Quotes about purity (309 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“He had utter disdain for the Nazis and had no time for their racial purity agenda.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

Nuremberg Trial transcripts

Time

“Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Justice

“Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.”

Yukio Mishima book Runaway Horses

Source: Runaway Horses

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/06/02/books/book-reviews/yukio-mishimas-demons-full-force-runaway-horses/ note: Runaway Horses (1969)

Life , Perfection

“I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Hate

“We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we’re faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

“Parents always live a less pure life than their children, because they condone everything they do. The ability to condone everything in oneself but practically nothing in one's children is the boon that "experience" bestows on humanity. What parents call experience is really nothing but attempts, successful to the point of sheer cynicism, to belie everything which they found pure, true and right when they were young. They themselves don't notice the awful cynicism behind this incessant talk of "experience" being the highest aim in life: they only notice "inexperience" in their children, that is, the form of inexperience called purity and integrity, and then they get annoyed.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 135

Life , Children , Parent , Success

“I would like to think there's some purity in us, yeah. Naive - y'know, purposely naive.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

From an interview on MTV with Zeca Camargo, 1993-01-21, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Interviews (1989-1994), Video

Thinking

“God has conferred upon men liberty of their own will, in order that by purity and sinlessness of life they may become like unto God.”

Pope Sixtus I (42) pope

As quoted in On Nature and Grace, Ch. 77, by Augustine of Hippo, as translated by Peter Holmes, Robert Ernest Wallis and Benjamin B Warfield in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 5 (1887), edited by Philip Schaf, p. 148
The quote above is actually from a Pythagorean philosopher. Pelagius attributed the quote to Pope Sixtus, and Augustine followed his lead until he discovered the error. Augustine himself corrects the source of the quote in the "Retractations" section of his book.

Life , Men , God

“In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.”

Ellen G. White book Christ's Object Lessons

Christ's Object Lessons (1900)
Context: Through the creation we are to become acquainted with the Creator. The book of nature is a great lesson book, which in connection with the Scriptures we are to use in teaching others of His character, and guiding lost sheep back to the fold of God. As the works of God are studied, the Holy Spirit flashes conviction into the mind. It is not the conviction that logical reasoning produces; but unless the mind has become too dark to know God, the eye too dim to see Him, the ear too dull to hear His voice, a deeper meaning is grasped, and the sublime, spiritual truths of the written word are impressed on the heart.
In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.

God , Peace , Beauty , Soul

“Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader

Peace , Soul , Nature , Appearance

“… of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.”

Yukio Mishima book Confessions of a Mask

Source: Confessions of a Mask

World

“By two wings is man lifted above earthly things, even by
simplicity and purity. Simplicity ought to be in the intention,
purity in the affection.”

Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 545.
Source: The Imitation of Christ
Context: Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention — purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God,— purity apprehends and tastes Him.

“My ideal of a woman is a combination of sacrifice, care and purity at one place. Sacrifice without a hope for reward, without showing any dissatisfaction and purity like Ceaser’s wife, which does not bring any regret.”

Premchand (1880–1936) Hindi writer

He wrote many of his novels in Hindi on his avowed words, in page=90.
Portrayal of Women in Premchands Stories A Critique

Hope

“In our society, defecation involves an individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with the cleanliness and purity standards expressed in many of our performances. Such activity also causes the individual to disarrange his clothing and to 'go out of play," that is, to drop from his face the expressive mask that he employs in face-to-face interaction. At the same time it becomes difficult for him to reassemble his personal front should the need to enter into interaction suddenly occur. Perhaps that is a reason why toilet doors in our society have locks on them.”

Erving Goffman book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Source: 1950s-1960s, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959, p. 121 (1973 edition)

Time , Personality , Clothes

“I have experienced personally over the past few years how a purity of diet and thought are interrelated. And when Americans become truly concerned with the purity of the food that enters their own personal systems, when they learn to eat properly, we can expect to see profound changes effected in the social and political system of this nation. The two systems are inseparable.”

Dick Gregory (1932–2017) American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur

Dick Gregory's Political Primer (Harper & Row, 1972), p. 262.

Food , Learning , Change , Past

“Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism, took another line. His force lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had interwoven with governments. It was not from the purity of his principles, or his love of mankind (for satire and philanthropy are not naturally concordant), but from his strong capacity of seeing folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity to expose it, that he made those attacks. They were, however, as formidable as if the motive had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks rather than the esteem of mankind.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Love , Motivation , Nature , Strong

“To say it once again: today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused, sentimental, in some places saccharine-sweet to the point of effeminacy, uneven in pace, lacking in any desire for logical purity, so sure of its convictions that it is above any need for proof, and even suspicious of the propriety of proof, a book for initiates, 'music' for those who have been baptized in the name of music and who are related from the first by their common and rare experiences of art, a shibboleth for first cousins in artibus [in the arts] an arrogant and fanatical book that wished from the start to exclude the profanum vulgus [the profane mass] of the 'educated' even more than the 'people'; but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Nochmals gesagt, heute ist es mir ein unmögliches Buch, - ich heisse es schlecht geschrieben, schwerfällig, peinlich, bilderwüthig und bilderwirrig, gefühlsam, hier und da verzuckert bis zum Femininischen, ungleich im Tempo, ohne Willen zur logischen Sauberkeit, sehr überzeugt und deshalb des Beweisens sich überhebend, misstrauisch selbst gegen die Schicklichkeit des Beweisens, als Buch für Eingeweihte, als "Musik" für Solche, die auf Musik getauft, die auf gemeinsame und seltene Kunst-Erfahrungen hin von Anfang der Dinge an verbunden sind, als Erkennungszeichen für Blutsverwandte in artibus, - ein hochmüthiges und schwärmerisches Buch, das sich gegen das profanum vulgus der "Gebildeten" von vornherein noch mehr als gegen das "Volk" abschliesst, welches aber, wie seine Wirkung bewies und beweist, sich gut genug auch darauf verstehen muss, sich seine Mitschwärmer zu suchen und sie auf neue Schleichwege und Tanzplätze zu locken.
"Attempt at a Self-Criticism", p. 5
The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

People , Secret , Books , Education

“The impetuous conquests of Alexander, the more politic and premeditated extension of territory made by the Romans, the wild and cruel incursions of the Mexicans, and the despotic acquisitions of the incas, have in both hemispheres contributed to put an end to the separate existence of many tribes as independent nations, and tended at the same time to establish more extended international amalgamation. Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole nations, acted under the influence of one idea, the purity of which was, however, utterly unknown to them. It was Christianity which first promulgated the truth of its exalted charity, although the seed sown yielded but a slow and scanty harvest. Before the religion of Christ manifested its form, its existence was only revealed by a faint foreshadowing presentiment. In recent times, the idea of civilization has acquired additional intensity, and has given rise to a desire of extending more widely the relations of national intercourse and of intellectual cultivation; even selfishness begins to learn that by such a course its interests will be better served than by violent and forced isolation. Language more than any other attribute of mankind, binds together the whole human race. By its idiomatic properties it certainly seems to separate nations, but the reciprocal understanding of foreign languages connects men together on the other hand without injuring individual national characteristics.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Kosmos (1847)

Men , Truth , Religion , Idea

“Truth, like a woman, must be wooed and won - and this only through the purity of mind and the heart’s deep love.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: The Wild (1995), p. 388

Love , Truth , Heart

“I come to understand what purity is: it means to feel something so wholeheartedly that it shrivels up all doubts, all cowardice and all considerations within one.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 199

Feeling , Understanding

“When a man has a passion for a woman, and when that passion is of such a nature that he regards her with reverent admiration as an image of purity, none the less, in the unconscious, his desires turn towards bodily fulfillment, none the less the goal of physical possession is prefigured in the deepest recesses of his imagination. But when the passion is confined to the realm of the spirit, and, in that realm, is a man's passion for a man, how can it seek fulfillment? Unrestingly, the fancy wanders over the honored form, flaming up again and again to fresh ecstasy, but never finding repose in a last surrender. It flows on without pause in a current that can never empty the reservoir from which it comes. This passion is insatiable, as the spirit invariably is.”

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer

Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)

Imagination , Nature , Passion

“The soul has a hidden abyss,
untouched by time and space,
which is far superior to anything
that gives life and movement to the body.
Into this noble and wondrous ground,
this secret realm,
there descends that bliss of which we have spoken.
Here the soul has its eternal abode.
Here a man becomes so still and essential,
so single-minded and withdrawn,
so raised up in purity,
and more and more removed from all things. . . .
This state of the soul cannot be compared to what it has been before,
for now it is granted to share in the divine life The soul has a hidden abyss, untouched by time and space…Here the soul has its eternal abode itself.”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

Sermons

Life , Secret , Soul , Time

“But when returning into herself she [the soul] reflects; then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Wisdom , Way , Soul

“Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

IV, 11
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

People

“It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure the rigour of the proofs. But many mathematicians seem to have so little feeling for logical purity and accuracy that they will use a word to mean three or four different things, sooner than make the frightful decision to invent a new word.”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Gottlob Frege in: Dagobert David Runes (1962). Readings in epistemology, theory of knowledge and dialectics. p. 334

Feeling , Decision

“Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Solitude

“Was it an intellectual consequence of this ‘rebirth,’ of this new dignity and rigor, that, at about the same time, his sense of beauty was observed to undergo an almost excessive resurgence, that his style took on the noble purity, simplicity and symmetry that were to set upon all his subsequent works that so evident and evidently intentional stamp of the classical master.”

Thomas Mann book Death in Venice

Source: Death in Venice (1912), Ch. 2, as translated by David Luke

Beauty , Sense , Time

“When a married person uses pornography, or is unfaithful, it compromises not just his (or her) purity, but also compromises the spouse's purity. As a church, we need to teach a higher standard than abstinence. We need to preach a righteous lifestyle.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

Christine
O'Donnell
The Case for Chastity
The Cultural Dissident
1998-11-09
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=095_1283476019
2010-10-20

Unfaithfulness , Personality

“In executing the duties of my present important station, I can promise nothing but purity of intentions, and, in carrying these into effect, fidelity and diligence.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Message to the U.S. Congress (9 July 1789); The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private (1837) edited by Jared Sparks, p. 159 (PDF) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC29437768&id=qy2nqT6FnLMC&pg=RA1-PA159&lpg=RA1-PA159&dq=%22carrying+these+into+effect,+fidelity+and+diligence%22&num=100
1780s

“Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition?
Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression?
Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption.
It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 257.

Love , Men , Hostility , World

“I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that the words I first used, perfection, purity, and the like, seem to me now mere lies in the presence of truth…. Nor can I any longer say, “My God, my all.” Everything is mine, for all that is God’s seem to be wholly mine. I am mute and lost in God… God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Source: Life and Doctrine, p. 50

Love , God , Truth , Feeling

“Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.”

Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990) American jazz singer

Interview, The Los Angeles Times, 1969

Soul

“There also exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out. There has to be continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. So a third principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 231
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Wisdom , Angels , Idea , Reality

“I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can … But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Rolling Stone interview (1980)

Love , Life , Peace , Soul

“I do not wish a love which may be described as for God, or in God. I cannot see those words, for and in, without their suggesting to me that something may intervene between God and me; and that is what pure and simple love, by reason of its purity and simplicity, is unable to endure. This purity and simplicity is as great as God is, for it is his own”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Source: Life and Doctrine, Ch. XVIII

Love , God

“The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Love , God , People , Books

“The negro is fundamentally the biological inferior of all White and even Mongolian races, and the Northern people must occasionally be reminded of the danger which they incur in admitting him too freely to the privileges of society and government. …The Birth of a Nation, … is said to furnish a remarkable insight into the methods of the Ku-Klux-Klan, that noble but much maligned band of Southerners who saved half of our country from destruction at the close of the Civil War. The Conservative has not yet witnessed the picture in question, but he has seen both in literary and dramatic form The Clansman, that stirring, though crude and melodramatic story by Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., on which The Birth of a Nation is based, and has likewise made a close historical study of the Klu-Klux-Klan, finding as a result of his research nothing but Honour, Chivalry, and Patriotism in the activities of the Invisible Empire. The Klan merely did for the people what the law refused to do, removing the ballot from unfit hands and restoring to the victims of political vindictiveness their natural rights. The alleged lawbreaking of the Klan was committed only by irresponsible miscreants who, after the dissolution of the Order by its Grand Wizard, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, used its weird masks and terrifying costumes to veil their unorganised villainies.
Race prejudice is a gift of Nature, intended to preserve in purity the various divisions of mankind which the ages have evolved.”

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

Response to observations made in In A Minor Key by Charles D. Isaacson, in The Conservative, Vol. I, No. 2, (1915), p. 4
Non-Fiction

War , People , Age , Law

“Drunkards vaunt their bravery when you speak of war.
But in the blaze of battle they scatter like mice.
I'm astonished by the man who wants purity
And yet trembles when the harshness of polishing begin…
When a man beats a carpet again and again
It's not the carpet he's attacking, but the dirt in it.”

Rumi Masnavi

Mathnawi
Teachings of Rumi (1999)
Context: "There's no courage", The Prophet said, "before the war has begun."
Drunkards vaunt their bravery when you speak of war.
But in the blaze of battle they scatter like mice.
I'm astonished by the man who wants purity
And yet trembles when the harshness of polishing begin...
When a man beats a carpet again and again
It's not the carpet he's attacking, but the dirt in it.

War

“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke — you should get over that quickly. … The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you. … I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media — there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show … That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

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

Comments at an Obama Foundation event, Chicago (29 October 2019), as quoted in "Obama Calls Out Online Call-Out Culture: 'That’s Not Activism"", Rolling Stone (30 October 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-calls-out-call-out-culture-not-activism-905600/
2019

People , Fight , Way , Sense

“Shariputra, it is the failings of living beings that prevent them from seeing the marvelous purity of the land of the Buddha, the Thus Come One. The Thus Come One is not to blame. Shariputra, this land of mine is pure, but you fail to see it.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Mahayana, Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter I, as translated by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0231106572.

“Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention — purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God,— purity apprehends and tastes Him.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 545.

God

“From praise comes joy, from joy – strength, from strength – virtue, from virtue – purity and from purity comes realization of one’s full potential.”

Leon MacLaren (1910–1994) British philosopher

Leon MacLaren, The Machinery of Government, 1998

Joy

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Water , Weather

“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Water

“I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that the words I first used, perfection, purity, and the like, seem to me now mere lies in the presence of truth. . . . Nor can I any longer say, “My God, my all.””

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Everything is mine, for all that is God’s seem to be wholly mine. I am mute and lost in God...God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God, and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued
Source: Life and Doctrine, p. 50

God , Perfection , Truth , Feeling

“There's something evil in me that loves evil and degradation--purity's black backside! That loves honesty with a horrid love; or why have I always gone seeking it at the liar's door?”

Djuna Barnes book Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

Love , Evil

“I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Solitude

“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Peaceful , War , Truth , Peace

“She represents love, beauty, purity, the ideal female and the moon… and she's the mystère of jealousy, vengeance and discord, AND, on the other hand, of love, perpetual help, goodwill, health, beauty and fortune.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

Love , Health , Jealousy , Beauty

“Purity in body and heart
May please some--as for me, I make no boast.
For, as you know, no master of a household
Has all of his utensils made of gold;
Some are wood, and yet they are of use.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

Source: The Canterbury Tales

Heart

“If you accept such love with purity and humility, you will understand that Love is neither giving nor receiving -it is participating.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

Love , Understanding

“Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

Truth , Nature

“Weren't you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren't you supposed to be saving yourself?" Shanti asked.

"Yeah," Mary Lou answered. "And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Sex , Christmas

“If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

Heart

“The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,—
And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!”

George Gordon Byron book The Bride of Abydos

Canto I, Stanza 6; this can be compared to: "The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love", Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy I. 3, line 16; also: "Oh, could you view the melody / Of every grace / And music of her face", Richard Lovelace, Orpheus to Beasts; "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix.
The Bride of Abydos (1813)

Love , Music , Soul , Light

“A single white roes goes with everything, doesn´t it, and it symbolizes purity.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

“This must be part of Mother Nature's master plan—making these boys so irresistibly cute, in such a naughty way, that the purity of their intentions becomes irrelevant.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Way , Boy , Nature , Parting

“It was the work of the quiet mountains, this torrent of purity at my feet.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Mountain

“All that remains of that minute is time in all its purity, bone-white time.”

Marguerite Duras book The Ravishing of Lol Stein

Source: The Ravishing of Lol Stein

Time

“Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Heart

“True affection and love have a purity which shall always prevail over bigotry.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Love

“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”

James Baldwin book Nobody Knows My Name

"The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" in Esquire (May 1961)
Variant: Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
Source: Nobody Knows My Name

Imagination , Heart

“Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Bird , Flying

“We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

World , Happiness

“The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.”

Shan Sa book Empress

Source: Empress

World , Solitude

“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

"Trefusis Blasphemes" radio broadcast, as published in Paperweight (1993)
1990s
Context: I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.

Truth , Lovers , Freedom

“Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.”

Umberto Eco book The Prague Cemetery

Source: The Prague Cemetery

“I am there where it is spoken that the universe is a defect in the purity of non-being.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist

Universe

“Christ did not die to make good works merely possible or to produce a half-hearted pursuit. He died to produce in us a passion for good deeds. Christian purity is not the mere avoidance of evil, but the pursuit of good.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: The Passion of Jesus Christ

Passion , Evil , Heart , Christ

“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Freedom

“Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Love , God , Beauty

“Ideologies that seek a return to a mythical purity are flying in the face of hard science.”

David Reich (geneticist) book Who We Are and How We Got Here

David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2018, p.179

Science , Flying

“One is tempted to call them works of genius; they are quite Homeric in their internal unity, purity of phrasing, clear, ringing music of language and dramatic coloring.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Lin Carter, Dragons, Elves, and Heroes (New York: Ballantine, 1971) p. 76.
Criticism

Music , Color

“You do not believe that souls are assigned, first to one body and then to another, and that our so-called death is merely a change of abode? You do not believe that in cattle, or in wild beasts, or in creatures of the deep, the soul of him who was once a man may linger? You do not believe that nothing on this earth is annihilated, but only changes its haunts? And that animals also have cycles of progress and, so to speak, an orbit for their souls, no less than the heavenly bodies, which revolve in fixed circuits? Great men have put faith in this idea; therefore, while holding to your own view, keep the whole question in abeyance in your mind. If the theory is true, it is a mark of purity to refrain from eating flesh; if it be false, it is economy. And what harm does it do to you to give such credence? I am merely depriving you of food which sustains lions and vultures.”

Sotion (Pythagorean) ancient greek philosopher

Quoted in Seneca the Younger, Moral letters to Lucilius, CVIII, 20-21.

Death , Men , Faith , Food

“The pygmies are one of the most cultured peoples on the face of the earth. They live a wonderful life, a life of purity. Not only are they busy and productive, they're happy and healthy as well. If we puny Americans had to live under their conditions, we'd perish in a day. Modern man has much to learn from the people he calls 'savages'. Before we are down to the last blade of grass it would be wise to study the life of the Pygmies. The secret of our own survival rests with them, the people who know how to make the most out of very little and find complete happiness with the bare essentials.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Life , People , Secret , Business

“Out of purity and silence come words of power.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
Variant: Out of purity and silence come words of power.

Silence

“Now, when the notion had once gained ground, whether from causes before suggested or not, that the earth had been destroyed by several general catastrophes, it would next be inferred that the human race had been as often destroyed and renovated. And, since every extermination was assumed to be penal, it could only be reconciled with divine justice, by the supposition that man, at each successive creation, was regenerated in a state of purity and innocence.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.2, p. 12
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Justice , Success

“Investigative practice therefore constitutes an area of considerable anxiety within the discipline of psychology. Concern with questions of methodological orthodoxy often takes the place of concern about theoretical orthodoxy when research or its results are discussed and evaluated. These preoccupations with the purity of method frequently deteriorate to a kind of method fetishism or "methodolatry." From this point of view there may be something distinctly subversive about the suggestion that the sphere of methodology is not a realm of pure reason but an area of human social activity governed by mundane circumstances like any other social activity. Nevertheless, the consequences of this suggestion should be explored, for not to do so exposes one to all the risks entailed by a naive and self-deluded style of scientific practice.”

Kurt Danziger (1926) German academic

Source: Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research. 1994, p. 5-6

Question

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

Love , Life , God , Truth

“Religion, as embodied in the character and conduct of its disciples, cannot survive without doctrinal purity. In the absence of this element, religious feeling inevitably decays; while even religious necessity becomes a thing of naught.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 194.

Religion , Feeling

“On what must an elite be founded? a) Purity of soul. b) Capacity of work and creativity. c) Bravery. d) Tough living and permanent warring against difficulties facing the nation. e) Poverty, namely voluntary renunciation of amassing a fortune. f) Faith in God. g) Love.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Love , God , War , Faith

“Until the age of twelve, then, I only lived on bread, milk-food, vegetables, and fruit. My health was not less robust on this account, nor my growth less rapid, and it was to this diet, perhaps, that I was indebted for that purity of feature, that exquisite sensibility of feeling, and that serene gentleness of humor and character which I had preserved up to that period.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

Book IV, Note VIII, p. 61
Les confidences (1849)

Health , Age , Food , Feeling

“My use of extracts from the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was too much for political purity to take. It didn't matter that I had emphasised, as I do in this book, that this is not a plot by Jewish people; it didn't matter that I renamed them the "Illuminati Protocols" for the specific reason of getting away from their association with Jewish people; it didn't matter that these Protocols, which came to light in the late-1800s, contain details of the very plan of manipulation which has provably unfolded through the twentieth century.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

ibid. p. 453

People , Books , Light

“Grief like anything else – like a stone – is content only; God gives us the form, that serenity, purity and self-possession with which to surround and live grief.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

God

“The more I looked at his face [of Saint Sebastian] the more curious it seemed. That said, I seemed to have always known it and the aseptic morning light revealed its smallest details which such clarity, such purity, that I was impossible moved... In the upper part of the heliometer was St. Sebastian's magnifying glass... I put my eye to the magnifying glass, product of a slow distillation, at once numerical and intuitive. Each drop of water a number. Each drop of blood a geometry.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from his poem 'Sant Sebastia', Salvador Dali 1927 - dedicated to the Spanish poet Lorca; as quoted in Dali and Me, Catherine Millet, - translation Trista Selous -, Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 8001 Zurich Switzerland, p. 46
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1920 - 1930

Light , Water , Parting

“All night I lay awake beside you,
Leaning on my elbow, watching your
Sleeping face, that face whose purity
Never ceases to astonish me.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

In Defense of the Earth (1956), She Is Away

Sleep , Night

“Great talents are not, before God, a substitute for love for Himself; the possession of a profound intellect does not free any man from the obligations resting on the heart for purity and holiness; a reputation for attainments in science does not settle the question whether he is righteous before his Maker; refined manners are not, in the sight of God, a substitute for the graces of the Spirit; God does not justify man on the ground of human learning; attainments in chemistry, anatomy, geology, botany, astronomy, or skill in sculpture and painting, — these do not prepare a man to die.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 114.

Love , God , Question , Learning

“It may seem fanciful, but to me the violet is the very emblem of woman's love; it springs up in secret; it hides its perfume even when gathered; how timidly its deep blue leaves bend on their slight stem! The resemblance may be carried yet further — woman's love is but beautiful in its purity; let the hot breath of passion once sully it, and its beauty is departed — thus as the summer advances, the violet loses its fragrance; June comes, but its odours are fled — the heart too has its June; the flower may remain, but its fragrance is gone for ever.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Other Gift Books

Love , Secret , Beauty , Spring

“The one question, the one principle, the one crisis in art of the twentieth century centers in the uncompromising 'purity' of art, and in the consciousness that art comes from art only, not from anything else.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 155

Art , Question

“For all time to come, the freedom and purity of the press are the test of national virtue and independence. No writer for the press, however humble, is free from the burden of keeping his purpose high and his integrity white.”

John Boyle O'Reilly (1844–1890) Irish-born poet and novelist

Quoted in Roche, James Jeffrey (1891). Life of John Boyle O'Reilly, together with his complete poems and speeches edited by Mrs John Boyle O'Reilly. New York. p 195.

Freedom , Time

““You,” said Purity, “have been long enough out of England to pick up some American brag.”
“But surrounded by Americans as I am,” said Cooper, “my brag is like a farthing in a sack of guineas.””

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 5.

“The outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther's perception of grace in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 49.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

Victory

“The one standard in art is oneness and fineness, rightness and purity, abstractness and evanescence. The one thing to say about art is, its breathlessness, lifelessness, deathlessness, contentlessness, formlessness, spacelessness, and timelessness. This is always the end of art.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 158

Art

“We cannot bring the good old days back but, if we must eat mass-made foods, get laws passed to insist upon its goodness and purity.”

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

September Chapter The Peverel Papers - A yearbook of the countryside ed Julian Shuckburgh Century Hutchinson 1986
The Peverel Papers

Law , Food

“We both may be killed by the Muslims, and must put our purity to the ultimate test, so that we know that we are offering the purest of sacrifices, and we should now both start sleeping naked.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Gandhi's comments privately told to Manuben in 1947. Quoted from Hiro, D. (2015). The longest August: The unflinching rivalry between India and Pakistan. New York, NY: Nation Books.
1940s

Sleep