“It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.”
"The Roads We Take"
Whirligigs (1910)
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O. Henry 49
American short story writer 1862–1910Related quotes

Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come (1971)

As quoted at the Christopher Reeve Foundation http://www.christopherreeve.org/site/c.geIMLPOpGjF/b.1097025/k.6FF5/Christopher_and_Dana_Reeve.htm, also in Encyclopedia of Stem Cell Research (2008) by Clive N. Svendsen and Allison D. Ebert, Vol. 1, p. 104

Source: The Ascent to Truth (1951), Ch. X : Reason in the Life of Contemplation, p. 114.
Context: One might compare the journey of the soul to mystical union, by way of pure faith, to the journey of a car on a dark highway. The only way the driver can keep to the road is by using his headlights. So in the mystical life, reason has its function. The way of faith is necessarily obscure. We drive by night. Nevertheless our reason penetrates the darkness enough to show us a little of the road ahead. It is by the light of reason that we interpret the signposts and make out the landmarks along our way.
Those who misunderstand Saint John of the Cross imagine that the way of nada is like driving by night, without any headlights whatever. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of the saint's doctrine.
Section 1.10 <!-- p. 32 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.
We can give a child a self-image. But is this a good idea? Hitler did a devastating job at that kind of thing. So does Chairman Mao. … I haven't defined a self, nor do I want to. A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

Letters of C. S. Lewis (29 April 1959), para. 1, p. 285 — as reported in The Quotable Lewis (1989), p. 469