Quotes about going
page 16

Barack Obama photo
John Locke photo

“The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of? 1 answer: between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth; as there can be none between the legislative and the people, should either the executive, or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them. The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven: for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, (who can never be supposed to consent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great, that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended. But this the executive power, or wise princes, never need come in the danger of: and it is the thing, of all others, they have most need to avoid, as of all others the most perilous.”

Second Treatise of Government http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr14.htm, Sec. 168
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

Salman Khan photo

“In life go straight and turn right.”

Salman Khan (1965) Indian film actor

Quotes By Salman
Source: https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-frc3/c100.0.300.300/s160x160/26982_345609288138_6040587_n.jpg?lvh=1

Christopher Morley photo

“April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.”

Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

John Mistletoe (1931) http://books.google.com/books?id=20pJAAAAMAAJ&q=%22April+prepares+her+green+traffic+light+and+the+world+thinks+Go%22&pg=PA61#v=onepage

Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Margaret Mead photo

“The contempt for law and the contempt for the human consequences of lawbreaking go from the bottom to the top of American society.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

As reported in "Impeachment?" by Claire Safran, in Redbook (April 1974)
1970s

Stefan Zweig photo
Heath Ledger photo
Shreya Ghoshal photo

“I want to keep working 24*7. When I am not singing, I go into deep introspection mode and start asking myself, why I am not getting much songs. I feel even working 24*7 every day is less for me.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Talked about changes in career after marriage http://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/i-feel-restless-when-i-m-not-singing-want-to-work-24-7-shreya-ghoshal/story-hAKs3O9xVa8bQXvZvKpXIP.html

Barack Obama photo
Kanye West photo
Barack Obama photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Anna Kingsford photo

“Things are not going well for me. My chef at the Charité strongly disapproves of women students and took this means of showing it. About a hundred men (no women except myself) went round the wards today, and when we were all assembled before him to have our names written down, he called and named all the students except me, and then closed the book. I stood forward upon this, and said quietly, "Et moi aussi, monsieur." [And me, Sir. ] He turned on me sharply, and cried, "Vous, vous n'êtes ni homme ni femme; je ne veux pas inscrire vôtre nom."”

Anna Kingsford (1846–1888) English physician, activist and feminist

[You, you are neither man nor woman; I don't want to write your name.] I stood silent in the midst of a dead silence.
Written to her husband in 1874; quoted in The Scalpel and the Butterfly by Deborah Rudacille (University of California Press, 2000), p. 35 https://books.google.it/books?id=BabamiCYEdUC&pg=PA35.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Muhammad bin Qasim photo

“On the receipt of this letter, Hijaj obtained the consent of Wuleed, the son of Abdool Mullik, to invade India, for the purpose of propagating the faith and at the same time deputed a chief of the name of Budmeen, with three hundred cavalry, to join Haroon in Mikran, who was directed to reinforce the party with one thousand good soldiers more to attack Deebul. Budmeen failed in his expedition, and lost his life in the first action. Hijaj, not deterred by this defeat, resolved to follow up the enterprise by another. In consequence, in the year AH 93 (AD 711) he deputed his cousin and son-in-law, Imad-ood-Deen Mahomed Kasim, the son of Akil Shukhfy, then only seventeen years of age, with six thousand soldiers, chiefly Assyrians, with the necessary implements for taking forts, to attack Deebul'… 'On reaching this place, he made preparations to besiege it, but the approach was covered by a fortified temple, surrounded by strong wall, built of hewn stone and mortar, one hundred and twenty feet in height. After some time a bramin, belonging to the temple, being taken, and brought before Kasim, stated, that four thousand Rajpoots defended the place, in which were from two to three thousand bramins, with shorn heads, and that all his efforts would be vain; for the standard of the temple was sacred; and while it remained entire no profane foot dared to step beyond the threshold of the holy edifice. Mahomed Kasim having caused the catapults to be directed against the magic flag-staff, succeeded, on the third discharge, in striking the standard, and broke it down… Mahomed Kasim levelled the temple and its walls with the ground and circumcised the brahmins. The infidels highly resented this treatment, by invectives against him and the true faith. On which Mahomed Kasim caused every brahmin, from the age of seventeen and upwards, to be put to death; the young women and children of both sexes were retained in bondage and the old women being released, were permitted to go whithersoever they chose… On reaching Mooltan, Mahomed Kasim also subdued that province; and himself occupying the city, he erected mosques on the site of the Hindoo temples.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 234-238

Ted Bundy photo
John Lennon photo

“Christ, you know it ain't easy
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
they're going to crucify me.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Ballad of John and Yoko" (1969)
Lyrics

Lady Gaga photo
Jennifer Aniston photo

“But you know, it isn't designed. Love just shows up and you go, "Oh, wow, this is going to be a hayride and a half."”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Interview for Vogue magazine (December 2008)

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“I saw, all of a sudden, an odd-looking bird making its way through the water to the opposite bank, followed by a great commotion. I found it was a domestic fowl which had managed to escape impending doom in the galley by jumping overboard and was now trying frantically to swim across. It had almost gained the bank when the clutches of its relentless pursuers closed on it, and it was brought back in triumph, gripped by the neck. I told the cook I would not have any meat for dinner. I really must give up animal food. We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us ⎯ in fact, any one who does not join in is dubbed a crank. … if, after our pity is aroused, we persist in throttling our feelings simply in order to join others in their preying upon life, we insult all that is good in us. I have decided to try a vegetarian diet.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy photo
Stan Lee photo
Barack Obama photo
Warren Buffett photo

“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (1995), by Roger Lowenstein, p. 77

Dhirubhai Ambani photo
Pope Francis photo
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi photo

“It is possible for every man to go deep within and saturate his conscious mind with inner happiness with that unlimited intelligence that dwells at the source of thought.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) Inventor of Transcendental Meditation, musician

Quoted from: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - Lake Louise, Canada (1968) - MaharishiUniversity http://www.bienfaits-meditation.com/en/maharishi/videos/mechanics-of-the-technique

Kelly Rowland photo
Barack Obama photo
Robert Browning photo
Thomas Paine photo
Socrates photo
Barack Obama photo
Mark Twain photo
Sylvia Plath photo
Barack Obama photo

“Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know he — oh, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on those dollar bills.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Campaign rally in Springfield, Missouri, July 30, 2008 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iNxTApa2sQRu0Xx99P3jt2bEXw7gD928U6F00
2008

Barack Obama photo

“[T]he most important position in a democracy is not the office of the President. The most important office is the office of citizen, because if you have citizens who are informed and know about other countries, and recognize that if we provide foreign aid to some distant country in Africa, that ultimately may make us healthier. And if you have a citizenry that recognizes that even if I have to pay slightly more in taxes — which nobody likes paying taxes -- but if I do, maybe I can provide that young child who lives in a poorer neighborhood an opportunity for a better life. And then because she has a job and a better life, she can pay taxes, and then everybody has more, and the society is better off. If you don't have citizens like that, then you're going to get leaders who think very narrowly and you'll be disappointed. So the job — one thing I always tell young people, don't just think that you elect somebody and then you expect them to solve all your problems and then you just sit back and complain when it doesn't happen. You have to work as a citizen also to provide the leaders the space and the direction to do the right thing. It's just as important for you to challenge ignorance or discrimination or people who are always thinking in terms of war”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

it's just as important for you to do that as the President because I don't care how good the person, the leader you elect is, if the people want something different. In a democracy, at least, that's what's going to happen.
2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)

Jane Goodall photo
Karl Dönitz photo

“The north German does not go in for extremes. He has broader horizons than the men from the mountains of Bavaria and Austria.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, March 3, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

Syd Barrett photo
Henry M. Jackson photo

“The danger of Americans being killed, the danger of divisiveness that would accrue from those developments … are all too real. A superpower should not play that kind of role in a cauldron of trouble, because sooner or later we are going to get hurt.”

Henry M. Jackson (1912–1983) American politician

on Reagan's 1982 decision to send troops to Lebanon) Harrop, Froma. " Dems Need Another Scoop Jackson http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_23_05_FH.html", RealClearPolitics, 11-23-2005.

Suman Pokhrel photo

“The dream too thinks twice,
gets filtered to go soft
to be seated on children's eyes.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Children http://www.occupypoetry.net/children_1/</span>
From Poetry

Kanye West photo
Ben Carson photo

“If things do go badly, will I wonder for the rest of my life what I might have done to help?”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 20

Socrates photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Rosie Malek-Yonan photo

“Anytime the western countries go to war in the Middle East, it becomes a religious war.”

Rosie Malek-Yonan (1965) Assyrian actress, author, director, public figure and human rights activist

As quoted in "For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/world/middleeast/26christians.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=middleeast&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin#125%u201CAnyt427+1e60d401 (26 June 2008), by Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times, New York: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., p. 1.

Abraham Lincoln photo
Malcolm X photo
Steve Jobs photo

“If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt if I would have bought the company.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

As quoted in Fortune (18 September 1995)
1990s

Muammar Gaddafi photo

“I am not going to leave this land. I will die as a martyr at the end. I shall remain, defiant. Muammar is Leader of the Revolution until the end of time.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Televised address to the nation, quoted in guardian.co.uk (22 February 2011) " Gaddafi urges violent showdown and tells Libya 'I'll die a martyr' http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/muammar-gaddafi-urges-violent-showdown?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487" by Ian Black
Speeches

Barack Obama photo
Galileo Galilei photo
Barack Obama photo

“The demographics of the country are going to change. It's inevitable. The Latino community in America is going to grow. If you stopped all immigration today, just by virtue of birth rates, this is going to be a browner country.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

NPR's Exit Interview With President Obama http://www.npr.org/2016/12/19/504998487/transcript-and-video-nprs-exit-interview-with-president-obama (19 December 2016)
2016

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“As for your artificial conception of "splendid & traditional ways of life"—I feel quite confident that you are very largely constructing a mythological idealisation of something which never truly existed; a conventional picture based on the perusal of books which followed certain hackneyed lines in the matter of incidents, sentiments, & situations, & which never had a close relationship to the actual societies they professed to depict... In some ways the life of certain earlier periods had marked advantages over life today, but there were compensating disadvantages which would make many hesitate about a choice. Some of the most literarily attractive ages had a coarseness, stridency, & squalor which we would find insupportable... Modern neurotics, lolling in stuffed easy chairs, merely make a myth of these old periods & use them as the nuclei of escapist daydreams whose substance resembles but little the stern actualities of yesterday. That is undoubtedly the case with me—only I'm fully aware of it. Except in certain selected circles, I would undoubtedly find my own 18th century insufferably coarse, orthodox, arrogant, narrow, & artificial. What I look back upon nostalgically is a dream-world which I invented at the age of four from picture books & the Georgian hill streets of Old Providence.... There is something artificial & hollow & unconvincing about self-conscious intellectual traditionalism—this being, of course, the only valid objection against it. The best sort of traditionalism is that easy-going eclectic sort which indulges in no frenzied pulmotor stunts, but courses naturally down from generation to generation; bequeathing such elements as really are sound, losing such as have lost value, & adding any which new conditions may make necessary.... In short, young man, I have no quarrel with the principle of traditionalism as such, but I have a decided quarrel with everything that is insincere, inappropriate, & disproportionate; for these qualities mean ugliness & weakness in the most offensive degree. I object to the feigning of artificial moods on the part of literary moderns who cannot even begin to enter into the life & feelings of the past which they claim to represent... If there were any reality or depth of feeling involved, the case would be different; but almost invariably the neotraditionalists are sequestered persons remote from any real contacts or experience with life... For any person today to fancy he can truly enter into the life & feeling of another period is really nothing but a confession of ignorance of the depth & nature of life in its full sense. This is the case with myself. I feel I am living in the 18th century, though my objective judgment knows better, & realises the vast difference from the real thing. The one redeeming thing about my ignorance of life & remoteness from reality is that I am fully conscious of it, hence (in the last few years) make allowances for it, & do not pretend to an impossible ability to enter into the actual feelings of this or any other age. The emotions of the past were derived from experiences, beliefs, customs, living conditions, historic backgrounds, horizons, &c. &c. so different from our own, that it is simply silly to fancy we can duplicate them, or enter warmly & subjectively into all phases of their aesthetic expression.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 307
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Katherine Paterson photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Barack Obama photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Henri Nouwen photo
Little Richard photo
Anne Frank photo

“At such moments I don't think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains. This is where Mother and I differ greatly. Her advice in the face of melancholy is: "Think about all the suffering in the world and be thankful you're not part of it." My advice is: "Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy."”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Dan denk ik niet aan al de ellende, maar aan het mooie dat nog overblijft. Hierin ligt voor een groot deel het verschil tussen moeder en mij. Haar raad voor zwaarmoedigheid is: "Denk aan al de ellende in de wereld en wees blij, dat jij die niet beleeft!"
Mijn raad is: "Ga naar buiten, naar de velden, de natuur en de zon, ga naar buiten en probeer het geluk in jezelf te hervinden en in God. Denk aan al het mooie dat er in en om jezelf nog overblijft en wees gelukkig!"
7 March 1944
Variant translations:
:Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
Think of all the beauty that is still left in and around you and be happy!
(1942 - 1944)

Ronald Reagan photo

“Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea they're using them to influence other Americans. There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

California Legislature Stunned By Invasion Of Armed "Black Panthers" https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2202&dat=19670503&id=ClcmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZP8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1072,5010951&hl=en, Gettysburg Times (3 May 1967)
1960s

Rick Santorum photo

“I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Santorum targets blacks in entitlement reform
2012-01-02
Lucy
Madison
Political Hotsheet
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57350990-503544/santorum-targets-blacks-in-entitlement-reform/
2012-01-19

Utah Phillips photo
Hans-Hermann Hoppe photo
Lana Del Rey photo
Henri Barbusse photo
A. S. Byatt photo
Martin Lewis Perl photo

“It is always a good plan for a speculative experimenter to have two experiments going, or at least one going and one being built.”

Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) American scientist

Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1995/perl-lecture.html, Martin L. Perl, The Nobel Prize in Physics 1995
Nobel prize lecture

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Hugh Laurie photo

“I don't believe in God, but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted he’d take it away. So he'll be like: 'You think this is going pretty well?”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

Then he'll go and send down some big disaster.
Stargazing: Heather's Angry, Jane is Ill, Hugh is Anxious Kansas City Star, Wed, Oct. 31, 2007

Pablo Picasso photo

“It is my misfortune - and probably my delight - to use things as my passions tell me. What a miserable fate for a painter who adores blondes to have to stop himself putting them into a picture because they don't go with the basket of fruit!”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Herschel Browning Chip (1968, p. 267).
(another and longer version:) What a sad fate for a painter who loves blondes, but who refrains from putting them in his picture because they don’t go with the basket of fruit! What misery for a painter who hates apples to be obliged to use them all the time because they go with the cloth! I put everything I love in my paintings. So much the worse for the things, they have only to arrange themselves with one another
Richard Friendenthal (1963, p. 256).
1930s, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

“I am easy-going right up to the borders of my self-interest.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

City Aphorisms, Sixth Selection (1989)

Larry David photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Robert Browning photo

“Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone on the poet's pages.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Women and Roses.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Charles Demuth photo

“There is a war against vice in Lancaster. I am going home to speak for vice.”

Charles Demuth (1883–1935) American painter

Quoted in Speaking for Vice: Homosexuality in the Art of Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, and the First American Avant-Garde by Jonathan Weinberg (Yale University Press, 1993).

Norman Cousins photo

“Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Anatomy of an Illness (1979)

Tupac Shakur photo
Frank Zappa photo
Jesse Owens photo

“I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

On his final record-breaking leap in the long-jump competition.
Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

John N. Mitchell photo

“This country is going so far to the right you won't recognize it.”

John N. Mitchell (1913–1988) former US attorney general, Watergate felon

To a reporter, mentioned in :
John N. Mitchell Dies at 75; Major Figure in Watergate, November 10, 1988, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/10/obituaries/john-n-mitchell-dies-at-75-major-figure-in-watergate.html?pagewanted=all,

Jennifer Beals photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Arthur Miller photo
William Wilberforce photo

“If then we would indeed be “filled with wisdom and spiritual understanding;” if we would “walk worthy of the Lord unto all well pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;” here let us fix our eyes! “Laying aside every weight, and the sin that does so easily beset us; let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Here best we may learn the infinite importance of Christianity. How little it can deserve to be treated in that slight and superficial way, in which it is in these days regarded by the bulk of nominal Christians, who are apt to think it may be enough, and almost equally pleasing to God, to be religious in any way, and upon any system. What exquisite folly it must be to risk the soul on such a venture, in direct contradiction to the dictates of reason, and the express declaration of the word of God! “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we shall best learn the duty and reasonableness of an absolute and unconditional surrender of soul and body to the will and service of God.—“We are not our own; for we are bought with a price,” and must “therefore” make it our grand concern to “glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are God’s.” Should we be base enough, even if we could do it with safety, to make any reserves in our returns of service to that gracious Saviour, who “gave up himself for us?” If we have formerly talked of compounding by the performance of some commands for the breach of others; can we now bear the mention of a composition of duties, or of retaining to ourselves the right of practising little sins! The very suggestion of such an idea fills us with indignation and shame, if our hearts be not dead to every sense of gratitude.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we find displayed, in the most lively colours, the guilt of sin, and how hateful it must be to the perfect holiness of that Being, “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” When we see that, rather than sin should go unpunished, “God spared not his own Son,” but “was pleased[99], to bruise him and put him to grief” for our sakes; how vainly must impenitent sinners flatter themselves with the hope of escaping the vengeance of Heaven, and buoy themselves up with I know not what desperate dreams of the Divine benignity!
Here too we may anticipate the dreadful sufferings of that state, “where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth;” when rather than that we should undergo them, “the Son of God” himself, who “thought it no robbery to be equal with God,” consented to take upon him our degraded nature with all its weaknesses and infirmities; to be “a man of sorrows,” “to hide not his face from shame and spitting,” “to be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities,” and at length to endure the sharpness of death, “even the death of the Cross,” that he might “deliver us from the wrath to come,” and open the kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here best we may learn to grow in the love of God! The certainty of his pity and love towards repenting sinners, thus irrefragably demonstrated, chases away the sense of tormenting fear, and best lays the ground in us of a reciprocal affection. And while we steadily contemplate this wonderful transaction, and consider in its several relations the amazing truth, that “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;” if our minds be not utterly dead to every impulse of sensibility, the emotions of admiration, of preference, of hope, and trust, and joy, cannot but spring up within us, chastened with reverential fear, and softened and quickened by overflowing gratitude. Here we shall become animated by an abiding disposition to endeavour to please our great Benefactor; and by a humble persuasion, that the weakest endeavours of this nature will not be despised by a Being, who has already proved himself so kindly affected towards us. Here we cannot fail to imbibe an earnest desire of possessing his favour, and a conviction, founded on his own declarations thus unquestionably confirmed, that the desire shall not be disappointed. Whenever we are conscious that we have offended this gracious Being, a single thought of the great work of Redemption will be enough to fill us with compunction. We shall feel a deep concern, grief mingled with indignant shame, for having conducted ourselves so unworthily towards one who to us has been infinite in kindness: we shall not rest till we have reason to hope that he is reconciled to us; and we shall watch over our hearts and conduct in future with a renewed jealousy, [Pg 243] lest we should again offend him. To those who are ever so little acquainted with the nature of the human mind, it were superfluous to remark, that the affections and tempers which have been enumerated, are the infallible marks and the constituent properties of Love. Let him then who would abound and grow in this Christian principle, be much conversant with the great doctrines of the Gospel.
It is obvious, that the attentive and frequent consideration of these great doctrines, must have a still more direct tendency to produce and cherish in our minds the principle of the love of Christ.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 240-243.

Barack Obama photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Gregory of Nyssa photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo