“So long as any one can speak of divine things, enjoy and understand them, remember and desire them, he has not yet arrived in port; yet there are ways and means to guide him thither. But the creature can know nothing but what God gives him to know from day to day”

— Catherine of Genoa

Life and Doctrine

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Catherine of Genoa 29

Italian author and nurse 1447–1510

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“Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him.”

William Saroyan book The Human Comedy

The Human Comedy (1943)
Context: Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better. He is not dead, because you are alive. Time and accident, illness and weariness took his body, but already you have given it back to him, younger and more eager than ever. I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.

“The remembrance of death is very powerful to restrain us from sinning. For he should well consider the day will come(and he knoweth not how soon)….. no more Suns will rise and set upon him;.. no more seeing, no more hearing. no more speaking, no more touching, no more tasting, no more fancying, no more understanding, no more remembering, no more desiring, no more loving, no more delights of any sort to be enjoyed by him…let any man duly and daily ponder these things, and how can it be that he should dare…..”

Nicholas Ferrar (1592–1637) English scholar and courtier

Some final, unfinished thoughts a few weeks before his death aged forty-six, in 1637, Essay on Nicholas Ferrar, Jane Falloon, Heart of Pilgrimage-A Study of George Hertbert, Author House,Milton Keynes 2007 ISBN 978-1-4259-7755-9

“His appearance gives no clue to what his profession might be, and yet he doesn't look like a man without a profession either. Consider what he's like: He always knows what to do. He knows how to gaze into a woman's eyes. He can put his mind to any question at any time. He can box. He is gifted, strong-willed, open-minded, fearless, tenacious, dashing, circumspect — why quibble, suppose we grant him all those qualities — yet he has none of them! They have made him what he is, they have set his course for him, and yet they don't belong to him. When he is angry, something in him laughs. When he is sad, he is up to something. When something moves him, he turns against it. He'll always see a good side to every bad action. What he thinks of anything will always depend on some possible context — nothing is, to him, what it is: everything is subject to change, in flux, part of a whole, of an infinite number of wholes presumably adding up to a super-whole that, however, he knows nothing about. So every answer he gives is only a partial answer, every feeling an opinion, and he never cares what something is, only 'how' it is — some extraneous seasoning that somehow goes along with it, that's what interests him.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)

“Of what benefit is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he does not have works? That faith cannot save him, can it? If a brother or a sister is lacking clothing and enough food for the day, yet one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but you do not give them what they need for their body, of what benefit is it? So, too, faith by itself, without works, is dead.”

James, son of Zebedee major religious figure in Christian tradition and one of the Twelve Apostles

James 2:14-17 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/james/2/, NWT

“For the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of God is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time, and as the only way one can speak of man, even our anthropologists have realized that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite.”

Samuel Beckett book Watt

Part II, p. 77
Watt (1943)

“That Jem makes beautiful things and I destroy them. That it really ought to be me dying and not him. I mean, what's the point of living if you can't even enjoy it? Yet Jem enjoys all the life he's got. It's not fair.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“This is the beatitude that the blessed might have, and yet they have it not, except in so far as they are dead to themselves and absorbed in God. They have it not in so far as they remain in themselves and can say: `I am blessed.' Words are wholly inadequate to express my meaning, and I reproach myself for using them. I would that every one could understand me, and I am sure that if I could breathe on creatures, the fire of love burning within me would inflame them all with divine desire. O thing most marvelous!”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Source: Life and Doctrine, Ch.IX

“I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Note to Stanza 27
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
Context: I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love. It is the property of love to place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love. Hence the soul, because of its perfect love, is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with Him. In this equality and friendship all things are common, as the Bridegroom Himself said to His disciples: I have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.

“God lives in “want” of nothing. Anything God wants, God can have. Yet God does have desires. It is God’s desire that fuels the engine of creation. It is Divine Desire that powers the universe.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

“I’m born into a family of preachers, so I want Mr. Trump to remember that many people who voted for him took a long time praying for him. And if he can take some of that divine guidance, that’s going to help him out. We do need unity, and from my perspective as a minister myself, God has not forgotten America. So if Mr. Trump can remember that, I believe that he can take some positive steps towards unity.”

Alveda King (1951) American, civil rights activist, Christian minister, conservative, pro-life activist, and author

Alveda King on how President-elect Trump can heal the U.S. http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5211662143001/?#sp=show-clips (November 15, 2016)

“So long as any one can speak of divine things, enjoy and understand them, remember and desire them, he has not yet arrived in port; yet there are ways and means to guide him thither. But the creature can know nothing but what God gives him to know from day to day”

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Catherine of Genoa 29

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