Quotes
Quotes about Quest
We are frequently advised to read the Bible with our own personal needs in mind, and to look for answers to our own private questions. That is good, as far as it goes... But better still is the advice to study the Bible objectively, ... without regard, first of all, to our own subjective needs. Let the great passages fix themselves in our memory. Let them stay there permanently, like bright beacons, launching their powerful shafts of light upon life's problemsâour own and everyone'sâas they illumine, now one, now another dark area of human life. Following such a method, we discover that the Bible does "speak to our condition" and meet our needs, not just occasionally or when some emergency arises, but continually.
Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397 In short: in all his ways and walks, whether as touching his own business, or his dealings with other men, he must keep his heart with all diligence, lest he do aught, or turn aside to aught, or suffer aught to spring up or dwell within him or about him, or let anything be done in him or through him, otherwise than were meet for God, and would be possible and seemly if God Himself were verily made Man. ... Theologia Germanica November 12, 1997 The Partisan Review, a journal of literary opinion representing a section of advanced secular thought, recently published a series of papers answering the question, "Why has there been a turn toward religion among intellectuals?" The asking of the question is significant. Few writers dispute the fact implied by it. Most of the contributors, whether they count themselves among those who have "turned to religion" or not, find the principal reason for it in the collapse of the optimistic hope that modern science and human good will would bring the world into an era of peace and justice. The confidence in that outcome has been so violently shaken that men must ask whether there are not higher resources than man's to sustain courage and hope. The faith of the Bible points to such sources. God works within the tragic destiny of human efforts with a healing power, and a reconciling spirit. Even those who have felt completely superior to all "outworn" religious notions, must look today at least wistfully to the possibility that such a God lives and works.
The great question for us now is, Do we believe in that love of God which Christ taught by His words, and of which His followers saw in His voluntary death a crowning manifestation? And remember that even belief in the love of God will do us no good unless it awakes answering love in ourselvesâunless it adds to our hatred of the sin which separates us from God and increases our love of other men.
Feast of Thomas the Apostle I know what it is to doubt and question. And I suspect that every Christian who takes the time to think seriously about his faith, does so too.
We know with our heads that the Bible and the Gospel have a bearingâsooner or laterâupon every issue in life, every problem, every relationship, every practice. But is it not true that in our hearts we are afraid that the full-orbed, unfiltered revelation of God will disturb some custom, some privilege, some status by which we benefit in society, occupation, or government? And knowing that we are profiting by the blood, sweat, and tears of the many, we feel wrath rising in us whenever it is proposed that religion touches the thing in question.
Before I can have any joy in being alone with God I must have learned not to fear being alone with myself. Shrinking from any deep self-scrutiny is by no means an uncommon thing, and often goes far to explain the feverish restlessness with which a world-loving heart plunges into perpetual rounds of gaieties and dissipations; they serve as an escape from troublesome questions about the soul, and help to get rid of the clamours of conscience.
Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397 When no tensions are confronted and overcome, because insiders or outsiders of a certain class or group meet happily among themselves, then the one new thing, peace, and the one new man created by Christ, are missing; then no faith, no church, no Christ, is found or confessed. For if the attribute "Christian" can be given sense from Eph. 2, then it means reconciled and reconciling, triumphant over walls and removing the debris, showing solidarity with the "enemy" and promoting not one's own peace of mind but "our peace"... When this peace is deprived of its social, national, or economic dimensions, when it is distorted or emasculated so much that only "peace of mind" enjoyed by saintly individuals is leftâthen Jesus Christ is being flatly denied. To propose, in the name of Christianity, neutrality or unconcern on questions of international, racial, or economic peaceâthis amounts to using Christ's name in vain.
I cannot answer all the curious questions of the brain concerning prayer and law, not half of them, indeed, and I will not attempt to; but I will cast my anchor here in this revealing fact, that He, the Holiest of the Holy and the Wisest of the Wise, He prays. Therefore I am assured that this anchorage of Divine example will hold the vessel in the tossings of the wildest sea of doubt, and I shall be as safe as He was, if the vessel itself is engulfed in the waves of suffering and sorrow. His act is an argument. His prayer is an inspiration. His achievements are the everlasting and all-sufficient vindication of prayer.
The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion. [Ger., Die Kirch' allein, meine lieben Frauen, Kann ungerechtes Gut verdauen.]
It is not that we don't know the right answers, it is just that we don't ask the right questions.
Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Everywhere children are schooled to become masters at answering questions and to remain novices at asking them.
A college professor asked his class a question. If Philadelphia is 100 miles from New York and Chicago is 1000 miles from Philadelphia and Los Angles is 2000 miles from Chicago, how old am I.One student in the back of the class raised his hand and when called upon said "Professor your 44.." The Professor said "you're absolutely correct, but tell me how did you arrive at the answer so quickly?" The student said. "You see professor I have a brother, he's 22 and he's half nuts.".
If you start a conversation with the assumption that you are right or that you must win, obviously it is difficult to talk. He is author of the Citizenship Papers and answered questions at a Washington DC book store.
If it be honor in your wars to seem The same you are not,--which, for your best ends, You adopt your policy--how is it less or worse, That it shall hold companionship in peace With honour, as in war: since that to both It stands in like request?
Learning how to access a continuity of common sense can be one of your most efficient accomplishments in this decade. Can you imagine "common sense" surpassing science and technology in the quest to unravel the human stress mess? In time, society will have a new measure for confirming truth. It's inside the people-not at the mercy of current scientific methodology. Let scientists facilitate discovery, but not invent your inner truth. -Doc Childre.
The secret of science is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world.
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. - The Quest for Certainty.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
Always the more beautiful answer who asks the more beautiful question.
A timid question will always receive a confident answer.
Some self-confronting questions: "Where do I want to be at any given time?" "How am I going to get there? "What do I have to do to get myself from where I am to where I want to be?"... "What's the first, small step I can take to get moving?".
A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend? Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end?
In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
