“No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.”
Second Day, Novel XIX (trans. W. K. Kelly)
Variant translation by Samuel Putnam in Marguerite of Navarre (1935), p. 53:
Never shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world.
L'Heptaméron (1558)
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Marguerite de Navarre14
Queen consort of Navarre 1492–1549Related quotes
“Perfect love is perfectly patient.”
Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader
Source: All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience
“The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist
Chapter X, Part I http://books.google.com/books?id=QItKAAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+world+neither+ever+saw+nor+ever+will+see+a+perfectly+fair+lottery%22&pg=PA76#v=onepage. <br class="br">(1776), Book I
Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist
Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 42
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
Stanza xvii.
One Word More (1855)
John James Audubon (1785–1851) American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter
Source: The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist (1868), Ch. X, p. 139
Context: Captain Hall expressed some doubts as to my views respecting the affection and love of pigeons, as if I made it human, and raised the possessors quite above the brutes. I presume the love of the mothers for their young is much the same as the love of woman for her offspring. There is but one kind of love; God is love, and all his creatures derive theirs from his; only it is modified by the different degrees of intelligence in different beings and creatures.
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author
Variant: The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.
Source: The Way of Chuang Tzu
Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 130.