#divinity

Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives. ↗

— Bernard of Clairvaux

#christianity #conversion #divine #divinity #fear

Nothing is more indispensable to true religiosity than a mediator that links us with divinity. ↗

— Novalis

#indispensable #links #mediator #more #nothing

Once the Republicans get rolling, they assume they're going to win everything. They are zealots, and zealots assume the last five percent of whatever their plan is will be taken care of by their own greatness or momentum or divinity. ↗

— Keith Olbermann

#care #divinity #everything #five #get

Every individual who makes us suffer can be attached by us to a divinity of which he or she is a mere fragmentary reflexion, the lowest step in the ascent that leads to it, a divinity or an Idea which, if we turn to contemplate it, immediately gives us joy instead of the pain which we were feeling before — indeed the whole art of living is to make use of the individuals through whom we suffer as a step enabling us to draw nearer to the divine form which they reflect and thus joyously to people our lives with divinities. ↗

— Marcel Proust

#suffering #art