The Quote Thread.

[giants73756]

"Every time you take an antibiotic, science has just saved one more life than religion ever has."

from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6P8_VKG31A

[jokerthief]

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." Ezekiel 23:20

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...20&version=NIV

[Pooter]

So we're going to the quoting bible passages route are we?

[stueycal]

Considering we should be citing the original author or speaker of the quote, it's pretty obvious that the bible is out of the question. A bum dumm chhhh.

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”

- Ayn Rand

[Splendour]

Rand in her early notes for The Fountainhead:

"One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!"

One of Rand's heroes: William Edward Hickman, a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.

[Splendour]

Rand on Hickman: "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal..."

Worse sins than Hickman?

Rand thought Hickman was a "Superman".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman

[Splendour]

“But there are not a few who would be indignant at having their belief in God questioned, who yet seem greatly to fear imagining Him better than He is.” George MacDonald

[Splendour]

“Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.” Louis L'Amour

“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves...self-discipline with all of them came first.” Harry S. Truman

“Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the Attack.” Sun Tzu

“Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.” Arthur Ashe

"If you think you can win, you can. Faith is necessary to victory.” William Hazlitt

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always." - the great Universalist Mahatma Gandhi

[MatteoBounce]

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die and you to live. Which is the better, only God knows. -Socrates

[jokerthief]

"Faith is not belief but dedication to serving the highest goal you know." --Henry Wieman

[NotReady]

C.S. Lewis

The Seeing Eye

If there were an idiot who thought plays existed on their own, without an author ..., our belief in Shakespeare would not be much affected by his saying, quite truly, that he had studied all the plays and never found Shakespeare in them.

[Splendour]

"In NOTHING be anxious."

In Matt. 6:25-34, our Lord illustrates this being without anxiety, by telling us to behold the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, as examples of the sort of life He would have us live. As the birds rejoice in the care of their God and are fed, and as the lilies grow in His sunlight, so must we, without anxiety, and without fear. Let the sparrows speak to us: --

"I am only tiny sparrow,
A bird of low degree;
My life is of little value,
But the dear Lord cares for me.
I have no barn nor storehouse,

I neither sow nor reap;
God gives me a sparrow's portion,
But never a seed to keep.
"I know there are many sparrows;

All over the world they are found;
But our heavenly Father knoweth
When one of us falls to the ground.
"Though small, we are never forgotten;

Though weak, we are never afraid;
For we know the dear Lord keepeth
The life of the creatures he made.
"I fly through the thickest forest,

I light on many a spray;
I have no chart nor compass,
But I never lose my way.
And I fold my wing at twilight

Wherever I happen to be;
For the Father is always watching,
And no harm will come to me.
I am only a little sparrow,

A bird of low degree,
But I know the Father loves me;
Have you less faith than we?"

Hannah Whithall Smith, chapter 3 of her Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

Preface to her book:

"This is not a theological book. I frankly confess I have not been trained in theological schools, and do not understand their methods nor their terms. But the Lord has taught me experimentally and practically certain lessons out of his Word, which have greatly helped me in my Christian life, and have made it a very happy one. And I want to tell my secret, in the best way I can, in order that some others may be helped into a happy life also.

I do not seek to change the theological views of a single individual. I dare say most of my readers know far more about theology than I do myself, and perhaps may discover abundance of what will seem to be theological mistakes. But let me ask that these may be overlooked, and that my reader will try, instead, to get at the experimental point of that which I have tried to say, and if that is practical and helpful, forgive the blundering way in which it is expressed. I have tried to reach the absolute truth which lies at the foundation of all "creeds" and "views," and to bring the soul into those personal relations with God which must exist alike in every form of religion, let the expression of them differ as they may.

I have committed my book to the Lord, and have asked Him to counteract all in it that is wrong, and to let only that which is true find entrance into any heart. It is sent out in tender sympathy and yearning love for all the struggling, weary ones in the Church of Christ, and its message goes right from my heart to theirs. I have given the best I have, and could do no more. May the blessed Holy Spirit use it to teach some of my readers the true secret of a happy life!"

HANNAH WHITALL SMITH, GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA.

http://www.ccel.org/s/smith_hw/secret/secret.htm

[jokerthief]

"We should conceive of God not as an object but as a direction." --Huston Smith

[NotReady]

Paley - Natural Theology

The watch is found, in the course of its movement, to produce another watch, similar to itself; and not only so, but we perceive in it a system or organization, separately calculated for that purpose. What effect would this discovery have, or ought it to have, upon our former inference? What, as hath already been said, but to increase, beyond measure, our admiration of the skill, which had been employed in the formation of such a machine? Or shall it, instead of this, all at once turn us round to an opposite conclusion, viz. that no art or skill whatever has been concerned in the business, although all other evidences of art and skill remain as they were, and this last and supreme piece of art be now added to the rest? Can this be maintained without absurdity? Yet this is atheism.

[jokerthief]

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds>" --Ralph Waldo Emerson