The Central Drama of Life

The central drama of life is not the external climb to success, but the internal confrontation of one's own sinfulness.

- David Brooks

Sherlock

"What do you see?"

"Everything...
That is my curse. ".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1515091/quotes?item=qt1607167

Love

"Perfect love is a kind of self-dereliction, a wandering out of ourselves; it is a kind of voluntary death, wherein the lover dies to himself, and all his own interest, not thinking of them, nor caring for them any more, and minding nothing but how he may please and gratify the party whom he loves; thus , he is quite undone, unless he meets with reciprocal affection; he neglects himself and the other hath no regard to him; but if he be beloved, he is revived, as it were and liveth in the soul and care of the person whom he loves; and now he begins to mind his own concernments, not so much because they are his, as because the beloved is pleased to own an interest in them: he becomes dear unto himself, because he is so unto the other. " 

- Henry Scougal in 'The Life of God in the Soul of Man'

'To love is to not compare... '
                                    - Mark Noll

Mother Teressa on clarity

I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust

- Mother Teressa  (apparently) 

They don't teach anything worth knowing

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

- Neil Gaiman

Advice to Christians: Love - Francis Schaeffer

"As we turn to consider in more detail how we may speak to people of the twentieth century, we must realise first of all that we cannot apply mechanical rules. We, of all people, should realise this, for as Christians we believe that personality really does exist and is important. We can lay down some general principles, but there can be no automatic application. If we are truly personal, as created by God, then each individual will differ from everyone else. Therefore each person must be dealt with as anindividual, not as a case or statistic or machine. If we could work withthese people, we cannot apply things we have learnt..." "...mechanically. We must look to the Lord in prayer, and to the work of the Holy Spirit, for theeffective use of these things."

"Furthermore, we must remember that the person to whom we are talking, however far from the Christian faith he may be, is an image-bearer of God. He has great value, and our communication to him must be in genuine love. Love is not an easy thing; it is not just an emotional urge, but an attempt to move over and sit in the other person's place and see how his problems look to him. Love is a genuine concern for the individual. As Jesus Christ reminds us, we are to love that individual 'as ourselves'. This is the place to begin. Therefore, to be engaged in personal 'witness' as a duty or because our Christian circle exerts a social pressure on us, is to miss the whole point. The reason we do it is that the person before us is an image-bearer of God, and he is an individual who is unique in this world. This kind of communication is not cheap. To understand and speak to sincere but utterly confused twentieth-century people is costly. It is tiring; it will open you to temptations and pressures. Genuine love, in the last analysis, means a willingness to be entirely exposed to the person to whom we are talking."

- Francis Schaeffer, thanks to Stephen Williams 

Loves too little

He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.

                                                                                         - Augustine of Hippo

Fail?!

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default

J. K. Rowling 

Joy can weep

The reason Joy can weep is because it longs to be extended.

- John Piper

Borderline Heritical

If your preaching of the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus Christ does not provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you're not preaching the gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ

- Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Why so serious?

There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes

- C. S. Lewis

Carl Sagan on Atheism

An atheist has to know a lot more than I know.

- Carl Sagan (Agnostic)

Growing Up

When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; Scientist, Philosopher, Artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time.

- The Narrator (the grown up Kevin Arnold) from The Wonder Years 

Thoughts on Love - C. S. Lewis

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness…We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it. What I know about love and believe about love and giving ones heart began in this

- C. S. Lewis

Computer Science and Computers

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes  

- Edsger Dijkstra

Thoughts on Humility - C. S. Lewis

The following is a modified quote from 'The Screwtape Letters', by C. S. Lewis. It needed to be modified because the context of the book makes it difficult for a direct quote to make sense to those who do not know it, and it would have been a pain to explain it. 

"Thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. 

Humility is not a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of your own talents and character. Some talents your really have. Don't fix in your mind, the idea that Humility is trying to believe those talents are less valuable than you believe them to be. No doubt they are infact less valuable, but that is not the point. 

God wants you, in the end to be so free from any bias in your own favor that you can rejoice in your own talents as frankly and gratefully as in your neighbor's talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant or a waterfall. God wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even yourself) as glorious and excellent things - when you have really learned to love your neighbor as yourself, then you will be allowed to love yourself as their neighbor. "

Harry Potter quote

My favorite line from the book, for no super-great reasons:

"Albus Severus," Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose who was now on the train, "you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew"

My cup runneth over

"If we give the impression that the main effect of Christianity is to make us miserable, then it is not surprising that ninety per cent of the people are outside the Christian church. 'Miserable Christians,' they say, 'look at them!' And they add that they have life, they have joy, they have fullness. Shame on us Christian people! But it is not merely a question of saying shame on us. What a terrible responsibility is ours if we are so misrepresenting this 'glorious gospel of the blessed God' (1 Timothy 1:11). We are meant to be witnesses to all people that we are filled to overflowing. We are meant to show the truth of the psalmist's words: 'My cup runneth over!' (Psalm 23:5)."

Dr. M. L. Jones

Voddie Baucham: If God is omnipotent and benevolent, how do we explain evil?