
Original: (fr) ...je puis goûter une œuvre, mais il m'est difficile de la juger indépendamment de la connaissance de l'homme même, et je dirais volontiers: tel arbre, tel fruit.
Letter 65:26. To Hildebrand, "archdeacon and immobile pillar of the Apostolic See," Dec. 1059. Op. Cit., p. 39. http://books.google.com/books?id=9smLdu9BvK0C&pg=PA39&dq=%22if+I+have+erred+in+anything,+I+gladly+come+before+the+teaching+authority%22&hl=en&ei=soXDTKrlNoGB8gbTqujZBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22if%20I%20have%20erred%20in%20anything%2C%20I%20gladly%20come%20before%20the%20teaching%20authority%22&f=false
Original: (fr) ...je puis goûter une œuvre, mais il m'est difficile de la juger indépendamment de la connaissance de l'homme même, et je dirais volontiers: tel arbre, tel fruit.
As quoted in He Who Laughs Lasts by Shawn Lovley, p. 51.
“I have come not to teach but to awaken. Understand therefore that I lay down no precepts.”
The Universal Message (1958)
Context: I have come not to teach but to awaken. Understand therefore that I lay down no precepts.
Throughout eternity I have laid down principles and precepts, but mankind has ignored them. Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion He taught, man has waged crusades in His name. Instead of living the humility, purity and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed and violence.
Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form I observe Silence. You have asked for and been given enough words — it is now time to live them.
The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can’t handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.
Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (pp. 26-27)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)
Letter 311, to Robert J. Buckingham, 17 December 1935
Selected Letters (1983-1985)
Maurice in “Characters,” p. 298
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)
Context: In my present insistence on high standards you will see that there is less self-indulgence than resolve and application. I do not let the Christian monopolize the ideal of perfection. I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.
Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 4, p. 289