Source: Anarchy and Christianity (1988), p. 39
“I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people," Paul says. "That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.”
Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)
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Nancy Reagan
(1921–2016) actress and first lady of the United States
On her relation with her husband, Ronald Reagan, as quoted in an interview with Vanity Fair (July 1998), and in Saving The Reagan Presidency : Trust Is The Coin Of The Realm (2005) by David M. Abshire, p. 107
Variant: Our relationship is very special. We were very much in love and still are. When I say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did. I can't imagine life without him.
As quoted in "End of a love story" at BBC (5 June 2004) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/265714.stm
Context: Our relationship is very special. We were very much in love and still are. Thank God we found each other. When I say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did. Forty-six years? Can't imagine life without him.
“God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.”
Source: What's So Amazing About Grace?
The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)
Visvaldas Kulbokas
(1974) Lithuanian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
Nuncio to Ukraine: “This war is not a purely human invention, there is something demonic about it; we can only defeat evil together, with prayer, humility, and love” https://acninternational.org/nuncio-to-ukraine-this-war-is-not-a-purely-human-invention-there-is-something-demonic-about-it-we-can-only-defeat-evil-together-with-prayer-humility-and-love/ (10 March 2022)
Thomas Merton
(1915–1968) Priest and author
Letter to Dorothy Day (20 December 1961).
Context: Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action. To shut out the person and to refuse to consider him as a person, as an other self, we resort to the impersonal "law" and to abstract "nature." That is to say we block off the reality of the other, we cut the intercommunication of our nature and his nature, and we consider only our own nature with its rights, its claims, it demands. And we justify the evil we do to our brother because he is no longer a brother, he is merely an adversary, an accused. To restore communication, to see our oneness of nature with him, and to respect his personal rights and his integrity, his worthiness of love, we have to see ourselves as similarly accused along with him … and needing, with him, the ineffable gift of grace and mercy to be saved. Then, instead of pushing him down, trying to climb out by using his head as a stepping-stone for ourselves, we help ourselves to rise by helping him to rise. For when we extend our hand to the enemy who is sinking in the abyss, God reaches out to both of us, for it is He first of all who extends our hand to the enemy. It is He who "saves himself" in the enemy, who makes use of us to recover the lost groat which is His image in our enemy.
Book II, Chapter 5, "The Practical Conclusion"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Leo Tolstoy
(1828–1910) Russian writer
Entry in Tolstoy's Diary http://www.linguadex.com/tolstoy/chapter1.htm (1 November 1910)
Context: God is the infinite ALL. Man is only a finite manifestation of Him.
Or better yet:
God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.
God alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in time, space and matter. The more God's manifestation in man (life) unites with the manifestations (lives) of other beings, the more man exists. This union with the lives of other beings is accomplished through love.
God is not love, but the more there is of love, the more man manifests God, and the more he truly exists...
We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us. All conclusions and guidelines based on this consciousness should fully satisfy both our desire to know God as such as well as our desire to live a life based on this recognition.