“We may be sure that it is the love of God only that can make us come out of self. If His powerful hand did not sustain us, we should not know how to take the first step in that direction.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 270.
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François Fénelon 43
Catholic bishop 1651–1715Related quotes
Book II, Chapter 4, "The Perfect Penitent"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Context: He [God] lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.
“We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us.”
Source: Waiting for God
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 303.
The Ascent of Humanity http://charleseisenstein.net/project/ascent-of-humanity/
The Ascent of Humanity (2007)
Quoted in: Honor Books, W. B. Freeman (2004), God's Little Devotional Book for Girls, p. 205
2000s
Declaration of Conscience (1950)
Context: The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity.
It is ironical that we Senators can in debate in the Senate directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to any American who is not a Senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming an American — and without that non-Senator American having any legal redress against us — yet if we say the same thing in the Senate about our colleagues we can be stopped on the grounds of being out of order.
It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate Floor. Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we "dish out" to outsiders.
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 415