Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul.
Nicolas MalebrancheRead
You will not dishonor the divine perfections by judgments unworthy of them, provided you never judge of Him by yourself, provided you do not ascribe to the Creator the imperfections and limitations of created beings.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that one should not judge the divine based on human imperfections and limitations.
In this quote, Nicolas Malebranche emphasizes the importance of perceiving divine perfection without projecting human flaws onto it. He warns against evaluating the Creator through the lens of human experiences and shortcomings, promoting an understanding that the divine operates beyond human comprehension and limitation.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of God and human perception, this quote can highlight the distinction between human and divine qualities.
Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul.
Our soul is not united to our body in the ordinary sense of these terms. It is immediately and directly united to God alone.
As our bodies live upon the earth and find sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains.
Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to create.
I'm hunting for the truth. It might be a kind of poetic truth, and not just a factual one, because behind everything that happens to you, there is another truth, a secret life.
You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live. … You are captives—and you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?—your captivity and the captivity of the world.
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.
I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, But now 't is little joy To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.
One thousand brilliant stars punched holes in my consciousness, pricking me with longing. I could stare at the stars for hours, their infinite number and depth pulling me into a part of myself that I ignored during the day.
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