#mo

So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor? ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#absolutely #actor #age #ask #could

When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing. ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#absolutely #could #doing #emotions #express

If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#because #color #crow #deny #gay

If heaven is understood more as God's space on earth than as an ethereal region apart from the essential reality we know, then what happens on earth matters even more than we think, for the Christian life becomes a continuation of the unfolding work of Jesus, who will one day return to set the world to rights. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#becomes #christian #christian life #continuation #day

The way to put oneself in a position to take the harder, more honorable political path is to argue for one's virtues in a vigorous way. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#harder #honorable #more #oneself #path

The more we can do to support and promulgate the intellectual traditions of the Abrahamic faiths - of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - the better armed we will be to fight fundamentalism. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#better #christianity #faiths #fight #fundamentalism

The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#authority #authorized #certain #certain kinds #could

Among the many problems with taking the Bible literally is it reduces the most mysterious and complex of realities to simple - even simplistic - terms. Yes, scripture speaks of fire and damnation and eternal bliss, but the Bible is the product of human hands and hearts, and much of the imagery is allegorical, not meteorological. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#among #bible #bliss #complex #damnation

Barack Obama is many things; among them, he is a tough and even ferocious political warrior. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#barack #barack obama #even #ferocious #many

From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#affection #certain #day #enormous #every