In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.
Interpretation
Our ultimate judgment in life will center on how well we loved others, reflecting our moral character.
This quote by Madeleine L'Engle emphasizes the importance of love in the human experience. As we approach the end of our lives, the measure of our worth will not be based on material achievements or success, but rather on the love we shared and received. L'Engle expresses a profound sense of humility and the need for grace, suggesting that none of us will be judged favorably without the assurance of divine love and forgiveness.
In practice
In a speech about compassion and humanity, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of love.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
Pundits are always blaming TV for making people stupid, movies for desensitizing the world to violence, and rock music for making kids take drugs and kill themselves. These things should be the least of our worries. The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love with any acumen of normalcy. There is no 'normal,' because everybody is being twisted by the same sources simultaneously.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
To some degree, we're all thinking about the same things. It's the zeitgeist. The trick, in a way, as a writer, is to hope that your interests in some sense link up with the culture around you.
To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.
Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
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