
The Rubaiyat (1120)
Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The First Address of Taliesin
The Rubaiyat (1120)
The Obedience of A Christian Man (1528)
Context: Where no promise of God is, there can be no faith, nor justifying, nor forgiveness of sins: for it is more than madness to look for any thing of God, save that he hath promised. How far he hath promised, so far is he bound to them that believe; and further not. To have a faith, therefore, or a trust in any thing, where God hath not promised, is plain idolatry, and a worshipping of thine own imagination instead of God. Let us see the pith of a ceremony or two, to judge the rest by. In conjuring of holy water, they pray that whosoever be sprinkled therewith may receive health as well of body as of soul: and likewise in making holy bread, and so forth in the conjurations of other ceremonies. Now we see by daily experience, that half their prayer is unheard. For no man receiveth health of body thereby.
No more, of likelihood, do they of soul. Yea, we see also by experience, that no man receiveth health of soul thereby. For no man by sprinkling himself with holy water, and with eating holy bread, is more merciful than before, or forgiveth wrong, or becometh at one with his enemy, or is more patient, and less covetous, and so forth; which are the sure tokens of the soul-health.
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 215
What Do You See, Madam? (1932)
Context: If Helen of Troy could have been seen eating peppermints out of a paper bag, it is highly probable that her admirers would have been an entirely different class.
It is the thing you are found doing while the horde looks on that you shall be loved for — or ignored.
“Meek and lowly, pure and holy,
Chief among the "blessed three."”
Charity, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“The world is like a market; one community reaps benefit in it while another one faces loss.”
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 368.
General
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch