For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.
Geoffrey ChaucerRead
Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.
Interpretation
To engage in prayer, one must also purify oneself both spiritually and physically.
Geoffrey Chaucerβs quote suggests that prayer requires discipline and a certain degree of self-control. It emphasizes the importance of not only seeking spiritual connection through prayer but also preparing oneself by fasting and nurturing one's physical body. This demonstrates the holistic approach to spirituality that intertwines the physical, mental, and spiritual realms.
In practice
In a sermon emphasizing the importance of self-discipline, a pastor might reference this quote.
For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.
For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so Then people long on pilgrimage to go And palmers to be seeking foreign strands To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands.
If gold rusts, what then can iron do?
Thus with hir fader for a certeyn space_x000D_ _x000D_ Dwelleth this flour of wyfly pacience,_x000D_ _x000D_ That neither by hir wordes ne hir face_x000D_ _x000D_ Biforn the folk, ne eek in her absence,_x000D_ _x000D_ Ne shewed she that hir was doon offence.
Ther nis no werkman, whatsoevere he be, That may bothe werke wel and hastily.
For oute of olde feldys, as men sey,_x000D_ _x000D_ Comyth al this newe corn from yer to yere;_x000D_ _x000D_ And out of olde bokis, in good fey,_x000D_ _x000D_ Comyth al this newe science that men lere.
It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
If that glad message of your Bible were written in your faces, you would not need to demand belief in the authority of that book in such stiff-necked fashion.
All knowledge resolves itself into probability. ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv'd from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv'd from the nature of the understanding.
On their deathbed men will speak true, they say.
That day, I really believed that I had grasped something and that henceforth my life would be changed. But insights cannot be held for ever. Like water, the world ripples across you and for a while you take on its colours. Then it recedes, and leaves you face to face with the void you carry inside yourself, confronting that central inadequacy of soul which you must learn to rub shoulders with and to combat, and which, paradoxically, may be our surest impetus.
It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we're not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.
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