#th

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That's how the human species has done as well as it has. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#build #children #damn #die #done

A lot of gay men are in delusion if they think they're super macho. ↗

— Scott Thompson

#gay #lot #macho #men #super

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#faith

فأي مقدور من المقدورات تضيق به قوة الله وحكمته، وأي عقل من العقول الإنسانية يستطيع أن يبدع في تصوراته وتخيلاته الذهنية فوق ما تبدع يد القدرة في مصنوعاتها وآثارها، وهل الصور والخيالات التي تمتلئ بها أذهاننا وتموج بها عقولنا إلا رسوم ضئيلة لحقائق هذا الكون وبدائعه، ولو أن سامعا سمع وصف منظر الشمس عند طلوعها، أو مهبط الليل عند نزوله، أو جمال غابة من الغابات، أو شموخ جبل من الأجبال، ثم رأى بعد ذلك عيانا، ما كان يراه تصورا وخيالا، لعلم أن جمال الكائنات فوق جمال التصورات، وحقائق الموجودات فوق هواتف الخيلات، لذلك أعتقد أني ما تخيلت هذه السعادة التي أقدرها لنفسي إلا لأنها كائن من الكائنات الموجودة و أنها آتية لا ريب فيها. ↗

— مصطفى لطفي المنفلوطي

#faith

I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, 'He is not a lush.' That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, 'Look!' ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#class #could #deadline #fabulous #first

If I'm in a political argument, I think I can, with reasonable accuracy and without boasting, put the other person's side of the case at least as well as they could. One has to be able to say that in any well-conducted argument. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#accuracy #any #argument #boasting #case

Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! ↗

— Charles Dickens

#farewell-letter #faith

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#book #dear #i #idea #never

The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#bored #fact #get #land #opportunity

With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore. ↗

— Barbara Brown Taylor

#humility #inspirational #faith