Quotes

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind. — Shakespeare

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. — Thomas Carlyle

When Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News wanted to find the origins of Kum-ba-ya, he talked with ethnomusicologist Thomas Miller, who said the song originated as a spiritual among the Gullah, an African-American people who live in the Sea Islands and the coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. It’s believed that a missionary couple transported the song to Angola, where it was rediscovered and brought back to the US in the ‘50s and ‘60s. — dallasnews.com

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves . . . (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem. — Howard Zinn

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead me Thou on! The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step is enough for me. — John Henry Newman

Jesus is brought into being through Community and participates in the co-creation of it. . . . Hence what is truly Christological, that is truly revealing of divine incarnation and salvific power in human life, must reside in connectedness and not in single individuals. — Rita Nakashima Brock

The Sufi tell of the disciple who asked the elder, “Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened?” “As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.” “Then, of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?” “To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.” — Joan Chittister

Our capacity to grieve and lament is directly related to our capacity for hope, for our confidence in the trustworthiness of the beatific vision—much like the circumference of a tree’s trunk and the reach of its limbs—is proportionate to its root system. — Ken Sehested

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. — Maya Angelou

The facts of this world seen clearly Are seen through tears Why tell me then there is something wrong with my eyes? — Margaret Atwood