Quotes on Ifs

Imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a matter of course, these few unremarkable things: What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost.

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

I would not admire hitting against Ryne Duren, because if he ever hit you in the head you might be in the past tense.

If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow it in morals or politics?

If there were a science of human beings it would be anthropology that aims at understanding the totality of experience through structural context.

If you want to know what you look like, look into a mirror. If you want to know how you think, you should write

If governments would only understand that if people are left alone they'll work out their own salvation.

When you are frightened by something, you have to relate with fear, explore why you are frightened, and develop some sense of conviction. You can actually look at fear. Then fear ceases to be the dominant situation that is going to defeat you. Fear can be conquered. You can be free from fear if you realize that fear is not the ogre. You can step on fear, and therefore, you can attain what is known as fearlessness. But that requires that, when you see fear, you smile.

If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.

No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace.

If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.

Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it. We would have been failures if had to do the same things we did.

Genuine feelings are never the product of conscious effort. They are quite simply there, and they are there for a very good reason, even if that reason is not always apparent.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.

Examine your own hearts. Do you see there any habit or custom which you know is wrong in the sight of God? If you do, don't delay for a moment in attacking it. Resolve at once to lay it aside. Nothing darkens the eyes of the mind so much, and deadens the conscience so surely, as an allowed sin. It may be a little one, but it is not any less dangerous.

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys, - these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily, - these are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart.

Leave Christ out? O my brethren, better leave the pulpit out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ’s name in it, it ought to be his last, certainly the last that any Christian ought to go to hear him preach.

I take it that the highest proof of Christ's power is not that He offers salvation, not that He bids you take it if you will, but that when you reject it, when you hate it, when you despise it, He has a power whereby he can change your mind, make you think differently from your former thoughts, and turn you from the error of your ways.

I remember, when I have preached at different times in the country, and sometimes here, that my whole soul has agonized over men, every nerve of my body has been strained and I could have wept my very being out of my eyes and carried my whole frame away in a flood of tears, if I could but win souls