Endowment Assurance Quotes

For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart . . . the heart's distrust is greater than the mind's blindness. It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance [of God's love] than for the mind to be endowed with thought.

It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance [of God’s love] than for the mind to be endowed with thought.

He taught all to look upon themselves as endowed with precious talents, which if rightly employed would secure for them eternal riches. He weeded all vanity from life, and by His own example taught that every moment of time is fraught with eternal results; that it is to be cherished as a treasure, and to be employed for holy purposes. He passed by no human being as worthless, but sought to apply the saving remedy to every soul. In whatever company He found Himself, He presented a lesson that was appropriate to the time and the circumstances. He sought to inspire with hope the most rough and unpromising, setting before them the assurance that they might become blameless and harmless, attaining such a character as would make them manifest as the children of God. Often He met those who had drifted under Satan’s control, and who had no power to break from his snare. To such a one, discouraged, sick, tempted, and fallen, Jesus would speak words of tenderest pity, words that were needed and could be understood.

It’s your fault that I’ve been reduced to such behavior,” he continued. “I assure you, I myself find it appalling that the only pleasure I obtain these days is chasing after you like an adolescent lordling with a housemaid.” “Did you chase after the housemaids when you were a boy?” “Good God, of course not. How could you ask such a thing?” Sebastian looked indignant. Just as she felt a twinge of guilt and began to apologize, he said smugly, “They chased after me.” Evie raised a cue stick as if to crown him with it. He caught her wrist easily in one hand and pried the stick from her fingers. “Easy, firebrand. You’ll knock out the few wits I have left—and then of what use would I be to you?” “You would be purely ornamental,” Evie replied, giggling. “Ah, well, I suppose there’s some value in that. God help me if I should ever lose my looks.” “I wouldn’t mind.” He gave her a quizzical smile. “What?” “If…” Evie paused, suddenly embarrassed. “If anything happened to your looks…if you became…less handsome. Your appearance wouldn’t matter to me. I would still…” She paused and finished hesitantly, “…want you as my husband.” Sebastian’s smile faded slowly. He gave her a long, intent stare, her wrist still clasped in his hand. Something strange crossed his expression…an undefinable emotion wrought of heat and vulnerability. When he answered, his voice was strained from the effort to sound cavalier. “Without a doubt, you’re the first one who’s ever said that to me. I hope you won’t be such a pea goose as to endow me with characteristics that I don’t have.” “No, you’re endowed enough as it is,” Evie replied, before the double meaning of the statement occurred to her. She burned a brilliant scarlet. “Th-that is…I didn’t mean…” But Sebastian was laughing quietly, the odd tension passing, and he pulled her against him. As she responded to him eagerly, his amusement dissolved like sugar in hot liquid. He kissed her longer, harder, his breath striking her cheek in rapid drives. “Evie,” he whispered, “you’re so warm, so lovely…oh, hell. I’ve got two months, thirteen days and six hours before I can take you to my bed. Little she-devil. This is going to be the death of me.

Does man not face life with a greater assurance is he believes that a benevolent providence foresees the future? And yet he must at the same time be confident that his will is free, otherwise moral support is meaningless altogether. Doctrines in themselves are not important to me, but their consequences are. For example, I urge upon men that they regard themselves as embodiments of the divine essence. If I convince them, their days are endowed with a sense of abiding significance and unturning glory. Then not all the misfortunes and degradations to which they may be subjected can take from them their feelings of oneness with angels and stars. And as for our people, persecuted and dispersed, they live under the shadow of death, cherishing a dream that is recurrently shattered by the caprice of tyrants and then dreamed again half in despair. What can enable such a people to persist except a conviction of a special relationship to God?

There appears no assurance that in the times of our own grandchildren the world will contain viable populations of wild African Lions, Tigers, Polar Bears, Emperor Penguins, gorillas, or coral reefs. These are the animals expectant parents pain on nursery room walls. Their implied wish: to welcome precious new life in to a world endowed with the magnificence and delight and fright of companions we have traveled with since the beginning. Some people debate the “rights of the unborn” as though a human life begins at conception but we don’t need to concern ourselves with its prospects after birth. Raging over the divine sanctity of anyone else’s pregnancy is a little overwrought and a little too easy when nature itself terminates one out of four by the sixth week. There are much bigger, more compassionate pro-life fish to fry. Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake.

Why--?" he jerked his thumb in the direction of the young, "when they're so lovely--" She too looked at the girl, who was fastening a flower that had come undone in the front of her frock. She smiled. She said nothing. Then half consciously she echoed his question without a meaning in her echo, "Why?" He was dashed for a moment. It seemed to him that she refused to help him. And he wanted her to help him. Why should she not take the weight off his shoulders and give him what he longed for --assurance, certainty? Because she too was deformed like the rest of them? He looked down at her hands. They were strong hands; fine hands; but if it were a question, he thought, watching the fingers curl slightly, of "my" children, of "my" possession, it would be one rip down the belly; or teeth in the soft fur of the throat. We cannot help each other, he thought, we are all deformed. Yet, disagreeable as it was to him to remove her from the eminence upon which he placed her, perhaps she was right, he thought, and we who make idols of other people, who endow this man, that woman, with power to lead us, only add to the deformity, and stoop ourselves.

Although quick to become bored by everything, I am always patient with the smallest details: I am endowed with the fortitude to face every impediment and, even when I grow weary of my object, my persistence is always greater than my boredom. I have never abandoned any project worth the trouble of completing. There are many things in my life that I have pursued for fifteen or twenty years with as much ardor on the last day as the first. My supple intelligence has extended itself to secondary matters also. I was deft at chess, skilled at billiards, hunting, and fencing, and I was a passable draughtsman. I would have sung well, too, if my voice had been trained. All this, combined with my unusual education and my experience as a soldier and a traveler, explains why I have never been a pedant, nor ever displayed the dull conceit, awkwardness, and slovenliness of the literary men of the last century, nor the arrogant self-assurance, the vain and envious braggadocio, of the new authors.

We have taken for a long time a rather foolish pride in believing ourselves to be miraculous beings, unique and wonderfully open to chance, probably fallen from another world, without clear ties to the rest of life and, in any case, endowed with an unusual, incomparable, awful ability. It is far preferable to be nowhere near so prodigious, for we have learned that prodigies soon vanish in the normal evolution of nature. It is much more consoling to observe that we follow the same path as the soul of this great world, that we have the same ideas, the same hopes, the same trials, and—were it not for our specific dream of justice and pity—almost the same feelings. It is much more calming to assure ourselves that, to better our lot, to utilize the forces, the opportunities, the laws of matter, we employ methods exactly the same as those that the soul uses to illuminate and order its unruly and unconscious areas; that there are no other methods, that we are in the midst of truth, that we are in our rightful place and at home in this universe molded by unknown substances, whose thought is not impenetrable and hostile but analogous or apposite to our own.

The period stretching between the middle of the third and the middle of the seventeenth century is certainly the worst humanity has ever known : blood-lust, ignominy, lies. I don't consider that what has been should necessarily exist for the simple reason that it has been. Providence has endowed man with intelligence precisely to enable him to act with discernment. My discernment tells me that an end must be put to the reign of lies. It likewise tells me that the moment is not opportune. To avoid making myself an accomplice to the lies, I've kept the shavelings out of the Party. I'm not afraid of the struggle. It will take place, if really we must go so far. And I shall make up my mind to it as soon as I think it possible. It's against my own inclinations that I devoted myself to politics. I don't see anything in politics, anyway, but a means to an end. Some people suppose it would deeply grieve me to give up the activity that occupies me at this moment. They are deeply mistaken, for the finest day of my life will be that on which I leave politics behind me, with its griefs and torments. When the war's over, and I have the sense of having accomplished my duties, I shall retire. Then I would like to devote five or ten years to clarifying my thought and setting it down on paper. Wars pass by. The only things that exist are the works of human genius. If somebody else had one day been found to accomplish the work to which I've devoted myself, I would never have entered on the path of politics. I'd have chosen the arts or philosophy. The care I feel for the existence of the German people compelled me to this activity. It's only when the conditions for living are assured that culture can blossom.

When I was a boy, not yesterday of course, When life, I thought, was a whole lot More certain than it is today, I made a list of those I thought Liked me as much as I liked them – For at that age we’re loved By just about everybody Whom we care to love; how different It is in later years, when affection Has no guarantee of reciprocation, When we may spend so very long Yearning for one who cannot Love us back, or cares not to, Or who lives somewhere else And has forgotten our address And the way we looked or spoke. The remarkable thing about love Is that it is freely available, Is as plentiful as oxygen, Is as joyous as a burn in spate, And need never run out. And yet, for all its plenitude, We ration it so strictly and forget Its curative properties, its subtle Ability to make the soul-injured Whole again, to make the lonely Somehow assured that their solitude Will not last forever; its promise That if we open our heart It is joy and resolution That will march in triumphant Through the gates we create. When I look at Scotland, At this country that possesses me, I wonder what work love Has still to do; and find the answer Closer at hand than I thought – In the images of contempt and disdain, That are still there, as stubborn As human imperfections can be; In the coldness of heart That sees nothing wrong In indifference to want, in dislike Of those who are different, In the cutting, dismissive Turn of phrase, in the sneer. Love is not there, in all those places, But it will be; love cannot solve Every human problem, but it makes A start on a solution; love Is the only compass-point We need to learn; we need not Be clever to know it, nor endowed With unusual vision, love Comes free, at least in those forms Worth having, lasts as long As anything human may last. May Scotland, when it looks Into its heart tomorrow If not today, see the fingerprints Of love, its signature, its presence, Its promise of healing.

of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron’s right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot” (Leviticus 8:23). Now, if you haven’t been endowed and are reading this, rest assured that there is no blood used in our modern temples. But what is really going on in this scripture with Aaron? It is describing Aaron being set apart (consecrated) for his priesthood service. The blood of the ram, representing the blood (the sacrifice and the Atonement) of our Savior, is smeared on his ear, thumb, and big toe. Why was this blood put on Aaron’s ear? Think about what the ear represents. Ears symbolize that which we chose to listen to and obey. We are constantly bombarded with competing messages. Which voices should we hearken to? This act of smearing blood suggests that Aaron’s ear needed to be closely tuned into his Lord’s voice and reminded him of his

Every parent who has read a fairy tale to a young son or daughter is familiar with what I venture to say is a universal refrain of childhood. “But is he a good person or a bad one?” Or, “Is she a good fairy or an evil fairy?” What greater proof or assurance could we want that God and nature have endowed human beings with a moral constitution that needs to be nurtured and cultivated? Yet our society is embracing an antihuman trinity of pragmatism, subjectivism, and cultural relativism that denies the existence of a moral sense or a moral law. Fifty

Upon this soul is stamped the seal of the divine attributes. In his intelligence man dimly reflects the divine wisdom; in his affections, the divine benevolence ; in his conscience, the divine rectitude; in his will, the divine power. Such a being can find his true sphere only in God. All these endowments point to that august source from which they are derived, as the only goal to which they can aspire; and the comprehensive act in which they all embark is the homage of an intelligent and eternal worship.

I was autographing books at one of those little rattan tables in the bookstore when I found myself looking into the saddest eyes I had ever seen. “The doctor wanted me to buy something that would make me laugh,” she said. I hesitated about signing the book. It would have taken corrective surgery to make that woman laugh. “Is it a big problem?” I asked. The whole line of people was eavesdropping. “Yes. My daughter is getting married.” The line cheered. “Is she twelve or something?” “She’s twenty-four,” said the woman, biting her lip. “And he’s a wonderful man. It’s just that she could have stayed home a few more years.” The woman behind her looked wistful. “We’ve moved three times, and our son keeps finding us. Some women have all the luck.” Isn’t it curious how some mothers don’t know when they’ve done a good job or when it’s basically finished? They figure the longer the kids hang around, the better parents they are. I guess it all depends on how you regard children in the first place. How do you regard yours? Are they like an appliance? The more you have, the more status you command? They’re under warranty to perform at your whim for the first 18 years; then, when they start costing money, you get rid of them? Are they like a used car? You maintain it for years, and when you’re ready to sell it to someone else, you feel a great responsibility to keep it running or it reflects on you? (That’s why some parents never let their children marry good friends.) Are they like an endowment policy? You invest in them for 18 or 20 years, and then for the next 20 years they return dividends that support you in your declining years or they suffer from terminal guilt? Are they like a finely gilded mirror that reflects the image of its owner in every way? On the day the owner looks in and sees a flaw, a crack, a distortion, one tiny idea or attitude that is different from his own, he casts it aside and declares himself a failure? I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you’re both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail...they hit the rooftop...you pluck them out of the spout. You patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they’ll fly. Finally they are airborne, but they need more string so you keep letting it out. With each twist of the ball of twine there is a sadness that goes with the joy, because the kite becomes more distant, and somehow you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar as it was meant to soar—free and alone. Only then do you know that you did your job.