Quotes on This World

As we become purer channels for God's light, we develop an appetite for the sweetness that is possible in this world. A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be.

Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!

The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.

I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words

Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.

In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.

The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.

Everybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished.

In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.

Now do I begin to be a disciple of Christ, and care for nothing in this world, that so I may find Jesus. Let fire, or the cross, or wild beasts, or the breaking of my bones, or the cutting of me to pieces, or the shattering of my whole body, yea, all the tortures of the devil - let them all come upon me, only let me enjoy my God.

In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself.

In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.

You're mistaken, Father. You were in paradise, but you didn't recognize it. It's the same with most people in this world; they seek suffering in the most joyous of places because they think they are unworthy of happiness.

I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. Yes, I'm a writer, but I live in this world, and my writing doesn't exist on a separate level. And if people know who I am and read my books, well, good; that way, if I have something more to say, then everyone benefits.

No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it--to remain children of light.

There are some people in this world that believe being gay is a choice. It's not a choice, we're born this way.

We had entered an era of limitlessness, or the illusion thereof, and this in itself is a sort of wonder. My grandfather lived a life of limits, both suffered and strictly observed, in a world of limits. I learned much of that world from him and others, and then I changed; I entered the world of labor-saving machines and of limitless cheap fossil fuel. It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable.