“Now just as the historical gives occasion for the contemporary to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself, since otherwise we speak Socratically, so the testimony of contemporaries gives occasion for each successor to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself.”

“Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory. Before the disciples must descend with Jesus into the abyss of human guilt, malice, and hatred, Jesus leads them to a high mountain from which they are to receive help. Before Jesus' face is beaten and spat upon, before his cloak is torn and splattered with blood, the disciples are to see Him in his divine glory. His face shines like the face of God and light is the garment he wears.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

“So everyone, through Christ and with Him and in Him, must fulfil the Old Testament in himself. Only then have we passed from the kingdom of the shadows of the Old Testament into the kingdom of the light of the Gospel, from the letter of the service of God to the spirit of Divine sonship, from Judaism to Christianity…”

Michael von Faulhaber (1869–1952) German Roman Catholic Cardinal

“And this divine light is granted in the simple being of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness –which is God Himself- above all gifts and above all creaturely activity, in the empty void of the spirit in which it has lost itself through enjoyable love and receives the brightness of God without intermediary. And without cease, it becomes the very brightness which it receives.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

“Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God's heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

“No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offense.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude…. The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

“Thoughts are given us, not only to chew over for ourselves, but to communicate to others. And if we can find a man that is ready to receive them, and a suitable occasion, there is nothing more pleasurable than giving them.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

“What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!—To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

“In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi