John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic
Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6
“He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor, his life for love, knowing that contentment is the shadow not the light. The great yearning that sweeps eternity is a yearning to praise, a yearning to serve.”
Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy Of Religion (1951), Ch. 24 : The Great Yearning; The Yearning for Spiritual Living<!-- p. 259 -->
Context: He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor, his life for love, knowing that contentment is the shadow not the light. The great yearning that sweeps eternity is a yearning to praise, a yearning to serve. And when the waves of that yearning swell in our souls all the barriers are pushed aside: the crust of callousness, the hysteria of vanity, the orgies of arrogance. For it is not the I that trembles alone, it is not a stir out of my soul but an eternal flutter that sweeps us all. No code, no law, even the law of God, can set a pattern for all of our living. It is not enough to have the right ideas. For the will, not reason, has the executive power in the realm of living. The will is stronger than reason and does not blindly submit to the dictates of rational principles. Reason may force the mind to accept intellectually its conclusions. Yet what is the power that will make me love to do what I ought to do?
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Abraham Joshua Heschel130
Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi 1907–1972Related quotes
“To believe in God is to yearn for His existence and, furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), V : The Rationalist Dissolution
Context: To believe in God is to long for His existence and, further, it is to act as if he existed; it is to live by this longing and to make it the inner spring of our action.
Context: To believe in God is to long for His existence and, further, it is to act as if he existed; it is to live by this longing and to make it the inner spring of our action. This longing or hunger for divinity begets hope, hope begets faith, and faith and hope beget charity. Of this divine longing is born our sense of beauty, of finality, of goodness.
“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Faust
Act II, Classical Walpurgis Night
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist
"That a Burnt Child often Dreads the Fire".
Sketches from Life (1846)
Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 210.
