“Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
Decisions http://byub.org/findatalk/details.asp?ID=4343 BYU Devotional, February 6, 1977.
“Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer
Siddhartha (1922)
Context: Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
“There is one god, greatest among gods and men, similar to mortals neither in shape nor in thought.”
Xenophanes (-570–-475 BC) Presocratic philosopher
Fragment 23, as quoted in Notes on Greek Philosophy by Anthony Preus (Global Academic Publishing, 1996), p. 10
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor
Last sermon before being imprisoned by the Nazi regime of Germany (27 June 1937), as quoted in Religion in the Reich (1939) by Michael Power, p. 142
“Speaking as a devout atheist, thank God in his Almighty wisdom that he made us mortal.”
Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/movies/11radical.html
Other sourced statements
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.4 p. 65-69
Context: The third reference is to Matthew 22:21 and to the 13th chapter of Romans. It is said that Jesus and St. Paul accepted the authority of the state, and since the state rests upon force and war, the Christian must likewise accept these. It is quite true that Jesus recognized the sphere of the state, in the statement, "Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar." He paid taxes and never renounced the authority of the state. But this is only a half-truth. He likewise said, "Give God what belongs to God," and "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." St. Paul also upholds the state, especially in the thirteenth chapter of Romans. Upon close inspection of the teaching of St. Paul, however, the most that can be said in this connection is that the authority of the state is to be recognized and obeyed in so far as it does not conflict with the higher law of God.... The New Testament is filled with instances where the disciples refused to obey the government authorities, and many times they were imprisoned for disobedience. When commanded by the officials to cease their Christian activity, they replied, "We must obey God rather than man."
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor
1990s, The End of History Means the End of Freedom (1990)
“Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Source: The Excursion 1814