
“It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe.”
On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press: 2002), Oration 27
June 1, 2006 - OndaRock Interview
“It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe.”
On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press: 2002), Oration 27
“I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different.”
2010s, 2018, The Restless Wave (2018)
Context: !-- I want to talk to my fellow Americans a little more, if I may: --> My fellow Americans. No association ever mattered more to me. We’re not always right. We’re impetuous and impatient, and rush into things without knowing what we’re really doing. We argue over little differences endlessly, and exaggerate them into lasting breaches. We can be selfish, and quick sometimes to shift the blame for our mistakes to others. But our country ‘tis of thee.‘ What great good we’ve done in the world, so much more good than harm. We served ourselves, of course, but we helped make others free, safe and prosperous because we weren’t threatened by other people’s liberty and success. We need each other. We need friends in the world, and they need us. The bell tolls for us, my friends, Humanity counts on us, and we ought to take measured pride in that. We have not been an island. We were ‘involved in mankind.‘
Before I leave, I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations. I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it. Whether we think each other right or wrong in our views on the issues of the day, we owe each other our respect, as long as our character merits respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the rancorous debates that enliven and sometimes demean our politics, a mutual devotion to the ideals our nation was conceived to uphold, that all are created equal, and liberty and equal justice are the natural rights of all. Those rights inhabit the human heart, and from there, though they may be assailed, they can never be wrenched. I want to urge Americans, for as long as I can, to remember that this shared devotion to human rights is our truest heritage and our most important loyalty.
Sermon 39 Catholic Spirit http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/39/ from the 1872 edition of Wesley's Complete Works - Thomas Jackson, editor
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)
The Starch Solution (Rodale Books, 2013), Ch. 1, p. 6 https://books.google.it/books?id=if9YAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA6.
Letter to Samuel Cooper (30 April 1776) http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2093
Context: We cannot make Events. Our Business is wisely to improve them. There has been much to do to confirm doubting Friends & fortify the Timid. It requires time to bring honest Men to think & determine alike even in important Matters. Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.
Source: Zom-B Underground
"Paperjack" in Dreams Underfoot : The Newford Collection (2003), p. 396
Context: It's the questions we ask, the journey we take to get to where we are going that is more important than the actual answer. It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun.
Variant: We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
Source: Leadership Is an Art
“Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.”
Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 24.