“If neither love nor pain
Will ever touch thy heart,
Then only God's in thee,
And then in God thou art”
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer
The Cherubinic Wanderer
"Switzerland", IV. "Parting" (1853)
“If neither love nor pain
Will ever touch thy heart,
Then only God's in thee,
And then in God thou art”
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer
The Cherubinic Wanderer
Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician
Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)
“God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…
Speech (3 June 1834); reported in Edward Everett, ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (1851), volume iv, page 47
“True wisdom is always young, and always near to the grasp of an open mind.”
Nyanaponika Thera (1901–1994) German Buddhist monk
The Heart of Buddhist Meditation (1965)
Context: Some doubt may arise in the minds of Western men how they could be helped in their present problems by a doctrine of the far and foreign East. And others, even in the East, may ask how words spoken 2,500 years ago can have relevance to our ‘modern world’, except in a very general sense. Those who raise the objection of distance in space (meaning by it, properly, the difference of race), should ask themselves whether Benares is truly more foreign to a citizen of London than Nazareth from where a teaching has issued that to that very citizen has become a familiar and important part of his life and thought. They should further he willing to admit that mathematical laws, found out long ago in distant Greece, are of no less validity today, in Britain or elsewhere. But particularly these objectors should consider the numerous basic facts of life that are common to all humanity. It is about them that the Buddha preeminently speaks. Those who raise the objection of the distance in time, will certainly recall many golden words of long-dead sages and poets which strike such a deep and kindred chord in our own hearts that we very vividly feel a living and intimate contact with those great ones who have left this world long ago. Such experience contrasts with the "very much present" silly chatter of society, newspapers or radio, which, when compared with those ancient voices of wisdom and beauty, will appear to emanate from the mental level of stone-age man tricked out in modern trappings. True wisdom is always young, and always near to the grasp of an open mind.
pp. 20-21
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Letter written as Secretary of State under President James Monroe (1819), as quoted in "What John Quincy Adams Said About Immigration Will Blow Your Mind" by D.C. McAllister, in The Federalist (18 August 2014) http://thefederalist.com/2014/08/18/what-john-quincy-adams-said-about-immigration-will-blow-your-mind <br class="br">Context: There is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers. This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights. Privileges are granted by European sovereigns to particular classes of individuals, for purposes of general policy; but the general impression here is that privileges granted to one denomination of people, can very seldom be discriminated from erosions of the rights of others. [Immigrants], coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments. They are to expect, if they choose to become citizens, equal rights with those of the natives of the country. They are to expect, if affluent, to possess the means of making their property productive, with moderation, and with safety;—if indigent, but industrious, honest and frugal, the means of obtaining easy and comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families. They come to a life of independence, but to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical, of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, the Atlantic is always open to them, to return to the land of their nativity and their fathers.
“Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.”
Phil Jackson (1945) basketball player and coach from the United States
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Building of the Ship
Source: The Building of the Ship (1849), Lines 396-399.
Frances Ridley Havergal (1836–1879) British poet and hymn-writer
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 159.