NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
For Christ plays in ten thousand places,/ Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/ To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the beauty of God's presence in the world, seen through the eyes and features of humanity.
Gerard Manley Hopkins' quote expresses the idea that divine beauty and grace can be found in the human experience, as Christ is perceived in the myriad forms and expressions of people. It suggests that the spiritual can be deeply intertwined with the physical, allowing us to see the divine reflected in the world around us, especially in our interactions with others.
Themes
BeautyDivinityHumanityChristNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon about seeing the divine in everyday life, one could use this quote to emphasize the presence of God in humanity.
More from Gerard Manley Hopkins
All quotes →And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! Oh look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
Birds buildbut not I build; no, but strain, Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine,O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
Nothing is so beautiful as spring - when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
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