Quotes about saint
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“The so-called mahatmas and saints are all cowards. I have never come across a single mahatma—Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist—who can be said to be really a rebellious spirit. Unless one is rebellious, one is not religious. Rebellion is the very foundation of religion.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Source: Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), p. 19

Religion

“The saint Mirabai is the most famous of the women saints of India and can be ranked among the foremost of the mystics of the world.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Swami Yatishwaranandji in “Others on Mirabai”

Women, World

“Basava (twelfth century AD), a Saivite saint of South India was a religious teacher, social reformer, and revolutionary who opposed image worship, rejected the Vedas, and the authority of the priests and instituted complete equality among his followers, even equality for women. He was the founder of the Lingayat sect.”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, quoted in [Gandhi, Indira, Selected Thoughts of Indira Gandhi: A Book of Quotes, http://books.google.com/books?id=vJbcODokoHsC&pg=PA35, 1985, Mittal Publications, 35–, GGKEY:A2GGQ58B3WF, 35]

Women, Teachers

“Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Jean-Louis Murat, 2004 http://www.theguardian.com/football/2004/apr/04/sport.features

Smile, Angels

“This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Death, God, Hate, Bad luck

“The church shall be catholic, chaste and free: catholic in faith and the communion of saints, chaste from all contagion of evil, and free from all secular power.”

Pope Urban II (1035–1099) pope

Decree http://prh3.arts.cornell.edu/259/texts/clermont.html, also quoted in Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (1991), p. 125

Faith, Evil

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Source: The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981), No. 52: To his son Christopher Tolkien (29 November, 1943)

Men

“Every creative impulse is shadowed by a possessive impulse; even the aspirant to saintliness may be jealous of the more successful saint.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Success

“Please, by all the blessed saints and their bladders, tell me you two didn’t…Have you lost all semblance of intelligence? (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Intelligence

“When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

People, Angels

“The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

“Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.”

Corey Robin (1967) American academic

Source: The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

“How can you possibly believe he really loves you?” Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier’s hand.“You have no choice,” Mr. Whittier tells her. “If you need to be loved.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

Love

“One does not cross-examine a saint.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Les Misérables

“I hated labels anyway. People didn’t fit in slots—prostitute, housewife, saint—like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Variant: I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.
Source: White Oleander

Hate, People, Fear, Water

“Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

“.. nothing in your past can change how I feel about you. And God knows I’m no saint.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

God, Feeling, Change, Past

“No one awakens in the morning thinking they will die that day. Not a saint or a sinner. Not even a condemned killer. We all know were mortal, and yet we all believe we'll live forever.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Thirst No. 3: The Eternal Dawn

Thinking

“Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Madness, Night

“Saint Claire, the patron saint of the kick-me sign.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: The Dead Girls' Dance

“I didn't seem to have that effect on anyone but it would have been a waste for both of us to be saints.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Source: How I Live Now

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Variant: I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.

Cry

“The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History
Context: The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.

Men

“Everyone is a hypocrite in one sense or another and I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Sense, Cry

“Looks like it's time to liven up this dead little town!" - Saint Dane (The Reality Bug)”

D.J. MacHale book The Reality Bug

Source: The Reality Bug

Reality, Time, Dead

“I sell dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crashing among the hazels and nougatines”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

Dreams

“Saint, n. A dead sinner, revised and edited.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Dead

“Everything in the universe is everything else. A man is a killer is a saint is a monkey is a cockroach is a goldfish is a whale, and the Devil is just the angel who asked for More.”

Craig Clevenger Dermaphoria

Source: Dermaphoria

Angels, Universe

“Can I ask you a question?" "I'd be disappointed if you didn't." "How many of those suits do you have? Do you like, send them to the laundry, or throw them out and put on a new one when it gets all gamey?" - Bobby talking to Saint Dane, RR”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Disappointment, Question

“There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.”

Glen Cook (1944) American fiction writer

Source: Chronicles of the Black Company

Evil, Victory

“If God wanted a world filled with saints, He never would have created adolescence.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer The Dead and the Gone

Source: The Dead and the Gone

God, World

“Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Hate

“Mischief nodded. 'It's true,' he conceded. 'You're in the company of eight world-class thieves,' he said, not without a little touch of pride. 'Saints we are not.'
But then,' said Deaux-Deaux, 'who is?' he thought on this. 'Besides saints.”

Clive Barker book Abarat

Source: Abarat

World

“Courtney came over to me and touched my cheek. I winced. It hurt.
You look like hell," Courtney said.
I shrugged.
She looked at Saint Dane, then back at me. "He looks worse." She smiled. "Awesome.”

D.J. MacHale The Soldiers of Halla

Source: The Soldiers of Halla

Smile, Hell, Hurt

“Let go of me or slow down," she demanded as she tried to keep pace with him.
He slowed down. "I swear to God, you try the patience of a saint."
"You aren't a saint, Brodick, no matter what your mother might have told you.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Ransom

God, Patience

“I guess this means that our conflict is finally over. Perhaps we should celebrate." – Saint Dane
Perhaps you should bite me." Bobby”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

“For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very well be darkness”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Light

“I admit that I ain't no angel, I admit that I ain't no saint-- I'm selfish and I'm cruel and I'm blind. If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. When they leave they're so hard to find…”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Angels, Selfishness

“I see you brought along your violent little girlfriend. What a nice surprise!" - Saint Dane (The Reality Bug)”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Reality

“Jailbait," he declared, leaping up. "You're a saint. A goddess, even.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

“Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

“No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can't really hate God either. When they want to Hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it's God and hate that.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred And Profane Memories Of Captain Charles Ryder

God, Hate

“On Gandhi: Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel (1989)

Forgetting

“Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”

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

Past, Future, Sad, Deep

“Born
of Black
and White, Eaten
with worms,
I'm a Saint, a Sinner,
a Siren of the
Word, The Circle
knows me, the rest
just wanna trip on
Grace Juice, Baby
Showdown
at midnight”

Ted Dekker book Showdown

Source: Showdown

Baby

“The most important single thing that any Latter-day Saint ever does in this world is to marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority.”

Bruce R. McConkie (1915–1985) American Mormon leader

World, Personality

“You don't have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is "I don't know."”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

p. xiii http://books.google.com/books?id=KsI3sswEg14C&pg=PR13&dq=%22you+don't+have+to+be+brave+or+a+saint%22 <br class="br">2010s, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (2011) <br class="br">Source: God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales

“Defeat is most devastating at the moment of victory" Saint Dane”

D.J. MacHale book The Never War

Source: The Never War

Victory

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Soul, Sea

“I am a Count, Not a Saint.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

“Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Women

“To be a saint is the exception; to be a just person is the rule. Err, stumble, commit sin, but be one of the just.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Personality

“Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Men, God, Happiness

“Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

“Hurry ruins saints as well as artists.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Seeds of Contemplation

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but He does what is still more wonderful: He makes saints out of sinners.”

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

7 July 1838
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s
Source: The Journals of Kierkegaard

God

“And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can forget, that history puts a saint in every dream.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

"Time", Rain Dogs (1985).

Dreams, History, Forgetting

“Slowly but surly I want to strip her of every kind of happiness as to make a saint of her.”

Jean Genet book Our Lady of the Flowers

Source: Our Lady of the Flowers

Happiness

“Patti, did art get us?'
I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.'
Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Fools, Art, Thinking

“Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Children, Fear, Learning, Hurt

“I watch the Eruptions. Mount Dad, long dormant, now considered armed and dangerous. Mount Saint Mom, oozing lava, spitting flame. Warn the villagers to run into the sea.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Moms, Sea

“All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

Children, Secret

“I don't think the real America is in New York or on the Pacific Coast; personally, I like the Middle West much better, places like North and South Dakota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There, I think, are the true Americans”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Thinking, Personality

“For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Problem

“As she walked, she breathed a quick benediction to the patron saint of sleuthing. "Nancy Drew," she whispered, "be with me now.”

Colin Meloy Wildwood

Source: Wildwood

“Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

“I'm an angel not a frickin' saint.”

Jessica Bird book Covet

Source: Covet

Angels

“To gain your own voice, forget about having it heard. Become a saint of your own province and your own consciousness.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Forgetting

“It is a true, incorruptible purism... It is a religion that cannot be argued about. It has its saints, its disciples and its heretics. Modern life with its speed and tumult, dynamic and full of contrasts, beats furiously against this light, luminous, delicate structure, which emerges coldly from the chaos. Do not touch it, it is an accomplished fact. It had to be, it is there to stay.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

quote, 1945
Quote, 1945 of Fernand Leger, in Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co., 1964, p. 33
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1940's

Life, Religion, Quotes, Light

“Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 165

Men, Success

“Vital is the relation between earthly sorrow and eternal satisfaction. The travail to which God's saints are subjected results in the birth of nobler natures and more sanctified spirits. Pain always promotes progress, and suffering invariably ensures success.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 556.

God, Pain, Birth, Nature

“What is inevitable is not death but change. Change is the only abiding reality. The metaverse evolves, fractally and forever. Saints become sinners, sinners become saints. Dust becomes men, men become gods, gods become dust.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Vortex

Source: Vortex (2011), Chapter 32 (p. 327)

Death, Men, God, Reality

“Catholics in our age when confronted with dogma do not react or yield; they stay neutral, and receive it as one news item among others, as if it were a simple formality. It is as if they lacked the background needed in order to understand. It was the highest point of the Holy Year, the summit to be attained on that morning of All Saints. The prize, the great reward of those who had followed it in faith and fervor. The Pontiff's words flew over the square with a swish of wings, as if a multitude of doves had been released. One had only to close his eyes and let himself be carried away in an ecstasy of light. Instead, it became a perfect example of the contradiction inherent in our age, when man has learned to fly with his body only to forget the great flights of the soul. The people in Saint Peter's square looked like birds with severed wings.”

Aldo Palazzeschi book Roma

Page 182, "1950"
Roma (1953)

People, Age, Faith, Soul

“Feeling that the silver chord of life is loosing, and that his spirit is ready to quit her old companion the body, he extends himself on his bed — closes his eyes for the last time, with his own hands — folds his arms decently on his breast, then breathing out "Father of mercies! take me to thyself," — he fell asleep. Swift on angels' wings the brightening saint ascended; while voices more than human were heard (in Fancy's ear) warbling through the happy regions, and hymning the great procession towards the gates of heaven. His glorious coming was seen far off, and myriads of mighty angels hastened forth, with golden harps, to welcome the honored stranger.”

Mason Weems (1759–1825) fictionalizing biographer of George Washington

Description of Washington's death in Life of Washington (1800); this fanciful account bears no relation to the report of Washington's last words by his personal secretary Tobias Lear, who wrote in his journal (14 December 1799) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/exhibit/mourning/lear.html: About ten o'clk he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it, at length he said, — "I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead." I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, "Do you understand me? I replied "Yes." "Tis well" said he.

Life, Happiness, Angels, Feeling

“When the wicked have power to blow out the sun, that it shines no more; when they have power to bring to a conclusion the operations of the elements, suspend the whole system of nature, and make a footstool of the throne of the Almighty, they may then think to check “Mormonism” in its course, and thwart the unalterable purposes of heaven. Men may persecute the people who believe its doctrines, report and publish lies to bring tribulation upon their heads, earth and hell may unite in one grand league against it, and exert their malicious powers to the utmost, but it will stand as firm and immovable in the midst of it all as the pillars of eternity. Men may persecute the Prophet, and those who believe and uphold him, they may drive the Saints and kill them but this does not affect the truths of “Mormonism” one iota, for they will stand when the elements melt with fervent heat, and the heavens are wrapt up like a scroll and the solid earth is dissolved. “Mormonism” stands upon the eternal basis of omnipotence. Jehovah is the “Mormonism” of this people, their Priesthood and their power; and all who adhere to it will, in the appointed day, come up into the presence of the King Eternal, and receive a crown of life.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 1:88 (June 13, 1852)
1850s

Life, Men, People, Truth

“Let's face it, minorities are people who probably look and act and think differently from us and have faults we don't have. We may dislike the way they look and act, and we may hate their faults. And it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them, than if we try to smear over our feelings with pseudo-liberal sentimentality. If we’re frank about our feelings, we have a safety valve; and if we have a safety-valve, we’re actually less likely to start persecuting.... I know that theory is unfashionable nowadays. We all keep trying to believe that, if we ignore something long enough, it’ll just vanish––
‘Where was I? Oh yes... Well, now, suppose this minority does get persecuted – never mind why – political, economic, psychological reasons – there always is a reason, no matter how wrong it is – that’s my point. And, of course, persecution itself is always wrong; I’m sure we all agree there. But, the worst of it is, we now run into another liberal heresy. Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can’t you see what nonsense that is? What’s to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?’
‘And I’ll tell you something else. A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority — not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities – because all minorities are in competition: each one proclaims that its sufferings are the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the more they're all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed?”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

pps. 53-54
A Single Man (1964)

Love, Hate, People, Way

“Religion has never, in any period, sustained itself except by the instrumentality of the tongue of fire. Only where some men, more or less imbued with this primitive power, have spoken the words of the Lord, not with " the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," have sinners been converted, and saints prompted to a saintlier life.”

William Arthur (minister) (1819–1901) Wesleyan Methodist minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 321.

Life, Wisdom, Men, Religion

“Thomas [...] could offer no proof of it, but he could assume as probable a plan of good which became the more perfect for the very reason that it allowed great liberty in detail.

One hardly feels Saint Thomas here in all his force. He offers suggestion rather than proof;— apology, the weaker because of obvious effort to apologise, rather than defence, for infinite Goodness, Justice and Power; [...] but at all events society has never done better by way of proving its right to enforce morals, or unity of opinion. Unless it asserts law, it can only assert force.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Justice, Law, Way, Feeling

“God takes such great pleasure in the sanctity of His saints that in the interests of a few, He often allows the whole Church to suffer great loss.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

God, Pleasure, Suffering, Loss

“If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

“Yeah but everyone was a saint years ago, that seemed to be thrown about back then. Who's a saint now, in this year, who's a saint? And yet this guy, lived in a hut in the woods, 'oh yeah that's Saint John or whatever.' He wasn't a saint, he did nothin [Karl arguing with Steve and Ricky about Russian artifacts containing a portrait of a Russian Saint]”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 1 Episode 5
On Life

Guy

“All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean —
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.”

Robert Graves book The White Goddess

"The White Goddess," lines 1–6, from Poems and Satires (1951).
Poems

Men, God, Sister, Distant

“It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Happiness, Way, Universe, Passion

“Sarva-dharma-samabhAva was unknown to mainstream Hinduism before Mahatma Gandhi presented it as one of the sixteen mahAvratas (great vows). in his booklet, MaNgala-PrabhAta. It is true that mainstream Hinduism had always stood for tolerance towards all metaphysical points of view and ways of worship except that which led to AtatAyI-AchAra (gangsterism). But that tolerance had never become samabhAva, equal respect for all points of view. The acharyas of the different schools of Sanatana Dharma were all along engaged in debates over differences in various approaches to Sreyas (the Great Good). No Buddhist acharya is known to have equated the way of the Buddha to that of the Gita and vice versa, for instance. It is also true that overawed by the armed might of Islam, and deceived by the tall talk of the sufis, some Hindu saints in medieval India had equated Rama with Rahim, Krishna with Karim, Kashi with Kaba, the Brahmana with the Mullah, pUjA with namAz, and so on. But, the sects founded by these saints had continued to function on the fringes of Hindu society while the mainstream followed the saints and acharyas who never recognized Islam as a dharma. In modern times also, movements like the Brahmo Samaj which recognised Islam and Christianity as dharmas had failed to influence mainstream Hinduism, while Maharshi Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda who upheld the Veda and despised the Bible and the Quran, had had a great impact. This being the hoary Hindu tradition, Mahatma Gandhi’s recognition of Christianity and Islam not only as dharmas but also as equal to Sanatana Dharma was fraught with great mischief. For, unlike the earlier Hindu advocates of Islam and Christianity as dharmas, Mahatma Gandhi made himself known and became known as belonging to mainstream Hinduism.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

School, Way, Time

“Small wonder that we find them flocking everywhere ahead or with or in the wake of Islamic armies. Sufis of the Chishtîyya silsila in particular excelled in going ahead of these armies and acting as eyes and ears of the Islamic establishment. The Hindus in places where these sufis settled, particularly in the South, failed to understand the true character of these saints till it was too late. The invasions of South India by the armies of Alãu’d-Dîn Khaljî and Muhammad bin Tughlaq can be placed in their proper perspective only when we survey the sufi network in the South. Many sufis were sent in all directions by Nizãmu’d-Dîn Awliyã, the Chistîyya luminary of Delhi; all of them actively participated in jihãds against the local population. Nizãmu’d-Dîn’s leading disciple, Nasîru’d-Dîn Chirãg-i-Dihlî, exhorted the sufis to serve the Islamic state. “The essence of sufism,” he versified, “is not an external garment. Gird up your loins to serve the Sultãn and be a sufi.” Nasîru’d-Dîn’s leading disciple, Syed Muhammad Husainî Banda Nawãz Gesûdarãz (1321-1422 A. D.), went to Gulbarga for helping the contemporary Bahmani sultan in consolidating Islamic power in the Deccan. Shykh Nizãmu’d-Dîn Awliyã’s dargãh in Delhi continued to be and remains till today the most important centre of Islamic fundamentalism in India. (…)”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Understanding, Help

“Have we regarded it as the greatest enemy of Christianity, which can not abide that Jesus Christ reigns over the faithful, crying ceaselessly through the mouth of its fans, “We do not want this man to reign over us” (Saint Anthony).”

Louis Tronson (1622–1700) French Roman Catholic priest

L'avons-nous regardé comme le plus grand ennemi du Christianisme, qui ne peut souffrir que Jésus-Christ règne sur les Fidèles, criant sans cesse par la bouche de ses amateurs. Nolumus hune regnare super nos? S. Antonin. <br class="br">Examens particuliers sur divers sujets, p. 321 http://books.google.com/books?id=esY9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA321 <br class="br">Examens particuliers sur divers sujets [Examination of Conscience upon Special Subjects] (1690)

Faith, Christ, Cry

“The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

The Lessons of History (1968)‎, p. 72 (co-authored with Ariel Durant)

“When I think of the artist Yves Klein, I think of those absolutists who preceded him by a generation or two, those who vanished, think of the boxer and Dadaist poet Arthur Cravan who in 1918 was supposed to leave Mexico to meet his new wife in Argentina but was never seen again; of Everett Ruess, the bohemian who might have become an artist or writer had he not disappeared into the canyons of Utah at the age of twenty in 1934, leaving behind a final signature carved into the rock: “Nemo” or “no one”; of the aviator Amelia Earhart who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937; of the pilot Antoine de Saint Exupéry who left behind several lapidary books before his plane too disappeared, in 1944, in the Mediterranean. They were all saddled with a desire to appear in the world and a desire to go as far as possible that was a will to disappear from it. In the ambition was a desire to make over the world as it should be; but in the disappearances was the desire to live as though it had been made over, to refashion oneself into a hero who disappeared not only into the sky, the sea, the wilderness, but into a conception of self, into legend, into the heights of possibility.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005)

Books, Age, World, Thinking

“The public deserves to know if Mr Cosby is a saint or a sexual predator.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

Quoted in: [December 6, 2014, http://uptownmagazine.com/2014/12/judy-hurth-sues-bill-cosby-gloria-allred/, Uptown Magazine, K, Whaley, December 4, 2014, New Accuser Sues Bill Cosby, Gloria Allred Demands He Face Judgement]

“Still more serious was the emergence of an insidious image of Hindu personality as a direct result of this loss of the national perspective on Indian history. In due course, most Hindus, particularly the English-educated Hindu elite, have been made to believe that a Hindu is not true to himself nor to his religion and culture unless he 1) honours as his own heroes all those invaders and crusaders who demolished his temples, desecrated the images of his Gods and Goddesses, burnt his Shãstras, humiliated his holy men, dishonoured his women, pillaged his property, massacred his countrymen en masse, sold his children into slavery, trampled upon every symbol of his religion and culture, and coerced his co-religionists to swear by an aggressive and intolerant dogma glorified as the Kalima; 2) shows reverence for an ideology of calculated and cold-blooded gangesterism masquerading as the only true religion; 3) pays homage to all those pretenders, scoundrels, and hoodlums which this ideology presents as its sufis, saints and heroes; 4) practises patience and tolerance towards those who vow openly and work ceaselessly to destroy his religion and culture, and to take forcible possession of his homeland; and 5) is always prepared to surrender everything he possesses or cherishes in order to avoid violence and bloodshed.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Heroic Hindu Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders (1984; 2001)

Women, Men, God, Children

“In general, just as painters in working from models constantly gaze at their exemplar and thus strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so too he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all the kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints as upon statues, so to speak, that move and act, and must make their excellence his own by imitation.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

vol. 1, p. 17
Letters

Perfection

“From all the properties of man and of nature, from all the various branches of science, from all the deductions of human reason, the general corollary, admitted by Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars, by Persians, and by Chinese, is the supremacy of an all-creating and all-preserving spirit, infinitely wise, good, and powerful, but infinitely removed from the comprehension of his most exalted creatures; nor are there in any language (the ancient Hebrew always excepted) more pious and sublime addresses to the being of beings, more splendid enumerations of his attributes, or more beautiful descriptions of his visible works, than in Arabick, Persian, and Sanscrit, especially in the Koran, the introductions to the poems of Sadi', Niza'm'i and Firdaus'i, the four Védas, and many parts of the numerous Puránas: but supplication and praise would not satisfy the boundless imagination of the Vedánti and Sufi theologists, who blending uncertain metaphysicks with undoubted principles of religion, have presumed to reason confidently on the very nature and essence of the divine spirit, and asserted in a very remote age, what multitudes of Hindus and Muselmans assert… that all spirit is homogeneous, that the spirit of God is in kind the same with that of man, though differing from it infinitely in degree, and that, as material substance is mere illusion, there exists in this universe only one generick spiritual substance, the sole primary cause, efficient, substantial and formal of all secondary causes and of all appearances whatever, but endued in its highest degree, with a sublime providential wisdom, and proceeding by ways incomprehensible to the spirits which emane from it; an opinion which Gotama never taught, and which we have no authority to believe, but which, as it is grounded on the doctrine of an immaterial creator supremely wise, and a constant preserver supremely benevolent, differs as widely from the pantheism of Spinoza and Toland, as the affirmation of a proposition differs from the negation of it; though the last named professor of that insane philosophy had the baseness to conceal his meaning under the very words of Saint Paul, which are cited by Newton for a purpose totally different, and has even used a phrase, which occurs, indeed, in the Véda, but in a sense diametrically opposite to that, which he would have given it. The passage to which I allude is in a speech of Varuna to his son, where he says, "That spirit, from which these created beings proceed; through which having proceeded from it, they live; toward which they tend and in which they are ultimately absorbed, that spirit study to know; that spirit is the Great One."”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

"On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (1794)

Wisdom, God, Age, Religion

“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

“My father died of neither hot nor cold. My father was as leathern as a saint. He required no trees. As unrefreshed as a Muslim courtyard. He required no fountain. No music. Whenever he saw a baby he said “poor baby.” His questions were the basic questions, as prosaic as footsteps. What is heaven like? Will I be young? Will I be with Mama? Will I go to sleep? (I don’t know, Papa; how can I know?) Absurdly, I gave answers.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Music, Question, Sleep, Tree

“It happened fortunately that during this period of turmoil the guidance of the Christian Church, the one powerful and permanent institution, was chiefly in the hands of the splendid order of St. Benedict. This saint… seeing that idleness was the besetting danger of monastic establishments, founded at Monte Cassino… a model abbey, in which industry was the daily rule. Among other employments, reading and writing were approved as powerful agents in distracting the mind from unholy thoughts, and in Benedictine monasteries the mechanical exercise of copying mss. became one of the regular occupations.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

p, 125
A Companion to School Classics (1888)

Exercises, Reading

“But the boy who left the hall was not the boy who had gone in some ten minutes before. After my college days, my political work, and after my years of stay at Uttarkashi at the feet of my master, Tapovanam I knew that what I gained on the Ganges banks was that which had been given to me years before by the saint of Tiruvannamalai on that hot summer day – by a mere look”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quoted in "Forever is in the Now: The Timeless Message of Sri Ramana Maharshi", p. 192

Boy, Summer

“Ill-timed admiration is enough to enrage a saint.”

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

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Time

“Some Western Church leaders don't care about [persecuted believers]. The names of the martyrs are not on their prayer lists. While they were being tortured and sentenced, the Russian Baptist and Orthodox official leaders who had denounced and betrayed them were received with great honor at New Delhi, at Geneva, and at other conferences. There they assured everyone that in Russia there is full religious liberty. A leader of the World Council of Churches kissed the Bolshevik archbishop Nikodim when he gave this assurance. Then they banqueted together in the imposing name of the World Council of Churches, while the saints in prison ate cabbage with unwashed intestines, just as I had eaten in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

Tortured For Christ: 30th Anniversary Edition, p. 74-75 (1998).

World, Kiss, Christ

“Muslims had two more advantages in addition to their aggressiveness and superiority in the art of warfare. “During this long period of Indian resistance”, observes Dr. Misra, “the infiltration of Arabs, and later on the Turks, continued almost unabated into India, both through armed invasions as well as through peaceful migration from Central Asia. The Hindus, true to their catholicity of religious outlook and rich tradition of tolerance, never obstructed the peaceful immigrants and even zealously granted them security and full religious freedom… The greatest Chishti saint of India, Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti, came to Ajmer just before the battles of Tarain and was able to attract a number of devoted followers… It is all the more remarkable that this Hindu tolerance towards the Muslim merchants and mystics should have continued even after the invasions of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni… As Professor Habib points out, ‘the far-flung campaigns of Sultan Mahmud would have been impossible without an accurate knowledge of trade routes and local resources, which was probably obtained from Muslim merchants.’ The same can be said to hold good about the invasions of Muhammad Ghori or Qutbuddin Aibak.””

Ram Gopal (1925) Indian author and historian

The sufis were working not only as the spies of Islamic imperialism but also as deceivers of gullible Hindu masses.
Quoted from S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD.
Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders Upto 1206 A.D.

Peace, Art, Knowledge, Freedom

“Portugal converted a portion of India to the Catholic religion with the arms of her soldiers, with the blood of her martyrs, with the miracles of her saints, and with the fires of her Inquisition. Those who were vanquished in this struggle became Christians and Portuguese. England might imitate the example, except as regards force.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Quoted by Nishitha Desai in Lusotopie 2000, p. 474

Religion

Quotes about saint page 2

Quotes about saint
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