#fellow

In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#fellowship #god #gratitude #thankfulness #experience

When I first started teaching at Berkeley in 1958, I could not announce that I was gay to anybody, though probably quite a few of my fellow teachers knew. ↗

— Thom Gunn

#anybody #berkeley #could #fellow #few

Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse. ↗

— William Hazlitt

#country #death #fellows #fight #his

Some fellow from the Third World kept hammering for prizes for a Communist film which was rotten. ↗

— Patricia Highsmith

#fellow #film #hammering #kept #prizes

God saw fit, for wise reasons to allow the people of Israel thus to make and possess slaves; but is this any license to us to enslave any of our fellow-men, to kill any of our fellow-men whom we please and are able to destroy, and take possession of their estates? ↗

— Samuel Hopkins

#allow #any #destroy #enslave #estates

It used to be that a fellow went on the police force when everything else failed, but today he goes in the advertising game. ↗

— Kin Hubbard

#else #everything #failed #fellow #force

The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being. ↗

— Lee Iacocca

#being #change #fellow #foundation #human

People need to be made conscious of a very simple reality: we have no choice but to share this planet, this small blue sphere floating in the vast reaches of space, with all of our fellow 'passengers.' ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#choice #conscious #fellow #floating #made

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#fellow #fellow man #man #oneself #prayer

It was a very profound experience, getting in touch with that part of us, in all of us human beings, that is committed beyond yourself to the point of giving everything you have, including your life, for other people, for your fellow man. ↗

— Raul Julia

#beyond #committed #everything #experience #fellow