“What more felicitie can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with libertie,
And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,
To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,
To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.”

Muiopotmos: or, The Fate of the Butterflie, line 209; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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Edmund Spenser 53
English poet 1552–1599

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“The highest angel has nothing of its own that it can offer unto God, no more light, love, purity, perfection, and glorious hallelujahs, that spring from itself, or its own powers, than the poorest creature upon earth.”

William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer

¶ 8 - 9.
An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1761)
Context: God could not make the creature to be great and glorious in itself; this is as impossible, as for God to create beings into a state of independence on himself. "The heavens," saith David, "declare the glory of God"; and no creature, any more than the heavens, can declare any other glory but that of God. And as well might it be said, that the firmament shows forth its own handiwork, as that a holy divine or heavenly creature shows forth its own natural power.
But now, if all that is divine, great, glorious, and happy, in the spirits, tempers, operations, and enjoyments of the creature, is only so much of the greatness, glory, majesty, and blessedness of God, dwelling in it, and giving forth various births of his own triune life, light, and love, in and through the manifold forms and capacities of the creature to receive them, then we may infallibly see the true ground and nature of all true religion, and when and how we may be said to fulfill all our religious duty to God. For the creature's true religion, is its rendering to God all that is God's, it is its true continual acknowledging all that which it is, and has, and enjoys, in and from God. This is the one true religion of all intelligent creatures, whether in heaven, or on earth; for as they all have but one and the same relation to God, so though ever so different in their several births, states or offices, they all have but one and the same true religion, or right behavior towards God. Now the one relation, which is the ground of all true religion, and is one and the same between God and all intelligent creatures, is this, it is a total unalterable dependence upon God, an immediate continual receiving of every kind, and degree of goodness, blessing and happiness, that ever was, or can be found in them, from God alone. The highest angel has nothing of its own that it can offer unto God, no more light, love, purity, perfection, and glorious hallelujahs, that spring from itself, or its own powers, than the poorest creature upon earth. Could the angel see a spark of wisdom, goodness, or excellence, as coming from, or belonging to itself, its place in heaven would be lost, as sure as Lucifer lost his. But they are ever abiding flames of pure love, always ascending up to and uniting with God, for this reason, because the wisdom, the power, the glory, the majesty, the love, and goodness of God alone, is all that they see, and feel, and know, either within or without themselves. Songs of praise to their heavenly Father are their ravishing delight, because they see, and know, and feel, that it is the breath and Spirit of their heavenly Father that sings and rejoices in them. Their adoration in spirit and in truth never ceases, because they never cease to acknowledge the ALL of God; the ALL of God in the whole creation. This is the one religion of heaven, and nothing else is the truth of religion on earth.

Frances Hodgson Burnett photo
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“Persons without minds are like weeds that delight in good earth; they want to be amused by others, all the more because they are dull within.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Les gens sans esprit ressemblent aux mauvaises herbes qui se plaisent dans les bons terrains, et ils aiment d'autant plus être amusés qu'ils s'ennuient eux-mêmes.
Source: The Vicar of Tours (1832), Ch. I.

John Ogilby photo

“They say the Deity
Is mix'd through Earth, the Sea, and lofty Skie.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Georgicks

Finley Peter Dunne photo

“A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks th' Lord wud do if He knew th' facts iv th' case.”

Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) author

Casual Observations http://books.google.com/books?id=rTUPAAAAYAAJ&q="A+fanatic+is+a+man+that+does+what+he+thinks+th'+Lord+wud+do+if+He+knew+th'+facts+iv+th'+case"&pg=PA258#v=onepage, Mr. Dooley's Philosophy (1900)

Homér photo

“Among all creatures that breathe on earth and crawl on it
there is not anywhere a thing more dismal than man is.”

XVII. 446–447 (tr. R. Lattimore); Zeus.
Robert Fagles's translation:
: There is nothing alive more agonized than man
of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

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Susan Cooper photo
John Muir photo

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge. From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens.”

From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals. … This star, our own good earth, made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation's plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever.
Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 6: Cedar Keys, pages 160-161

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