When you speak of heaven, let your face light up...When you speak of hell well then, your everyday face will do.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of positivity when discussing uplifting topics, while suggesting negativity might not require extra effort.
Charles Spurgeon's quote speaks to the human inclination to express joy and light when discussing positive concepts such as heaven, in contrast to the more subdued and automatic expression that arises when discussing negative concepts like hell. It suggests that our demeanor reflects our thoughts and feelings, and that we should strive to show the brightness of our spirits when we discuss uplifting subjects, as this can inspire others and promote hope.
In practice
In a motivational speech about positivity and hope.
Amusement should be used to do us good βlike a medicineβ: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
All of childhood's unanswered questions must finally be passed back to the town and answered there. Heroes and bogey men, values and dislikes, are first encountered and labeled in that early environment. In later years they change faces, places and maybe races, tactics, intensities and goals, but beneath those penetrable masks they wear forever the stocking-capped faces of childhood.
I think perfect objectivity is an unrealistic goal; fairness, however, is not
Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen. We must know. We will know. Inscribed on his tomb in Gilttingen.
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"β here I opened wide the door; β Darkness there, and nothing more.
If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one.
Such is the condition of life that something is always wanting to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion.
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