“The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.”
Source: Cry, The Beloved Country
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Alan Paton14
South African writer and activist 1903–1988Related quotes
“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”
Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order
The Counsels of the Holy Father St. Francis, Admonition 27.
Context: Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist
Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)
“1814. Always tell the Truth : where it is not loved, it is respected and feared.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)
William James book The Varieties of Religious Experience
Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Source: 1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Context: I am well aware of how anarchic much of what I say may sound. Expressing myself thus abstractly and briefly, I may seem to despair of the very notion of truth. But I beseech you to reserve your judgment until we see it applied to the details which lie before us. I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
Essay in the anthology The War Poets (1945) edited by Oscar Williams
Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer
On the Dark Goddess, p. 45
Dancing in the Flames (1997)
“Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves.”
John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion
Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion