Quotes about Christ (2010 quotes, page 13)

“Christ’s message is universal: To do good, to care for the poor, to love one’s neighbour, to serve honestly and with integrity.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

Christmas message, 22 December 2005 (excerpts)

Love , Universe

“Touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth make a just and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books. For it is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not being like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but knowing man’s thoughts immediately, He never answered their words, but their thoughts. Much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the Church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part. And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

XXV. (17)
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Men , Secret , Books , Age

“The politics of the unpolitical—these are the politics of those who desire to be pure in heart: the politics of men without personal ambition; of those who have not desires wealth or an unequal share of worldly possessions; of those who have always striven, whatever their race or condition, for human values and not for national or sectional interests. For our Western world, Christ is the supreme example of this unselfish devotion to the good of humanity, and the Sermon on the Mount is the source of all the politics of the unpolitical.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

“The Politics of the Unpolitical,” To Hell with Culture (1963), p. 38
Other Quotes

Men , World , Heart , Personality

“We wish to recall here the spirit of tolerance shown by Our Lord Jesus Christ when He gave forgiveness to all including those that crucified Him.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address to the World Evangelical Congress in Berlin (28 October 1966)

Forgiveness

“Christ illustrates the purport of life as He descends from His transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly brightness for the crown of thorns.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 66.

Life

“We believe that to Christ belongs creative power — that "without Him was not any thing made which was made." We believe that from Him came all life at first. In Him life was as in its deep source. He is the fountain of life. We believe that as no being comes into existence without His creative power, so none continues to exist without His sustaining energy. We believe that the history of the world is but the history of His influence, and that the centre of the whole universe is the cross of Calvary.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 56.

Life , World , History , Universe

“Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners do not have a clue about him.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

Source: 1990s, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (1999), p. 210

“How free from every thing like art were the reasonings and language of Christ.”

David Thomas (born 1813) (1813–1894) 19th-century Welsh preacher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 63.

Art

“Your participation of the holy communion must be regarded as the fresh act of your espousals, as the solemn renewal of your covenant; as your surrender, entire and unhesitating, to the service of the Lord. It is thus that you confess Christ, and witness of Him to the world. If you eat and drink without discerning this great purpose, you eat and drink unworthily; if you repudiate such purpose, either in thought or act, you crucify in your measure the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. By your profane use of the means of grace without the slightest desire for the grace of the means, it is as if you cut and wounded the Saviour in this the house of His friends, and sharpened the daggers of your treachery upon the tables of the violated law.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 374.

God , World , Law , Drink

“I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

No. 29. (Rica writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

War

“I can truly say — and this in virtue of the whole structure of my thought — that I now feel more indissolubly bound to the hierarchical Church and to the Christ of the Gospel than ever before in my life. Never has Christ seemed to me more real, more personal or more immense.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

Letter from Cape Town to Father General, Jean-Baptiste Janssens (12 October 1951)

Life , Feeling , Personality

“I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer the question in their own heart, what kind of a being God is?... Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen him, heard him, or communed with him?... God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 6:303-04 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)

God , Secret , World , Communication

“There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it; and the judgments of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man and woman will have to atone for breaking their covenants. To what degree? Will they have to go to hell? They are in hell enough now. I do not wish them in a greater hell, when their consciences condemn them all the time. Let compassion reign in our bosoms. Try to comprehend how weak we are, how we are organized, how the spirit and the flesh are continually at war.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 3:247 (March 16, 1856)
1850s

God , War , Hell , Time

“I was so conflicted and disillusioned about organized religion that I couldn't write. … I think my writings will go on being the writings of a believer in Christ. I think I'll be less frustrated and freer to write about the full dimension of what that means. But I write metaphysical thrillers, and how this works out in fiction is always mysterious: characters confront dilemmas. The worldview of the novel is certainly optimistic and that of a believer. What character will say what, I don't know until I start writing. …. Because I had written Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, I had become a public Christian. I wanted my readers to know that I was stepping aside from organized religion and the names Christian and Christianity because I wanted to exonerate myself from the things organized religion was doing in the name of Jesus. Christians have lost credibility in America as people who know how to love. They have become associated with hatred, persecution, attempting to abolish the separation of church and state, and trying to pressure people to vote certain ways in elections. I wanted to make it clear that I did not in any way remain complicit with those things.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

"Q & A: Anne Rice on Following Christ Without Christianity" interview by Sarah Pulliam Bailey in Christianity Today (17 Augutst 2010) http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=89167

Love , People , Religion , Way

“If you feel sincerely sorry on account of your sins, and believe that Christ is able and willing to forgive you, the work is done. You may trust with all the confidence of a child who confesses his fault, and casts himself into his father's arms. This is faith; a simple trust in the power and willingness of the Father to forgive, for the sake of what Christ the Son has done.”

Samuel I. Prime (1812–1885) American clergyman, traveler, and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 232.

Faith , Feeling , Confidence , Forgiveness

“The picture. A great plain, comprising the entire Jerusalem district, where is the supreme Commander-in-Chief of the forces of good, Christ our Lord: another plain near Babylon, where Lucifer is, at the head of the enemy.”

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) Catholic Saint, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits)

No. 138.
Spiritual Exercises (1548)

“So if Muslims don’t worship the one true God, then they are worshipping a false god. They’ve been deceived into thinking that they are serving God, but really, they are not, and sadly they are headed for an eternity separated from God. This should break our hearts as Christians. We have the message of salvation that all people need to hear. Millions of Muslims live here in the United States, and they need to hear about the one true God who came as a man, died for their sin, rose again, and now offers the free gift of salvation to all who will confess Christ as Lord and trust in Him (Romans 10:9). We need to tell others about this precious gift!”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

President Obama Speech: Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2016/02/04/president-obama-speech-christians-and-muslims-worship-same-god/, Around the World with Ken Ham (February 4, 2016)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

God , People , Thinking , Heart

“Do Christian Republicans not understand the fundamental ways in which an unfettered corporate capitalism betrays Christ’s ethical vision and their own economic well-being?”

Curtis White (1951) American academic

"The spirit of disobedience: an invitation to resistance"

Way , Understanding

“How much more forcefully can I say it? The time has come, and it is long overdue, when Christians and conservatives and all men and women who believe in the birthright of freedom must rise up and reclaim America for Jesus Christ.”

James Kennedy (televangelist) (1930–2007) American evangelist

Character & Destiny: A Nation In Search of Its Soul D. James Kennedy, Zondervan Publishing House, 1997, p. 80

Women , Men , Freedom , Time

“More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ.
This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Source: Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (1994), p. 302.

Life

“I will tell you what to hate. Hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate indolence, oppression, injustice; hate Pharisaism; hate them as Christ hated them — with a deep, living, godlike hatred.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 298.

Hate

“It's important for Christians to understand that if this event of the forbidden fruit was not history, then the Fall itself would not be literal. This would also mean that Christ's death on the cross would be meaningless.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

Death , History , Understanding

“[I believe in Oliver Cromwell] because he was a great fighting Dissenter. He was perhaps the first statesman to recognize that as soon as the Government became a democracy the Churches became directly responsible for any misgovernment. His great idea was to make Christ's law the law of the land, and any obstacle to this he ruthlessly swept away. How he would have dealt with Romish practices now! He said to the priest who babbled his Paternosters in Peterborough Cathedral, "Leave off your fooling and come down, sir." There was the man for the Ritualists (cheers)— worth a wagon-load of Bishops. How he would have dealt with the House of Lords! From the House of Commons he would have removed many a bauble, and he would have shaken his head and said, "The Lord deliver us from Joseph Chamberlain."”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches at the City Temple, London (25 April 1899) for the 300th anniversary of Oliver Cromwell's birth, quoted in The Times (26 April 1899), p. 12.
Backbench MP

Law , Fools , Democracy , Idea

“One and one half wandering Jews,
Free to wander wherever they choose,
Are travelling together in the Sangre de Christo,
The blood of Christ mountains of New Mexico,
On the last leg of a journey they started a long time ago,
The arc of a love affair,
Rainbows in the high desert air.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Hearts and Bones
Song lyrics, Hearts and Bones (1983)

Love , Travel , Mountain , Time

“The act of the soul, in surrendering itself into the hands of Christ, forms a connecting bond between Him as the Vine and the soul as the branches, which communicates life, strength, nourishment, and beauty. In a word, with a just view of the character, and a supreme attachment to the person of Christ, the believer yields himself into His hands as a full and complete Saviour. Him he receives; upon Him he rests, and rests for time and eternity.”

Gardiner Spring (1785–1873) American clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 226.

Life , Beauty , Soul , Communication

“The people are asleep; they remain indifferent. They forge their own chains and do the bidding of their masters to crucify their Christs.”

Emma Goldman book Living My Life

Source: Living My Life (1931), p. 304

People , Indifference

“The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Fifth Revelation, Chapter 13

Death , Passion

“I saw that God rejoiceth that He is our Father, and God rejoiceth that He is our Mother, and God rejoiceth that He is our Very Spouse and our soul is His loved Wife. And Christ rejoiceth that He is our Brother, and Jesus rejoiceth that He is our Saviour. These are five high joys, as I understand, in which He willeth that we enjoy; Him praising, Him thanking, Him loving, Him endlessly blessing.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 52

Love , God , Soul , Understanding

“Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein;
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.”

Friedrich von Logau (1605–1655) German poet

Sin. (Sinngedichte, published c. 1654).

God

“Christ did not ask or want to be what he was not.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Christ,” p. 106
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”

“The first grand design of Christ Jesus is to destroy and consume His mortal enemy antichrist. This must be done by the breath of His mouth in His prophets and witnesses. Now, the nations of the world have impiously stopped this heavenly breath and stifled the Lord Jesus in His servants. Now, it shall please the civil state to remove the state bars set up to resist the holy spirit of God in His servants (whom yet finally to resist is not in all the powers of the world), I humbly conceive that the civil state has made a fair progress in promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)

God , World

“The universe must be law-abiding, and if Christ suspended law it would be a criticism of his Father as one whose laws were inadequate for certain possible situations which might arise. "We say," said St. Augustine profoundly, "that all portents (miracles) are contrary to nature, but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing?"”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.106 (Augustine: The City of God. 21:8)

God , Law , Nature , Universe

“To be energetic and firm where principle demands it, and tolerant in all else, is not easy. It is not easy to abhor wickedness, and oppose it with every energy, and at the same time to have the meekness and gentleness of Christ, becoming all things to all men for the truth's sake. The energy of patience, the most godlike of all, is not easy.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 187.

Men , Truth , Time , Patience

“We live in a predominately Christian culture which has lost its living connection to the symbolism of wafer and wine. Lacking spiritual sustenance there is a genuine hunger and thirst. The archetypal structure behind the wafer and wine is slowly giving way to a new configuration, but we are in chaos during the transition. That chaos breeds loneliness, fear and alienation. While that sense of aloneness is hard to endure, it can be of supreme value in the analytic process. The new life always comes out of the dispossessed, as Christ came from the cow stable.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: Addiction to Perfection (1982), p. 28

Life , Hunger , Fear , Way

“When I read the life of such a man as Paul, how I blush to think how sickly and dwarfed Christianity is at the present time, and how many hundreds there are who never think of working for the Son of God and honoring Christ.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 3.

Life , God , Thinking , Time

“Take note of those who spout false opinions about the gracious gift of Jesus Christ that has come to us, and see how they are opposed to the mind of God. They have no interest in love, in the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, the one who is in chains or the one set free, the one who is hungry or the one who thirsts.”

Ignatius of Antioch (35–108) Patriarch of Antioch and martyr saint

6:6-7, as translated by B. D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, Loeb Classical Library (2003), p. 303
Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

Love , God , Falseness

“There is a comfort that had not yet come into existence while Christ lived, which he therefore could not offer to anyone: the comfort of his death as the Atonement, as the pledge that the sins are forgiven. In this lifetime Christ is for his contemporaries primarily the prototype, even though he is the Savior and even though his life is suffering, so that even in his lifetime he can be said to bear the sins of the world; but the salient point is that he is the prototype. P. 159”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1850s, An Upbuilding Discourse December 20, 1850

Life , Death , World , Suffering

“The absence of sentimentalism in Christ's relations with men is what makes His tenderness so exquisitely touching.”

Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) American clergyman and author

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 59.

Men

“O happy life! life hid with Christ in God!
So making me
At home and by the wayside and abroad,
Alone with Thee.”

Elizabeth Prentiss (1818–1878) American musician, hymnwriter

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 119.

Life , God , Home , Happiness

“It must be demonstrated to the world that the ancient power to heal, still lies in the hands of those who consistently follow the Christ. Those who use this power only for the sake of the little ones, taking and seeking no personal reward, can manifest the ancient way to heal […]”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Esoteric Healing (1953), p. 516

World , Way , Personality

“This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

John 17:3 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/43/17#h=115:287-115:408, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Gospel of John

Life , God

“There are four great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindaban and the colloquy on the field of Kurukshetra. The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindaban created devotional religion, (for before there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanized Europe, the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

On the Bhagavad Gita quoted in "Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita" (1993) by by Paul Molinari http://www.collaboration.org/97/nov/text/9_gita.html

Life , Religion , History

“I dreamt last night Christ came to earth again
To bless His own. My soul from place to place
On her dream-quest sped, seeking for His face
Through temple and town and lovely land, in vain.
Then came I to a place where death and pain
Had made of God's sweet world a waste forlorn,
With shattered trees and meadows gashed and torn,
Where the grim trenches scarred the shell-sheared plain.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, Advent 1916

Love , Death , God , Pain

“We can teach no virtues we do not practice," occurred to me this afternoon; for without learning by experience how a virtue is acquired, how can we teach any one to acquire it? I thought of this in connection with the experience of undutiful children. By the working of this natural cause, they will not make their own children dutiful. Read in Luke of the angel which appeared to Christ in Gethsemane, strengthening Him. We all see this angel when we say truly, "Thy will, not mine, be done.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

22 August 1875.
The Walk With God (1919)

Children , Angels , Nature , Learning

“The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 28.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Heart

“I hear stories from the chamber,
How Christ was born into a manger,
And like some ragged stranger died up on the cross,
And might I say it seems to fitting in its way,
He was a carpenter by trade,
Or at least that's what I'm told.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), The Mercy Seat

Way

“He put his hand over mine, the one with the dead cigarette crumbled in it, and gave me a wonderful smile. "Easy, child, easy. I’m only teasing you. Don’t think I disapprove for Christ’s sake. Live it up, I say. Don’t say no to life, Gorce, you’re only young once.””

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

We were on last name terms, Keevil and I.
Part One, One
The Dud Avocado (1958)

Life , Smile , Thinking , Dead

“Usual messages from the heads of the establishment. The Queen from Windsor, the Pope from Rome: Pilate and Caiaphas celebrating the birth of Christ.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

Sunday 25 December 1966 (p. 38)
The Orton Diaries (1986)

Birth

“Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Bernard Leeming, "Protestants and Our Lady", Marian Library Studies, January 1967, p.9.

“Jesus Christ is personally unknown to the vast masses of men on all continents. His influence is limited by the failure and indifference of his professed followers.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 58

Men , Failure , Personality , Indifference

“As Oliver Cromwell said to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken." Life and the affairs of the living are so tangled, the world not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine, that all questions are conundrums, no answers "correct." Is it certain that parallel lines never meet? No. Does water freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit? Only probably. Shall I marry? Who can say? And yet the world's work must be done. One Oblomov is enough. Thus we learn a conventional certitude, acting as though all were light by blinking the shadow. A simple proof demonstrates that parallel lines do meet, but, on the assumption that they do not, the architect builds the skyscraper. Despite his knowledge of statistical mechanics, the engineer designs the refrigerator to maintain a constant temperature of 31 degrees. Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas [the heart has its reasons that reason does not know], and families are raised.”

Irving Younger (1932–1988) American lawyer

Some of My Life

Life , World , Family , Imagination

“O, let us understand that the power of Christianity lies not in a hazy indefiniteness, not in shadowy forms, not so much even in definite truths and doctrines, but in the truth and the doctrine. There is but one Christ crucified. All the gathered might of the infinite God is in that word.”

Herrick Johnson (1832–1913) American clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 72.

God , Truth , Understanding

“Christ that doeth Good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth, — with all the sweet Keeping by Love, that endlessly followeth.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 59

Love , Evil

“It is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ did not establish itself without much opposition, especially from the unlearned among the Christians, who thought that it savoured of Polytheism, that it was introduced by those who had had a philosophical education, and was by degrees adopted by others, on account of its covering the great offence of the cross, by exalting the personal dignity of our Saviour.”

Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity

Part I : The History of Opinions Relating to Jesus Christ, § IV : Of the Difficulty with which the Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ was Established.
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

Education , Personality

“Every one of us may know what is the ruling purpose of his life; and he who knows that his ruling purpose is to trust and follow Christ knows that he is a Christian.”

Washington Gladden (1836–1918) American pastor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 17.

Life

“That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent." It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man." Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth…". And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine." And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state."”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Life , Men , Democracy , Imagination

“I very well recollect the reformation which took place in the country among the various denominations of Christians-the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others-when Joseph was a boy. Joseph's mother, one of his brothers, and one, if not two, of his sisters were members of the Presbyterian Church, and on this account the Presbyterians hung to the family with great tenacity. And in the midst of these revivals among the religious bodies, the invitation, "Come and join our church," was often extended to Joseph, but more particularly from the Presbyterians. Joseph was naturally inclined to be religious, and being young, and surrounded with this excitement, no wonder that he became seriously impressed with the necessity of serving the Lord. But as the cry on every hand was, "Lo, here is Christ," and "Lo, there!" Said he, "Lord, teach me, that I may know for myself, who among these are right." And what was the answer? "They are all out of the way; they have gone astray, and there is none that doeth good, no not one. When he found out that none were right, he began to inquire of the Lord what was right, and he learned for himself. Was he aware of what was going to be done? By no means. He did not know what the Lord was going to do with him, although He had informed him that the Christian churches were all wrong, because they had not the Holy Priesthood, and had strayed from the holy commandments of the Lord, precisely as the children of Israel did.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 12:67 (June 23, 1867)
Young’s recollection of religious excitement and events leading up to Joseph Smith, Jr.’s first vision.
1860s

Children , Family , Way , Boy

“The double meanings inherent in the phenomenon both-and can involve metamorphosis as well as contradiction. I have described how the omni-directional spire of the tower of Christ Church, Spitalfields, evolves into a directional pavilion at its base, but a perceptual rather than a formal kind of change in meaning is possible. In equivocal relationships one contradictory meaning usually dominates another, but in complex compositions the relationship is not always constant. This is especially true as the observer moves through or around a building, and by extension through a city: at one moment one meaning can be perceived as dominant; at another moment a different meaning seems paramount.”

Robert Venturi book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

4. Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon of "Both-And" in Architecture
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)

Change

“Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ gives and is.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.

Love , Life , Heart

“Look to the end; and resolve to make the service of Christ the first object in what remains of life, without indifference to the opinion of your fellow men, but also without fear of it.”

Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 126.

Life , Men , Fear , Indifference

“What treasure does the religious an possess in this, that when everything else fails he has God for his refuge and can look to a world where he is sure through Christ Jesus, that he will not be disappointed.”

Henry Kirke White (1785–1806) English poet

Letter to Mr B Maddock 10 November 1805.
Letters

God , World , Disappointment

“Be sure that Christ is not behind you, but before, calling and drawing you on. This is the liberty, the beautiful liberty of Christ. Claim your glorious privilege in the name of a disciple; be no more a servant, when Christ will own you as a friend.”

Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 89.

Beauty , Drawing

“Christ never asks us to give up merely for the sake of giving up, but always in order to win something better.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Joy and Power
Joy and Power http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10395/10395-h/10395-h.htm (1903)

“As you know, very recently the secretary of state proclaimed his loyalty to a man guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes — of being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust. The secretary of state, in attempting to justify his continued devotion to the man who sold out the Christian world to the atheistic world, referred to Christ's Sermon on the Mount as a justification and reason therefore, and the reaction of the American people to this would have made the heart of Abraham Lincoln happy. When this pompous diplomat in striped pants, with a phony British accent, proclaimed to the American people that Christ on the Mount endorsed communism, high treason, and betrayal of a sacred trust, the blasphemy was so great that it awakened the dormant indignation of the American people.
He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted warped thinkers are swept from the national scene so that we may have a new birth of national honesty and decency in government.”

Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) Wisconsin politician

Speech in Wheeling, West Virginia (9 February 1950), as quoted at Civics Online http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/mccarthy.html

People , World , Communication , Birth

“The apostle denies that anyone actually knows Christ, who has not learned to put off the old man, corrupt with deceitful lusts, and to put on Christ.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 20.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Learning

“You are not to come to Christ because you are qualified, but that you may be qualified with whatever you want; and the best qualification you can bring is a deep sense that you have no worth or excellency at all in you.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 152.

Sense

“14 Proposition. The day of Gods judgement appears to fall betwixt the yeares of Christ, 1688. and 1700.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

God , Appearance

“The frame wearied with labours lies prostrate on the ground, but it is no penalty to lie down with Christ. Your limbs unbathed, are foul and disfigured with filth and dirt; but within they are spiritually cleansed, although without the flesh is defiled.”
Humi iacent fessa laboribus viscera, sed poena non est cum Christo iacere. Squalent sine balneis membra situ et sorde deformia, sed spiritaliter intus abluitur quod foris carnaliter sordidatur.

Cyprian (200–258) Bishop of Carthage and Christian writer

Letter 76; Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050676.htm>
Letters of Cyprian

Lie , Penalty

“People are apt to forget that the coming of the Christ necessitates a period of intensive preparation by Him; He, too, works under law and is subject to control from various sources—just as are all human beings, but in a much lesser degree. His reappearance is conditioned and determined by the reaction of humanity itself; by that reaction He must abide. His work is subject also to certain phases of spiritual and cyclic timing and to impressions from sources to be found on higher levels than those upon which He normally works.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ (1948), Chapter IV: The Work of the Christ Today and in the Future

People , Law , Time , Forgetting

“Of all Religions if we take a View,
There is but one that ever can be true, —
One God, One Christ, One Spirit, none but He.
All else is Idol, whatsoe'er it be,—
A Good that our Imaginations make,
Unless we love it purely for His Sake.”

John Byrom (1692–1763) Poet, inventor of a shorthand system

St. 3
Miscellaneous Poems (1773), Divine Love, The Essential Characteristic of True Religion

Love , God , Religion , Imagination

“Being in Christ, it is safe to forget the past; it is possible to be sure of the future; it is possible to be diligent in the present.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 107.

Past , Future , Forgetting

“No human being, black or white, bond or free, native or foreign, infidel or Christian, ever came to my door, and asked for food and shelter, in the name of a common humanity, or of a pitying Christ, who did not receive it. This I have done. This I mean to do, as long as God lets me live.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA178 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 178
1850s, The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (February 1859)

God , Food

“Of all graces, faith honours Christ the most; of all graces, Christ honours faith the most.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On faith - "Reflections On Prophet TB Joshua At 46" http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/113095 "American Chronicle" (August 5 2009)

Faith

“"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

Morals in Public Life (1951); Hand is here paraphrasing a famous expression of Oliver Cromwell from his letter of 3 August 1650 to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Extra-judicial writings

School , Thinking

“Christianity is this: A belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, the atonement, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, an eternal reward for the believers in Christ, and eternal punishment for the rest of us. Now, take from Christianity its miracles, its absurdities of the atonement and fall of man and the inspiration of the Scriptures, and I have no objection to it as I understand it. I believe, in the main, in the Christianity which I suppose Christ taught, that is, in kindness, gentleness, forgiveness. I do not believe in loving enemies; I have pretty hard work to love my friends.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

Love , Life , Death , Forgiveness

“The Mosaic religion had been a Father religion; Christianity became a Son religion. The old God, the Father, took second place; Christ, the Son, stood in His stead, just as in those dark times every son had longed to do.”

Sigmund Freud book Moses and Monotheism

Moses and Monotheism (1938)
1930s

God , Religion , Time

“How wonderful the Doges' palace is! That pink and white marble must have been a bit cold at first, but it was magical for me, seeing it gilded by several centuries of sunlight! And the basilica of San Marco! That was what converted me from those cold Italian Renaissance churches.... as soon as one goes into San Marco one feels one is in a real place of worship – that gentle filtered light and those magnificent mosaics and the great Byzantine Christ with the grey aureole! If one hasn't been in San Marco it is impossible to imagine the beauty of heavy pillars and columns without any moulding!”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 161-162 : (1882), in a letter to Vollard

Beauty , Feeling , Imagination , Light

“The sages and heroes of history are receding from us, and history contracts the record of their deeds into a narrow and narrower page. But time has no power over the name and deeds and words of Jesus Christ.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 61

History , Time

“It is color, not locally true from the point of view of the stereoscopic realist, but color to suggest any emotion of an ardent temperament. When Paul Mantz saw at the exhibition the violent and inspired sketch of Delacroix…. the 'Barque of Christ' - he turned away from it exclaiming: 'I did not know that one could be so terrible with a little blue and green'. Hokusai wrings the same cry from you [Theo], but he does it by his line, his drawing, when you say in your letter - 'the waves are claws and the ship is caught in them'. Well, if you make the color exact or the drawing exact, it won't give you sensations like that.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, 8 September 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 533) pp. 32-33
1880s, 1888

Color , Drawing , Cry

“And how high is Christ's cross? As high as the highest heaven, and the throne of God, and the bosom of the Father — that bosom out of which forever proceed all created things. Ay, as high as the highest heaven! for — if you will receive it — when Christ hung upon the cross, heaven came down on earth, and earth ascended into heaven.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 171.

God

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

Jim Elliot (1927–1956) Martyred Christian missionary to Ecuador

Journal excerpt from Shadow of the Almighty (1989) by Elisabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot, Summer 1948

Men , Way , Decision

“For a moment I thought I knew exactly how Christ must have felt as He called John.”

Susan Kay Phantom

Giovanni (p. 138)
Phantom (1990)

“I can sum up all the arguments used against Joseph Smith and "Mormonism” in a very few words, the merits of which will be found in "OLD JOE SMITH. IMPOSTOR, MONEY DIGGER. OLD JOE SMITH. SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE. IMPOSTURE. THE DOCTRINE IS FALSE. MONEY DIGGER. FALSE PROPHET. DELUSION. SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE. Oh, my dear brethren and sisters, keep away from them, for the sake of your never dying souls. FALSE PROPHETS THAT SHOULD COME IN THE LAST DAYS. OLD JOE SMITH. ANTI-CHRIST. MONEY DIGGER, MONEY DIGGER, MONEY DIGGER. And the whole is wound up with an appeal, not to the good sense of the people, but to their unnatural feelings, in a canting, hypocritical tone, and there it ends.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses (1854), ed. G. D. Watt, Vol. 1, pp. 109–110 ( scanned image http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/JournalOfDiscourses3&CISOPTR=9599)
Young’s comments regarding criticism of Joseph Smith, Jr. and Mormonism.
1850s

Money , People , Feeling , Soul

“Ted Kennedy, a good senator but a bad date you know what I mean? "What'd I forget? Goddamit the fuckin' girl! Jesus Christ where are my pants?"”

Denis Leary (1957) American actor and comedian

Standup routines, No Cure for Cancer (1993)

Girl , Forgetting

“Justification by faith is the answer to that momentous question, " How shall man be just with God?" And the reply is, " Not by works of his own, but by faith in the work of another, that is Christ." He must have a righteousness in which to stand before a righteous and a holy, as well as a merciful God He has no such righteousness of his own. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness unto him.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 362.

God , Faith , Law , Question

“The theory of three person in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM. … Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God.”

Mary Baker Eddy book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 256:9–11, 361:11–13 (1867).

God , Personality

“If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ; for the Lord says, in John, that there is one fold, one shepherd, and one only.”
Sive ergo Graeci sive alii se dicant Petro ejusque successoribus non esse commissos: fateantur necesse est, se de ovibus Christi non esse, dicente Domino in Joanne, unum ovile et unicum esse pastorem.

Pope Boniface VIII Unam sanctam

Unam sanctam (1302)

“It would be more proper to classify Islam as a Christian sect or group of sects, since the word ‘Christian’ properly designates all of the innumerable sects that attribute divinity to the Jesus who is the protagonist of the “New Testament,” although, of course, there is naturally great hostility between competing sects, each of which claims to represent the “true religion” and even tries to deny the term ‘Christian’ to all of its competitors in the salvation-business. It is true that Mahomet claimed to be the successor of the Jewish Jesus, whom he, like the Christians, regarded as not having been a christ in the strict sense of that word (i. e., a divinely appointed king to lead the Jews to dominion over the whole world), but as a Saviour who, like Zarathustra, could bestow a pleasant immortality on anyone, regardless of race, who believed the right dogmas while keeping his reason in abeyance.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"The Descent of Islam", National Vanguard magazine (January-February 2003)

Hostility , World , Religion , Business

“When I saw The Passion of the Christ it made me feel better about what I was doing. And I thought, No way is that fucker going to outdo me! I demanded more blood.”

John Roecker (1966) American film director

[Freaky deaky: gay music video director John Roecker takes stop-motion animation to bizarre places in his debut feature Live Freaky! Die Freaky!, The Advocate, February 14, 2006, Kurt B., Reighley]

Way , Feeling , Passion

“There live Christ and Nero in our hearts.”

Antoni Lange (1862–1929) Polish writer and philosopher

Thinkings

Heart

“Our Christian God, the merciful, forgiving God, the personification of eternal love, our father, as Christ has taught us, had absolutely not the slightest thing in common with the vengeful bloodthirsty, angry old Jaweh of the Jews…the old Jew-God Jaweh is…identical with Satan!”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Letter to Eva Chamberlain-Wagner (14 April 1927), quoted in John C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile 1900-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 1236
1920s

Love , God , Forgiveness