that sprouts in disturbed minds.

Child protection and the sex abuse scandal

Pope Francis created a Commission for the Protection of Minors, under his close ally, Cardinal Sen OMalley of Boston. In June 2015 the commission proposed a tribunal that would hold bishops to account for failing to deal with reported cases of child sex abuse. Francis gave it his backing, but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found it had unspecified legal problems. The commission has stalled ever since.

Luther had a point

Francis went to Sweden in October 2016 to mark the quincentenary of the Reformation. During a service in Lund Cathedral he praised Martin Luther for restoring the centrality of scripture. There was corruption in the church, worldiness, attachment to money and power, he said. Some conservatives were unimpressed by this display of ecumenism.