Quotes about Reflection

Pride rises above and against the knowledge of God, acting as if He is unworthy to be retained in our thoughts.

true encounter with the God of the universe makes me feel gladly small, perfectly puny, and happily so, in my assigned place and actual size! A true experience of eternity leaves us feeling, as C. S. Lewis said, "the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life."28

If God is not changing you, you have to honestly ask, "Have I ever really converted?" To put it another way, "If your faith isn't changing you, it hasn't saved you." The people who really have the new birth—the people who really have that conversion experience—are changing.

When we see the faults of others, we are to forgive and forbear in humility.

Because in prayer I expand my sense of how I have offended God. And I thereby lower my sense of how much others have offended me. Prayer is changing me.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.

We display the success of what we have done by not having to do anything.

Explanation sets the need for further inquiry aside; narrative invites us to rethink what we thought we knew.

I always have a quotation for everything--it saves original thinking.

How can I find the words? Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.