
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book
Pearls of Wisdom
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book
“You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now.”
John Rivers in The Genius and the Goddess (1955)
Context: You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it's hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to every other moment.
“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book
“The spirit of Christ is a missionary spirit.”
The Great Controversy (1864; 1911) Ch. 4 http://www.egwtext.whiteestate.org/gc/gc4.html, p. 70
Conflict of the Ages series
“The Spirit of Liberty” - speech at “I Am an American Day” ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944).
Extra-judicial writings
Context: What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it… What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few — as we have learned to our sorrow.
What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.
The Quintessence of Nehru (1961) edited by K. T. Narasimhachar, p. 120
“Heal the Wound, Cure the illness, but let the Dying spirit go”
Source: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 5