#line

In darkness there is death. ↗

— Bob Mayer

#first-lines #thriller #thrillers #death

In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#pope #religion #religion

Discipline imposed from the outside eventually defeats when it is not matched by desire from within. ↗

— Dawson Trotman

#discipline #religion #religion

Connection is life; disconnection, death. ↗

— Deborah Day

#happiness #loneliness #love #death

Curiously enough, it is a fear of how grace will change and improve them that keeps many souls away from God. They want God to take them as they are and let them stay that way. They want Him to take away their love of riches, but not their riches—to purge them of the disgust of sin, but not of the pleasure of sin. Some of them equate goodness with indifference to evil and think that God is good if He is broad-minded or tolerant about evil. Like the onlookers at the Cross, they want God on their terms, not His, and they shout, “Come down, and we will believe.” But the things they ask are the marks of a false religion: it promises salvation without a cross, abandonment without sacrifice, Christ without his nails. God is a consuming fire; our desire for God must include a willingness to have the chaff burned from our intellect and the weeds of our sinful will purged. The very fear souls have of surrendering themselves to the Lord with a cross is an evidence of their instinctive belief in His Holiness. Because God is fire, we cannot escape Him, whether we draw near for conversion or flee from aversion: in either case, He affects us. If we accept His love, its fires will illumine and warm us; if we reject Him, they will still burn on in us in frustration and remorse. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#sanctification #change

Holiness was always something richly dim. ↗

— A.E. Coppard

#religion #religion

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. ↗

— Oscar Levant

#erased #fine #fine line #genius #i

That’s why I was calm. When you woke me in the middle of the night with your hand around my throat, and I thought I was going to die for bringing you home—that I had given my life to lie down next to a murderer—that’s why I was calm. Because all I was thinking in that moment was that it was worth it. ↗

— Julio-Alexi Genao

#home

After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference. ↗

— Charlotte Gray

#cat #feline #humor #humor

Hey, sexy. Why haven’t you called?” The cooing sound came from behind me, and I glanced back over my shoulder to see a familiar-looking brunette. “Because I’m the asshole who never calls,” I replied with a wink. ↗

— Abbi Glines

#humor