Saints Motivational Quotes

Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Tantra! You might want to read about it. There’s a reason why feminine energy exists in this world

If Bhagwan was here, he would have said that it’s not for the world to love you but for you to love it without expectations.

For those who choose the worldly way, tantra works wonders... It helps us transform our desires into divine experiences. Imagine sexuality as the gateway to moksha rather than a hindrance

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

I would like you to clear up for me just what the hell your motives are for saying it.' He hesitated, but not long enough to give Franny a chance to cut in on him. 'As a matter of simple logic, there's no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who's greedy for material treasure—or even intellectual treasure—and the man who's greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure's treasure, God damn it, and it seems to me that ninety per cent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are.

Be so warm that people mistake you for the sun; so bright that people mistake you for the stars; and so accommodating that people mistake you for the universe.

I have to wonder if you're not being slightly naive here. I mean, are you saying that you want nothing for people? You have no motives? Everybody has motives. Name the person, the circumstances, I'll name the motive. Even saints have motives -- to feel like saints, probably. ... But still, the point of any relationship is obtaining something from another person.

If a pickpocket meets a saint, he sees only his pockets.” Then he’d get up and leave. Or he’d write, “If you wear shoeleather, the whole earth is covered with leather.” These were his ways of teaching me about how motivation affects perception.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Now, for example, people with freckles aren’t thought of as a minority by the nonfreckled. They aren’t a minority in the sense we’re talking about. And why aren’t they? Because a minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of a threat to the majority, real or imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary. Anyone here disagree with that? If you do, just ask yourself, What would this particular minority do if it suddenly became the majority overnight? You see what I mean? Well, if you don’t – think it over! “All right. Now along come the liberals – including everybody in this room, I trust – and they say, ‘Minorities are just people, like us.’ Sure, minorities are people – people, not angels. Sure, they’re like us – but not exactly like us; that’s the all-too- familiar state of liberal hysteria in which you begin to kid yourself you honestly cannot see any difference between a Negro and a Swede….” (Why, oh why daren’t George say “between Estelle Oxford and Buddy Sorensen”? Maybe, if he did dare, there would be a great atomic blast of laughter, and everybody would embrace, and the kingdom of heaven would begin, right here in classroom. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t.) “So, let’s face it, minorities are people who probably look and act and – think differently from us and hay faults we don’t have. We may dislike the way they look and act, and we may hate their faults. And it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them than if we try to smear our feelings over with pseudo liberal sentimentality. If we’re frank about our feelings, we have a safety valve; and if we have a safety valve, we’re actually less likely to start persecuting. I know that theory is unfashionable nowadays. We all keep trying to believe that if we ignore something long enough it’ll just vanish…. “Where was I? Oh yes. Well, now, suppose this minority does get persecuted, never mind why – political, economic, psychological reasons. There always is a reason, no matter how wrong it is – that’s my point. And, of course, persecution itself is always wrong; I’m sure we all agree there. But the worst of it is, we now run into another liberal heresy. Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can’t you see what nonsense that is? What’s to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints? “And I’ll tell you something else. A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority–not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities, because all minorities are in competition: each one proclaims that its sufferings are the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the more they’re all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed? While you’re being persecuted, you hate what’s happening to You, you hate the people who are making it happen; you’re in a world of hate. Why, you wouldn’t recognize love if you met it! You’d suspect love! You’d think there was something behind it – some motive – some trick…

The hunter knows how to live in the jungle, the warrior knows how to live on the battlefield, and the sage knows how to live in life. The fiercest ruler is a warrior, the most beloved leader is a saint, and the greatest soveriegn is a sage.

The sun is a lot like hate—beautiful and lethal and essential for our survival. It can blind you, but it also keeps you going. Hate motivates much more than love. Love is content and peaceful. Happy people aren’t driven. They simply…exist. Now, us, hateful people, we’re something else. Hungry and desperate. Hateful people make the best lovers.

Victorious you are and victorious you will be, as long as in your psyche you can see yourself as victorious.

Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure...What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims on the arena have to be saints? ...A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority - not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities - because all minorities are in competition; each one proclaims that its sufferings are the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the more they're all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed? While you’re being persecuted, you hate what’s happening to you, you hate the people who are making it happen; you’re in a world of hate. Why, you wouldn’t recognize love if you met it! You’d suspect love! You’d think there was something behind it—some motive—some trick.

God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ’s sake, and from no other motive.

Do not say, 'But it is hypocritical to thank God with my tongue when I don't feel thankful in my heart.' There is such a thing as hypocritical thanksgiving. Its aim is to conceal ingratitude and get the praise of men. That is not your aim. Your aim in loosing your tongue with words of gratitude is that God would be merciful and fill your words with the emotion of true gratitude. You are not seeking the praise of men; you are seeing the mercy of God. You are not hiding the hardness of ingratitude, but hoping for the in-breaking of the Spirit. Thanksgiving with the Mouth Stirs Up Thankfulness in the Heart Moreover, we should probably ask the despairing saint, 'Do you know your heart so well that you are sure the words of thanks have no trace of gratitude in them?' I, for one, distrust my own assessment of my motives. I doubt that I know my good ones well enough to see all the traces of contamination. And I doubt that I know my bad ones well enough to see the traces of grace. Therefore, it is not folly for a Christian to assume that there is a residue of gratitude in his heart when he speaks and sings of God's goodness even though he feels little or nothing. To this should be added that experience shows that doing the right thing, in the way I have described, is often the way toward being in the right frame. Hence Baxter gives this wise counsel to the oppressed Christian: 'Resolve to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you should, yet do it as you can. You have not the power of your comforts; but have you no power of your tongues? Say not that you are unfit for thanks and praises unless you have a praising heart and were the children of God; for every man, good and bad, is bound to praise God, and to be thankful for all that he hath received, and to do it as well as he can, rather than leave it undone.... Doing it as you can is the way to be able to do it better. Thanksgiving stirreth up thankfulness in the heart.

When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity.

I’m no sinner; I’m closer to a saint I would say Because I beat my passions While others couldn’t

The sun is a lot like hate—beautiful and lethal and essential for our survival. It can blind you, but it also keeps you going. Hate motivates much more than love.

For any act to be morally right, three things are necessary: (1) right act, (2) right motive, and (3) right circumstances. If any one of these factors is not right, the act is wrong.

Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

Just as Saint Augustine recognized that sin begins as an intention, we profilers saw that violent sexual crimes originate in fantasy. Our next challenge was to understand why certain individuals allowed their fantasies to lead them to cross the normal bounds of acceptable behavior. To do that, we had to examine their motivations.

You talk about piling up treasure - money, property, culture, knowledge, and so on and so on. In going ahead with the Jesus Prayer - just let me finish, now please - in going ahead with the Jesus Prayer, aren't you trying to lay up some kind of treasure? Something that's every goddam bit as negotiable as all those other, more material things? Or does the fact that it's a prayer make all the difference? . . . There's something about the way you're going at this prayer that gives me the willies . . . but I would like you to clear up for me just what the hell your motives are for saying it . . . As a matter of simple logic, there's no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who's greedy for material treasure - or even intellectual treasure - and the man who's greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure's treasure, God damn it, and it seems to me that ninety per cent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are." Don't you think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer? That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I want - in this case, enlightenment, or peace, instead of money or prestige or fame or any of those things - doesn't mean I'm not as egotistical and self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I'm more so!

Certainly a visitor from Mars descending upon a colony of birth-injured cripples, dwarfs and hunchbacks...could not deduce what they should have been. But then let us not study cripples, but the closest thing we can get to whole, healthy men. In them, we find qualitative differences, a different system of motivation, emotion, value, thinking and perceiving. In a certain sense, only the saints are mankind. All the rest are cripples.

Simple Prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father. There is no pretense in Simple Prayer. We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are. We do not try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God—or ourselves. And in this posture we pour out our heart to the God who is greater than our heart and who knows all things (1 John 3:20).

I know the meaning of humility. It is not self-disparagement. It is the motive power of action. If, intending to absolve myself, I plead fate as the excuse for my misfortunes, I subject myself to fate. If I plead treason as their excuse, I subject myself to treason. But if I accept responsibility, I affirm my strength as a man. I am able to influence that of which I form part. I declare myself a constituent part of the community of mankind.

But it was not only by this feeling, as Varvara thought, that he was guided. Mingling with his pride, with his need always to be first, was another motive, at which Varvara did not guess - a truly religious urge. His disillusionment in Mary (his betrothed), whom he had imagined such a saint, his feeling of outrage was so cruel that he sank into despair; and despair led him - whither? To God, to the faith of his childhood, which had never lost its hold upon him.

Now, it's a known fact that racism comes in two forms: that practiced by whites— heinous and inexcusable, whatever its motives—and that practiced by blacks—quite justified, whatever its excesses, since it's merely the expression of a righteous revenge, and it's up to the whites to be patient and understanding.

If we want to start finding GOD, with a capital G, as manifested in holy virtues like love, kindness, patience, and serenity, then we will have to recalibrate our inner compass.

I'm sometimes on my knees to please but I'm mostly on my knees to pray. I'm no saint.

Each truth about God known by the mind is a new motive for loving Him with the will.

Faith is never connected to safe. There is no faith without tension. For a rubber band to function to it's elasticity, it has to experience a tension. Saints of God who has no tension has no function.

To be a saint is to be motivated by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less. Gratitude is the root of all virtue. It lies at the base of love and charity. Scripture always and everywhere makes this point.

It seems to be contradictory. But the secret is that any desire without any personal or selfish motive will never bind you. Why? Because the pure, selfless desire has no expectation whatsoever, so it knows no disappointment no matter what the result. But though it expects nothing, it has its own reward. When you make someone happy, you see his or her happy face and feel happy yourself. If you have really experienced the joy of just giving something for the sake of giving, you will wait greedily for opportunities to get that joy again and again. Many people think that by renouncing everything, by becoming selfless and desireless, there is no enjoyment. No. That is not so. Instead, you become the happiest man or woman. The more you serve, the more happiness you enjoy. Such a person knows the secret of life. There is a joy in losing everything, in giving everything. You cannot be eternally happy by possessing things. The more you possess, the more sad you become. Haven’t we seen millionaires, people of high position, prime ministers, presidents? Are they happy? No. The higher the position, the greater the trouble. Only a saint, a renunciate, is always happy because there is nothing for a saint to lose. Because you don’t have anything, you have your Self always. That is the secret.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No double alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that "non-attachment" is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the otherworldly or the humanistic ideal is "higher." The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives," from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.

A congeries of motives prevents us from blowing up our spinning mills and reviving the distaff. Gandhi had a try at this sort of revolution: he was as simple-minded as a child trying to empty the sea on to the sand with the aid of a tea-cup.

Bible is the greatest Book on the earth Which will keep us away from sin and temptations Giving a sinner an opportunity to transform into saints The word of God is living and powerful which lights our path Giving us direction and clarity for our future by overcoming sin.

But this must not be confused with our usual ideas of the practice of “unselfishness,” which is the effort to identify with others and their needs while still under the strong illusion of being no more than a skin-contained ego. Such “unselfishness” is apt to be a highly refined egotism, comparable to the in-group which plays the game of “we’re-more-tolerant-than-you.” The Vedanta was not originally moralistic; it did not urge people to ape the saints without sharing their real motivations, or to ape motivations without sharing the knowledge which sparks them.

St. Teresa of Avila once said: “We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can—namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.” For Christians not of the prosperity persuasion, surrender is a virtue; the writings of the saints are full of commands to “let go” and to submit yourself to what seems to be the will of the Almighty. All of American culture and pop psychology scream against that. Never give up on your dreams! Just keep knocking, that door is about to open! Think positively! Self-improvement guaranteed!! The entire motivational-speaking industry rests on the assumption that you can have what you want, you can be what you want. Just do it. When prosperity believers live out their daily struggles with smiles on their faces, sometimes I want to applaud. They confront the impossible and joyfully insist that God make a way. They obediently put miracle oil on their failing bodies. They give large offerings to the church and expect great things. They stubbornly get out of their hospital beds and declare themselves healed, and every now and then, it works. They are addicted to self-rule, and so am I.

Why can’t we find what we are looking for?” the answer is that we DO find what we are looking for, but what we are looking for is not what we really want. What we are looking for is things that remind us of the god of our childhood, but this god was not an accurate guide to the virtues and sensations that we really want.

My mother named me Vivia Perpetua because she believed naming me after some long-dead, mostly forgotten saint would motivate me to spend my life collecting unused eyeglasses for the blind or doling out mosquito netting to malaria-plagued Africans. Not that there is anything wrong with those efforts, but please." Vivia in Faking It

I have no natural trust in others. I am more inclined to expect them to do ill than to do good. That is the price one has to pay for having a sense of humour. A sense of humour leads you to take pleasure in the discrepancies of human nature; it leads you to mistrust great professions and look for the unworthy motive that they conceal; the disparity between appearance and reality diverts you and you are apt when you cannot find it to create it. You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous. The humorist has a quick eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. But if to see men one-sidedly is a heavy price to pay for a sense of humour there is a compensation that has a value too. You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn. He does not moralize, he is content to understand; and it is true that to understand is to pity and forgive.

If, for example, your parent said, “I love you” as they punished you, or ignored you, or laid guilt on you, or shamed you, or clung to you, or abused you, then your search for God will probably lead you towards people and activities that generate the sensations associated with these feelings. And when you find them, you will probably think that you are head-over-heels in love.

No," Natan said. "That would be altruistic. There is no such thing, not even for Mother Teresa." He jabbed his finer at her again, careful to keep it from touching her. "A feeling of goodness, scoring bonus with God, whatever the reason, even the saintly get something for the sacrifice, and you are no saint. You are not doing this out of goodness. You have a motive and it's not noble.

God I am a sinner.  I have done so many wrongs, in my life.  I have wronged many people, unaware. I have hurt so many people, it wasn’t my intention.  I have made so many mistakes , without thinking. I am no saint, and I am not perfect. I have fallen into temptation many times. Father forgive me. Take away the pain, I have caused to others. Give me the pure heart to love and forgive everyone and may your love be found in me. Please help me with the sins, that I am battling to overcome. Give me strength to fight my demons and dark pleasures. Guide me to path of righteousness. Let me not be judgmental towards others. Let me not curse or speak foul of anyone. There is no person who should shed a tear, because of me. There is no person who should be heart broken , because of me. In Jesus name Amen.  Matthew 26:41 | 1 John 5:16 | 2 Chronicles 7:14-15

If someone keeps disappointing you again and again, that's on you. Once someone shows they’re all about themselves, it’s time to stop hoping they’ll suddenly morph into a saint. People don’t change just because you want them to. So, stop hitting replay on the disappointment soundtrack and start looking out for yourself. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—well, you know the rest. Set those boundaries and let them live their self-centered lives while you protect your peace.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that "non-attachment" is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the otherworldly or the humanistic ideal is "higher." The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives," from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man

One person looks around and see a universe created by a God who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no greater difference between each other, for neither set of beliefs makes us kinder or wiser. William the Bastard forcing Harold to swear over the bones of Saint Jerome, the Church of Rome rent asunder by the King's Great Matter, the twin towers folding into smoke. Religion fueling the turns and reverses of human history, or so it seems, but twist them all to catch a different light and those same passionate beliefs seem no more than banners thrown up to hide the usual engines of greed and fear. And in our single lives? Those smaller turns and reverses? Is it religion which trammels and frees, which gives or withholds hope? Or are these, too, those old base motives dressed up for a Sunday morning? Are they reasons or excuses?

Can sin unsave the Christian?   One item that I feel I must make clear before answering this question is to make plain that neither I, nor anyone else can tell a man’s heart relationship with God. There is an intrinsic problem in answering this question, as the only basis the Bible gives us for judging one another is the fruit which we do or do not bear. The New Testament writers do assume, for the most part, that the life of faith does bear fruit, but the writers also seem to give much encouragement for saints to stay holy in their calling, and there are not a few instances where saints are scolded for allowing themselves to be pulled back into their former lives. Only God, who sees the hearts and motives of man can judge man; and that is as it should be. 

Close friendships, Gandhi says, are dangerous, because “friends react on one another” and through loyalty to a friend one can be led into wrong-doing. This is unquestionably true. Moreover, if one is to love God, or to love humanity as a whole, one cannot give one's preference to any individual person. This again is true, and it marks the point at which the humanistic and the religious attitude cease to be reconcilable. To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others. The autobiography leaves it uncertain whether Gandhi behaved in an inconsiderate way to his wife and children, but at any rate it makes clear that on three occasions he was willing to let his wife or a child die rather than administer the animal food prescribed by the doctor. It is true that the threatened death never actually occurred, and also that Gandhi — with, one gathers, a good deal of moral pressure in the opposite direction — always gave the patient the choice of staying alive at the price of committing a sin: still, if the decision had been solely his own, he would have forbidden the animal food, whatever the risks might be. There must, he says, be some limit to what we will do in order to remain alive, and the limit is well on this side of chicken broth. This attitude is perhaps a noble one, but, in the sense which — I think — most people would give to the word, it is inhuman. The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that “non-attachment” is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for “non-attachment” is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the other-worldly or the humanistic ideal is “higher”. The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all “radicals” and “progressives”, from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.

M-am apucat să citesc Micul Prinţ de Saint Exupéry, un autor francez pe care o lume întreagă îl admiră mai mult decât francezii. A fost prima poveste pe care a ascultat-o cu atâta atenţie, fără să se trezească, încât a fost nevoie să-i citesc fără răgaz două zile, până i-am terminat-o. Am continuat cu Poveştile lui Perrault, cu Biblia, cu O mie şi una de nopţi într-o versiune aseptică pentru copii şi, din pricina diferenţelor din somnul ei, mi-am dat seama că avea mai multe grade de profunzime care depindeau de cât de interesante i se păreau cele citite. Când simţeam că nu mai puteam, stingeam lumina şi mă culcam, ţinând o în braţe până cântau cocoşii. Eram atât de fericit, încât o sărutam pe pleoape, uşurel, şi într-o noapte s-a pogorât parcă o lumină din cer: a zâmbit pentru prima oară. Mai târziu, fără niciun motiv, s-a răsucit în pat, mi-a întors spatele şi a spus supărată: Isabel a făcut melcii să plângă. Exaltat de iluzia unui dialog, am întrebat-o pe acelaşi ton: Ai cui erau? N-a răspuns. Vocea ei avea o nuanţă plebee, ca şi când n-ar fi fost a ei, ci a cuiva străin aflat înlăuntrul său. Orice urmă de îndoială a dispărut atunci din cugetul meu: o preferam adormită.

My request to gain access to Mme de Guermantes’s collection of Elstir paintings had been met by Saint-Loup with, “I’ll answer for her.” And, unfortunately, it was he and he alone who did the answering. We find it easy enough to answer for other people when we set little images of them in our mind and manipulate them to suit our needs. No doubt even then we are mindful of the difficulties that arise from other people’s natures being different from our own, and are ready enough to resort to whatever means are powerful enough to influence them—self-interest, persuasion, emotion—and will cancel out any inclination to oppose our wishes. But these differences in other people’s natures are still conceived by our own nature; the difficulties are raised by us; the compelling motives are measured by our own standards. So, when we want to see the other person actually perform the actions we have made him rehearse in our mind’s eye, things are quite different, we encounter unforeseen resistances that may be insuperable. Perhaps one of the strongest of these is the resistance that can grow, in a woman who is not in love, from the unconquerable and fetid repulsion she feels for the man who loves her: during the long weeks when Saint-Loup still did not come to Paris, his aunt, to whom I was certain he had written begging her to do so, did not once invite me to call and see her Elstirs. I

How could the crusaders be motivated by love and piety, considering all the brutal violence and bloodshed they committed? Not only is such a question anachronistic—violence was part and parcel of the medieval world—but centuries before Islam, Christian theologians had concluded that “the so called charity texts of the New Testament that preached passivism and forgiveness, not retaliation, were firmly defined as applying to the beliefs and behavior of the private person” and not the state, explains historian Christopher Tyerman. Christ himself distinguished between political and spiritual obligations (Matt. 22:21). He praised a Roman centurion without calling on him to “repent” by resigning from one of the most brutal militaries of history (Matt. 8: 5–13). When a group of soldiers asked John the Baptist how they should repent, he advised them always to be content with their army wages (Luke 3:14). Paul urged Christians to pray for “kings and all that are in authority” (1 Tim. 2:2). In short, “there was no intrinsic contradiction in a doctrine of personal, individual forgiveness condoning certain forms of necessary public violence to ensure the security in which, in St. Paul’s phrase, Christians ‘may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty’ (1 Tim. 2:2).”27 Or as that chief articulator of “Just War” theory, Saint Augustine (d. 430), concluded, “It is the injustice of the opposing side, that lays on the wise man the duty to wage war.

Beauty Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed, Without a trace of light or life revealed, Save one existence which second knew- Unknown the pleasant words of We and You. Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free, Seen of herself, with naught beside to see, With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower. No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress, No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known, To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown. No heightening hand had decked the rose with green, No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen. No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair, No eye in thought had seen the splendour there. Her witching snares in solitude she laid, And love's sweet game without a partner played. But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power She springs indignant from her curtained bower. She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard, And from the window looks if doors be barred. See how the tulip on the mountain grown Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown, Bursts from the rock, impatient to display Her nascent beauty to the eye of day. When sudden to thy soul reflection brings The precious meaning of mysterious things, Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain; Speak, hear thou must, for silence is such pain. So beauty ne'er will quit the urgent claim Whose motive first from heavenly beauty came When from her blessed bower she fondly strayed, And to the world and man her charms displayed. In every mirror then her face was shown, Her praise in every place was heard and known. Touched by her light, the hearts of angels burned, And, like the circling spheres, their heads were turned, While saintly bands, whom purest at the sight of her, And those who bathe them in the ocean sky Cries out enraptured, "Laud to God on high!" Rays of her splendour lit the rose's breast And stirred the bulbul's heart with sweet unrest. From her bright glow its cheek the flambeau fired, And myriad moths around the flame expired. Her glory lent the very sun the ray Which wakes the lotus on the flood to-day. Her loveliness made Laila's face look fair To Majnún, fettered by her every hair. She opened Shírín's sugared lips, and stole From Parvíz' breast and brave Farhád's the soul. Through her his head the Moon of Canaan raised, And fond Zulaikha perished as she gazed. Yes, though she shrinks from earthly lovers' call, Eternal Beauty is the queen of all; In every curtained bower the screen she holds, About each captured heart her bonds enfolds. Through her sweet love the heart its life retains, The soul through love of her its object gains. The heart which maidens' gentle witcheries stir Is, though unconscious, fired with love of her. Refrain from idle speech; mistake no more: She brings her chains and we, her slaves, adore. Fair and approved of Love, thou still must own That gift of beauty comes from her alone. Thou art concealed: she meets all lifted eyes; Thou art the mirror which she beautifies. She is that mirror, if we closely view The truth- the treasure and the treasury too. But thou and I- our serious work is naught; We waste our days unmoved by earnest thought. Cease, or my task will never end, for her Sweet beauties lack a meet interpreter. Then let us still the slaves of love remain For without love we live in vain, in vain. Jámí, "Yúsuf and Zulaikha". trans. Ralph T. H. Griffith. Ballantyne Press 1882. London. p.19-22

For the disciplined man, as for the true believer, no detail is unimportant, but not so much for the meaning that it conceals within it as for the hold it provides for the power that wishes to seize it. Characteristic is the great hymn to the 'little things' and to their eternal importance, sung by Jean Baptiste de La Salle, in his "Traité sur les obligations des freres des Ecoles chretienne" (Treaty on the obligations of the Brothers of the Christian Schools). The mystique of the everyday is joined here with the discipline of the minute. 'How dangerous it is to neglect little things. It is a very consoling reflection for a soul like mine, little disposed to great actions, to think that fidelity to little things may, by an imperceptible progress, raise us to the most eminent sanctity: because little things lead to greater . . . Little things; it will be said, alas, my God, what can we do that is great for you, weak and mortal creatures that we are. Little things; if great things presented themselves would we perform them! Would we not think them beyond our strength! Little things; and if God accepts them and wishes to receive them as great things! Little things; has one ever felt this? Does one judge according to experience? Little things; one is certainly guilty, therefore, of seeing them as such, one refuses them! Little things; yet it is they that in the end have made great saints! Yes, little things; but great motives, great feelings, great fervour, great ardour, and consequently great merits, great treasures, great rewards! (La Salle). The meticulousness of the regulations, the fussiness of the inspections, the supervision of the smallest fragment of life and of the body - will soon provide, in the context of the school, the barracks, the hospital or the workshop, a laicized content, an economic or technical rationality for this mystical calculus of the infinitesimal and the infinite.

[...]Many of those friends were self-declared socialists - Wester socialists, that is. They spoke about Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Salvador Allende or Ernesto 'Che' Guevara as secular saints. It occurred to me that they were like my father in this aspect: the only revolutionaries they considered worthy of admiration had been murdered.[...]ut they did not think that my stories from the eighties were in any way significant to their political beliefs. Sometimes, my appropriating the label of socialist to describe both my experiences and their commitments was considered a dangerous provocation. [...] 'What you had was not really socialism.' they would say, barely concealing their irritation. My stories about socialism in Albania and references to all the other socialist countries against which our socialism had measured itself were, at best, tolerated as the embarrassing remarks of a foreigner still learning to integrate. The Soviet Union, China, the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cuba; there was nothing socialist about them either. They were seen as the deserving losers of a historical battle that the real, authentic bearers of that title had yet to join. My friends' socialism was clear, bright and in the future. Mine was messy, bloody and of the past. And yet, the future that they sought, and that which socialist states had once embodied, found inspiration in the same books, the same critiques of society, the same historical characters. But to my surprise, they treated this as an unfortunate coincidence. Everything that went wrong on my side of the world could be explained by the cruelty of our leaders, or the uniquely backward nature of our institutions. They believed there was little for them to learn. There was no risk of repeating the same mistakes, no reason to ponder what had been achieved, and why it had been destroyed. Their socialism was characterized by the triumph of freedom and justice; mine by their failure. Their socialism would be brought about by the right people, with the right motives, under the right circumstances, with the right combination of theory and practice. There was only one thing to do about mine: forget it. [...]But if there was one lesson to take away from he history of my family, and of my country, it was that people never make history under circumstances they choose. It is easy to say, 'What you had was not the real thing', applying that to socialism or liberalism, to any complex hybrid of ideas and reality. It releases us from the burden of responsability. We are no longer complicit in moral tragedies create din the name of great ideas, and we don't have to reflect, apologize and learn.

At a time when I believed what people told me, I should have been tempted to believe Germany, then Bulgaria, then Greece when they proclaimed their pacific intentions. But since my life with Albertine and with Françoise had accustomed me to suspect those motives they did not express, I did not allow any word, however right in appearance of William II, Ferdinand of Bulgaria or Constantine of Greece to deceive my instinct which divined what each one of them was plotting. Doubtless my quarrels with Françoise and with Albertine had only been little personal quarrels, mattering only to the life of that little spiritual cellule which a human being is. But in the same way as there are bodies of animals, human bodies, that is to say, assemblages of cellules, which, in relation to one of them alone, are as great as a mountain, so there exist enormous organised groupings of individuals which we call nations; their life only repeats and amplifies the life of the composing cellules and he who is not capable of understanding the mystery, the reactions and the laws of those cellules, will only utter empty words when he talks about struggles between nations. But if he is master of the psychology of individuals, then these colossal masses of conglomerate individuals facing one another will assume in his eyes a more formidable beauty than a fight born only of a conflict between two characters, and he will see them on the scale on which the body of a tall man would be seen by infusoria of which it would require more than ten thousand to fill one cubic milimeter. Thus for some time past the great figure of France, filled to its perimeter with millions of little polygons of various shapes and the other figure of Germany filled with even more polygons were having one of those quarrels which, in a smaller measure, individuals have. But the blows that they were exchanging were regulated by those numberless boxing-matches of which Saint-Loup had explained the principles to me. And because, even in considering them from the point of view of individuals they were gigantic assemblages, the quarrel assumed enormous and magnificent forms like the uprising of an ocean which with its millions of waves seeks to demolish a secular line of cliffs or like giant glaciers which, with their slow and destructive oscillation, attempt to disrupt the frame of the mountain by which they are circumscribed. In spite of this, life continued almost the same for many people who have figured in this narrative, notably for M. de Charlus and for the Verdurins, as though the Germans had not been so near to them; a permanent menace in spite of its being concentrated in one immediate peril leaving us entirely unmoved if we do not realise it.

AJ huffed a heavy sigh. “I’m not good at this.” She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands tucked under her legs. “Good at what?” “This…” he motioned between them “…this relationship stuff. I should care enough to ask you more about your past, the blood thing, the ridiculous profession you’ve chosen, the reason why you’re living with your brother … but I’m too fucking selfish. I can barely deal with my own pathetic life, I just—” She shook her head. “It’s fine. I have nothing to tell.” His head jerked back a fraction as his eyelids fluttered with rapid blinks. “What is that supposed to mean?” Jillian lifted a single shoulder. “You act like I’m on a cliff’s edge just waiting, begging you to ask me about my past and my ‘issues,’ but I’m not. The fact that you don’t ask me about it is why this…” she mimicked his motion between them “…relationship works.” He nodded with an absent stare. She’d gone too far. It was a slippery balance between too much and not enough. It’s human nature to desire what’s perceived as the unattainable. Was she making her past seem too unattainable? “Don’t.” AJ’s gaze snapped to hers. “Don’t what?” “I was simply stating a fact. Don’t interpret it as a game. I’m not playing hard to get with my emotions. It’s not a trap.” He rested his hands on his hips and stared at his feet. “It’s a gift, AJ. You will never have to be my gallant knight on his trusty steed, drawing your sword to defend my honor. I will never gawk at sparkly diamonds in the jewelry store window or ask you where you see our relationship going.” “You sound callous, but I know you’re not. I’ve experienced your compassion.” “That’s a gift too. I’ve never been compassionate toward you with an ulterior motive. I’m not callous. I’m strong. It takes a lot of strength to give unconditionally because the ego is a savage, demanding beast.” He narrowed his eyes a bit. “So nothing … you don’t want anything from me in return.” Jillian smirked, prowling toward him. “I’m compassionate, not a saint.” She slid her hands under his shirt, tracing the definition of each firm plane of muscle. He quirked a brow. “So you want me for my body?” A provocative smirk stole her lips as she pushed up his shirt and teased her teeth over his skin. “I think we both know it’s not for your stellar personality.” “You’re such a bitch,” he growled, grabbing her ass and lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and laughed. “But an honest bitch.

But at keast we know that the Brotherhood was both a scientific academy and a monastic order; that its members led an ascetic communal life where all property was shared, thus anticipating the Essenes and the primitive Christian communities. We know that much of their time was spent in contemplation, and that initiation into the higher mysteries of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine depended upon the purification of spirit and body, which the aspirant had to achieve by abstinences and examinations of conscience. Pythagoras himself, like St. Francis, is said to have preached to animals; the whole surviving tradition indicates that his disciples, while engaged in number-lore and astronomical calculations, firmly believed that a true scientist must be a saint, and that the wish to become one was the motivation of his labours.

To develop enduring faith, an enduring commitment to be a full-tithe payer is essential. Initially it takes faith to tithe. Then the tithe payer develops more faith to the point that tithing becomes a precious privilege. Tithing is an ancient law from God. He made a promise to His children that He would open “the windows of heaven, and pour … out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” Not only that, tithing will keep your name enrolled among the people of God and protect you in “the day of vengeance and burning.” Why do we need such resilient faith? Because difficult days are ahead. Rarely in the future will it be easy or popular to be a faithful Latter-day Saint. Each of us will be tested. The Apostle Paul warned that in the latter days, those who diligently follow the Lord “shall suffer persecution.” That very persecution can either crush you into silent weakness or motivate you to be more exemplary and courageous in your daily lives.

14. People should not imagine that just because God and the saints converse amiably with them on many subjects, they will be told their particular faults, for they can come to the knowledge of these through other means. Hence there is no motive for assurance, for we read in the Acts of the Apostles what happened to St. Peter. Though he was a prince of the Church and received immediate instruction from God, he was mistaken about a certain ceremony practiced among the Gentiles.

Ministers as a body are I think the best men living on the earth. I could fill a dozen evenings with praises of the pulpit saints whom I have known. In purity of motive ministers as a class surpass the lawyers, in breadth of sympathy the physicians, in fidelity to principle the editors, in self-sacrifice the merchants, in moral courage the soldiers, in loftiness of ideals the teachers, in purity of life the highest classes in our best society. This is not said boastfully but gratefully as a fact not to be disputed. But ministers to be as good as other classes of men must be better than they. No other set of men make such assumptions or bind themselves to such high ideals.

To lovers out there … One day we must break away from the myths that if you single and not dating. It means you are well mannered , raised well and you are a good person. If you’re dating then you are ratchet, wild, fast forward and you like things. Most people who are not dating is not by choice but is by circumstance . Some are not dating because they can’t find right partners. Some are in the closet. Some they fear to be heart broken, pregnancy ,commitment, to be burden. Some are busy don’t have time. Some don’t have money. Dating doesn’t make people hoes. Not dating it doesn’t make people saints either.  We should stop bad mouthing, slandering, name calling, slut shamming people who are trying their best to find right partners or to find love. Especial when we can’t do what they are doing because of our fears, even thou we also want what they want. To be loved .

Don’t you realize that you get missions that feel bigger than you because you’re bigger than you realize? You never stop. You care for the sake of caring. You want to fix Dorothy Gale and Oscar as much as you want to help the transportation problem. You are everything Saint Valentine needs in an agent. You’re motivated for the right reasons. You use your heart with your head. You know how to employ your resources. “This mission is a lot for one person, but you’re not alone, and you’re a master at leading.

The profoundest motive which leads us toward the saints is the desire simply to be in their company — to abide with them. It is love seeking the communion of those who have dedicated their lives to love and who are now fulfilled in it; it is the desire for that holy atmosphere in which the soul can breathe and for the mysterious current which nourishes it; it is the longing for the answer to the ultimate meaning of existence.

Your pep is inciting violence. I just had a flash of me pushing you off the Saint View bluffs, and it brought me great joy, even though you were shouting motivations at me the entire way down.

Saints like Jesus and others — depending on your religion — died as single men; never dated and never married. Yet they gave the best marriage advices in the whole world. Never underestimate the message based on the messenger's relationship status, race, or age group. Be open to the message, and nurture your relationship. P.S. Jesus died at 33 years young, allegedly.

The core motivation for my leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after thirty-two years of association requires very little analysis, only a modest debate, and certainly no complex justification. If what Joseph Smith Jr. did with the wives of so many other men was both authorized and directed by Jesus Christ Himself, then I can publicly state without any reservation whatsoever, “I want no part of Christianity, and I wish for no relationship with a heavenly Master who would require such action.

Above all, consider the merits and sufferings of Christ, which are our principal title to God's grace and mercy, and which form the treasure whence the Church supplies the necessities of her children. It was from a confidence inspired by such motives that the saints drew that strength which rendered them as firm as Mount Sion, and established them in the holy city whence they never could be moved. (Cf. Ps. 124:1). Yet, notwithstanding these powerful reasons for hope, it is deplorable that this virtue should still be so weak in us. We lose heart at the first appearance of danger, and go down into Egypt hoping for help from Pharaoh (Cf. Is. 30:2) – that is, we turn to creatures instead of God. There are many servants of God who zealously devote themselves to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, but few who possess the confidence with which the virtuous ï Susanna was animated, even when condemned to death and led to execution. (Cf. Dan. 13). Read the Holy Scriptures, particularly the Psalms and the writings of the prophets, and you will find abundant motives for unfailing hope in God.

Christians are good citizens, and take human laws very seriously, for religious reasons, not just for secular reasons. That’s why they are better citizens than atheists, and certainly better citizens than moral relativists and subjectivists: they have stronger motives for obedience.

The motivation of love motivates us to give our lives for others. In sum, Rutilio Grande embodied all three of these, and “died loving others,” pardoning his enemies. “Who knows if the murderers that have now fallen into excommunication are listening to a radio in their hideout, listening, in their conscience to this word. We want to tell you, murderous brothers, that we love you and that we ask of God repentance for your hearts, because the church is not able to hate.

In the early days of the Church, heroic virtue was clearly seen in the sacrifice of the martyrs during the Roman persecutions. But after the Emperor Constantine not only legalized Christianity in 313 but later even granted Christians a privileged place under the law, this led to a new laxity within the Church. More believers came to the Church with insincere motives and lack of fervor. As a response, some of those that desired the full vitality of Christian life as witnessed in the martyrs set out for a separate life of prayer and fasting in the desert—a white martyrdom of death to self each day.   Finding

He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man. There is no measuring Muad’Dib’s motives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treachery.

group of aspiring young Mormon painters who called themselves “art missionaries” arrived from Utah, many to enroll at the Académie Julian. Their expenses were being provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in return for work they would later contribute, painting murals in the Temple at Salt Lake City. As one of their leaders, an especially gifted painter named John Hafen, said, their motivation was the belief that “the highest possible development of talent is the duty we owe to our Creator.” Though no exact count was made of the American art students in Paris at the time, they undoubtedly numbered more than a thousand. And

The monk aims, above all, for the kingdom of God. But his more immediate ambition is to rid his heart of complexity so that he seeks that goal in simplicity and without mixed motives.

You see, Saint, sex doesn’t destroy Christianity,” he says, ignoring me entirely, turning his hard glare on him. “Sex is natural. It’s genetically programmed into us as a biological motivator in which we live our everyday lives. It’s pleasurable, organic, and a primal need our bodies constantly seek, whether or not you’re aware. You fight it because you’re told to. For no other reason than the idea of control. Control of the masses.” “Fornication is a sin—” “Sex doesn’t destroy Christianity,” Aero repeats calmly but with annoyance, interrupting Saint entirely. “Men do.” Saint's eyes narrow, both of their heated gazes burning a hole through the other. “So you’re going to fuck her like you’ve been imagining, and show your father who you truly are; a man with no attachments other than the eternal love for his God alone. You are going to use her, take from her, and throw her away as planned. Just as he did with his mistress. Just as they all do when the time comes for them to prove themselves.

If we ask why such a man lapsed into heresy, the psychological answer, for what it is worth, lies on the surface. He was incurably a logician, his whole temper was impatient of compromises, of halfway houses. And in the debate which probably went on in his age, as it does in most ages of the Church, between the people who want to screw up the standard of Church discipline and the people who would adjust it to the weakness of human nature, he inevitably found his true home among the extremists. Not because he was a saintly idealist, with Wesley's distrust of the 'almost Christian', but because his intellectual bias impelled him towards the party of consistency; he preferred rigorism, not because it was a harder rule to live by, but because it was an easier principle to defend. Where was the sense in belauding martyrdom, yet allowing Christians to take refuge in flight when persecution threatened? Why should absolution be refused to the man who had denied his faith under torture, and then granted to the adulterer, who could make no plea of duress? We do not know what personal or accidental motives may have contributed to his false decision; but it is not difficult, I think, to see that decision as congenial to the bent of his mind.

Sin, the Fall, salvation, grace, election-how is it that they loom so large in the vocabulary of a movement which should have been Platonist, should have been theocentric? It is due, I think, to the overmastering influence of one man, St. Augustine. A Platonist if ever there was one, yet Fenelon quarried no material from him in writing the Maximes des saints. St. Augustine was a man in whom the moral struggle had become inextricably entwined with the search for God; further, he had to enter the lists against the great heresy of Pelagius, which sought to by-pass the mystery of redemption. Consequently, the doctrine of grace became a major preoccupation with him, and he darkened in, perhaps too unsparingly, the outlines of St. Paul's world-picture. Moreover, he sought to pluck the heart out of a mystery by his theory of the two rival delectations. If you avoided sin, it was only because conscious love for God then and there neutralized the attraction of it; your decision was made on a balance of motives. Exaggerated now from this angle, now from that, St. Augustine's theology has provided, ever since, the dogmatic background of revivalism.

An evil person will not become a saint, even if he is taught in several different ways; a Neem tree will not become sweet, even if it is watered by milk and ghee from its very top to its very roots.

We must make a heroic effort to rid our lives of all but one motive, that “impractical” spirituality of the saints, a life in union with God.

Our dreams constantly speak to us of our beliefs and attitudes. They are of such crucial importance because they largely determine what we do, how we relate to people, and how we react to most situations. Most of us are not remotely aware of how much we are controlled by our beliefs, even less aware of how unconscious our attitude systems are. No one decides what beliefs and attitudes he or she will start off with. We all begin our lives with a set of attitudes that are dictated to us by the world outside us—family, tribe, or society. Generally, we don’t know we have them. If we are consciously aware of them as our beliefs, we assume that they are right; it rarely occurs to us to question them. At a certain point our dreams begin to challenge them and point them out to us, for the process of inner growth demands that we examine consciously everything that motivates us. If you look at the belief systems floating around in your dreams, you may find a power-mad dictator, a great general, a saint, or a sage living in you, with a complete matching set of attitudes. When this image appears, you should ask: “What set of beliefs, what opinions, does this character function out of? Do I unconsciously hold that same opinion without realizing it?

The Christian is never to be motivated by a sense of his own honor, but rather by the honor of Christ. If pride was Satan’s original sin, humility and patient faith are the Christian’s primary duty.

The Christian is never to be motivated by a sense of his own honor, but rather by the honor of Christ. If pride was Satan’s original sin, humility and patient faith are the Christian’s primary duty. The Christian casts his own honor in the dust so that God may be honored, knowing that God and God alone can give him true honor. The Christian, thus, lives by obedience and submission, not by pride and honor and nobility.

caution believers who speak in tongues to evaluate carefully their motivation. Is it for the glory of God, or is it because of pressure from a group? Do you feel that you would be a lesser saint than others if you did not speak in tongues? The Bible urges you to pursue love, not tongues.

Thanks to God the true parent of all times Times to know and to have faith in God God is our God and our father and mother Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ is Saint Mary Saint Mary is the mother of all All who ask, receive. Ask Saint Mary for her compassion Compassion is given always by the true Parents Parents Exist

He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man. There is no measuring Muad'Dib's motives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treachery. Can you say he did this out of a sense of justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now of the Muad'Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: "I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough.

There’s only one activity that stimulates the brain to produce all seven at the same time, and that’s the ecstatic state of flow. The shortest way there is deep, alpha-driven meditation. When you blend all seven into a single cocktail, the result is euphoria. Let’s see: What might a combination of the first letters of each drug look like? Serotonin, Oxytocin, Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Anandamide, Nitric oxide, and Beta-endorphin? Just for fun, let’s combine them, and call our cocktail’s special blend SONDANoBe. This is the magic formula that, produced inside our own bodies in the proper ratios, bathes the brain in the chemicals of ecstasy. GETTING HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY When I meditate, I can feel the moment when each drug in the cocktail kicks in. First, I use EFT tapping and release any and every negative thought, emotion, and energy. This drops my level of cortisol, along with suppressing the high beta brain waves of stress. I now have a molecular substrate in my brain upon which I can build a deep and focused meditative experience. Next, I close my eyes and focus. Dopamine kicks in as I anticipate the delicious hormone and neurotransmitter drug cocktail I’m about to be rewarded with. The dopaminergic reward system of my brain fires up and the “body learning” of how to meditate—stored in my basal ganglia, which memorize frequently performed actions—comes online. Ingredient one. My mind starts to wander. My email inbox. The morning’s first meeting. The laugh line of the movie I watched last night. An overdue deadline. Damn, I’m way out of the zone already, cortisol rising, and I haven’t been meditating more than 5 minutes. Dopamine brings me back to focus, aided by norepinephrine. I’m motivated. I want Bliss Brain more than I want an endless loop of the Me Show. I return to center. Cortisol drops. Ahhh, I’m back. Norepinephrine stimulates my attention. Ingredient two. Then I realize that my body is uncomfortable. I have a twinge in my right knee. My lower back hurts. My tummy’s rumbling because it’s empty. I consciously shift my wandering mind back into focus. Back in sync, my neurons secrete beta-endorphin, which masks the pain. The discomfort drops away, and being in a body feels wonderful. Ingredient three. I tune in to each of the archetypal strands that guide me. Mother Mary. Kwan Yin. Healing. Strength. Beauty. Wisdom. I imagine myself meditating in a field of a million saints. I’m lost in Bliss Brain, as serotonin, the satisfaction drug, kicks in. Ingredient four. I feel one with the universe. Oxytocin starts to flow, as I bond with everything. Ingredient five. That releases nitric oxide and anandamide. Ingredients six and seven.

Multiple raids on emigrant wagon trains in Utah Territory, both before and weeks after September 11, 1857, demonstrate that the train massacred at Mountain Meadows was not the only one attacked. These assaults were motivated by political wrangling over federal and local rule and tensions between church and state that reached a deadly peak in 1857 but roiled Utah for decades. Modern readers may recognize similar tensions today, not only in Utah but throughout the United States. This jostling for power between Latter-day Saints and federal authority continued long after the massacre. Attempts to wield the case as a political weapon resulted in justice delayed—and justice denied—for the innocent victims of the massacre and their families.

Choose to channel and control your anger and character when you get rejections or disappointment. When people are disappointed, because they couldn’t get their way or get what they wanted. They choose to be malicious, dangerous, toxic, and petty. They choose to wish bad things on those who disappointed them, or they choose to think those who disappointed them are bad people and wish worse things to happen to them. Yet they claim to be saints while they wish harm on others , because they didn’t do, act, or say what they wanted .

The self-starvation cycle has been documented across time and cultures, including non-Western ones. In modern Western societies, concerns with fat and thinness are the main reason for weight loss and probably explain the moderate rise of Anorexia Nervosa incidence across the second half of the 20th century. However, cases of self-starvation with spiritual and religious motivations have been common in Europe at least since the Middle Ages (and include several Catholic saints, most famously St. Catherine of Siena). In some Asian cultures, digestive discomfort is often cited as the initial reason for restricting food intake, but the resulting syndrome has essentially the same symptoms as anorexia in Western countries.

Now and then we know a moment of supreme bliss, when we ask nothing, give nothing, know nothing but bliss. Then it passes, and we again see the panorama of the universe moving before us; and we know that it is but a mosaic work set upon God, who is the background of all things. Vedanta teaches that nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self, and after having once known that, if only for an instant, never again can one be deluded by the mirage of personality. Having eyes, we must see the apparent, but all the time we know what it is; we have found out its true nature. It is the screen that hides the Self, which is unchanging. The screen opens and we find the Self behind it. All change is the screen. In the saint the screen is thin, and the reality can almost shine through. In the sinner the screen is thick, and we are able to lose sight of the truth that the atman [Self] is there, as well as behind the saint’s screen. When the screen is wholly removed, we find it never existed—that we were the atman and nothing else, even the screen is forgotten. The two phases of this distinction in life are: First, that the man, who knows the real Self, will not be affected by anything; secondly, that that man alone can do good to the world. That man alone will have seen the real motive of doing good to others, because there is only one. It cannot be called egoistic, because that would be differentiation. It is only selflessness. It is the perception of the universal, not of the individual. Every case of love and sympathy is an assertion of this universal. “Not I, but thou.” Help another, because you are in him and he is in you, is the philosophical way of putting it. The real Vedantist alone will give up his life for a fellow being without any compunction, because he knows he will not die. As long as there is one insect left in the world, he is living; as long as one mouth eats, he eats. So he goes on doing good to others, and is never hindered by the modern ideas of caring for the body. When a man reaches this point of abnegation, he goes beyond the moral struggle, beyond everything. He sees in the most learned priest, in the cow, in the dog, in the most miserable places, neither the learned man, nor the cow, nor the dog, nor the miserable place, but the same divinity manifesting itself in them all. He alone is the happy man; and the man who has acquired that sameness has, even in this life, conquered all existence. God is pure; therefore such a man is said to be living in God.

The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is “that I may know Him.” Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.

For all his saintly qualities, however, Kropotkin by no means offered blanket opposition to the use of violence. He upheld the assassination of tyrants if the perpetrators were impelled by noble motives, though his acceptance of bloodshed in such instances was inspired by compassion for the oppressed rather than by any personal hatred of the ruling despots. Kropotkin believed that acts of terror were among the very few means of resistance available to the enchained masses; they were useful as "propaganda by the deed," calculated to supplement oral and written propaganda in awakening the rebellious instincts of the people. Nor did Kropotkin shrink from revolution itself, for he hardly expected the propertied classes to give up their privileges and possessions without a fight. Like Bakunin, he anticipated an upheaval that would demolish capitalism and the state for all time. Nevertheless, he earnestly hoped that the rebellion would be a tame one, with "the smallest number of victims, and a minimum of embitterment." Kropotkin's revolution was to be speedy and humane—quite unlike Bakunin's demonic visions of fire and brimstone.

In the church we must have a pure motive and grow properly. We should never become old quickly or wither away early. We must make sure that we do not have any impure motives. If we have an impure motive, we will wither early, decay early, and fall off early. This is to give up on ourselves. If we grow properly, we will age slowly. Furthermore, we will spontaneously become a proper older saint who nourishes and takes care of the younger saints in the church. We should not be discouraged if the church “fails,” because the church on earth is bound to have difficulties within and enemies without, like any nation. For this reason the church must have a national defense and also law and order. This is the proper way that is of the Lord. The Lord is taking this way, and many who love Him are also on this way. This is the line of life, the hidden flow of life. This is where the Lord Himself does everything.

They broke up into pairs, and the other two wandered afield and came across a small, humble house that was home to some monks. Welcomed inside, one of Ponticianus’s friends, scanning the shelves, picked up The Life of Antony, a biography of the Egyptian monk by Athanasius. He was immediately pulled in by the book and “set on fire.” Suddenly he was filled with holy love and sobering shame. Angry with himself, he turned his eyes on his friend and said to him: “Tell me, I beg of you, what do we hope to achieve with all our labours? What is our aim in life? What is the motive of our service to the state? Can we hope for any higher office in the palace than to be Friends of the Emperor? And in that position what is not fragile and full of dangers? How many hazards must one risk to attain a position of even greater danger? And when will we arrive there? Whereas, if I wish to become God’s friend, in an instant I may become that now.”19 What is our aim in life? What are we aiming for when we aim our lives at some aspiration? The question isn’t whether we aim our lives. Our existence is like an arrow on a taut string: it will be sent somewhere. It’s not a matter of quelling ambition, of “settling,” as if that were somehow more virtuous (or even possible). The alternative to disordered ambition that ultimately disappoints is not some holy lethargy or pious passivity. It’s recalibrated ambition that aspires for a different end and does so for different reasons. What

This morning, before I left for the Pasteur I phoned the retirement home to ask after Jean-Lino's aunt. With the conversation finished, I think, You're really a good person, you're concerned for others. Two seconds later I tell myself, It's disgusting, this self-satisfaction over such an elementary deed. And immediately after that, Good, you keep a firm eye on your own motives, bravo. There's always some great congratulator who has the last word. When Denner, as a child, came out of confession, he used to stop in front of Saint Joseph, breathe deep, and say to himself, Now I'm a saint. And right afterward, going down the stairs: Oh shit-sin of pride. One way or another, virtue doesn't last. It can only exist if we're not aware of it.

The motive of revenge is criminal if it creeps into the breast even in demanding the just punishment of a delinquent; much more if it push men to vindicate their own cause themselves by returning injury for injury, and wreaking wrongs on those that inflicted them.

Mormon-black relations. This work’s central thesis was that two factors drove Brigham Young to implement the Church’s black ban by 1852. Most important was a developing sense of Mormon “whiteness” wherein Latter-day Saints identified themselves as a divinely “chosen” people, while conversely labeling blacks a biblically cursed race, given their skin color and alleged descent from the accursed biblical counter-figures of Cain, Ham, and Canaan. Further motivating Young was his embrace of black slavery, which he considered divinely sanctioned. Thus as Utah Territorial Governor he called for its legalization—this occurring in February 1852, shortly following Mormon migration to the Great Basin. Utah became the only western territory to approve slavery. Young in calling for this statute claimed a divinely sanctioned link between black servitude and black priesthood denial—the latter practice made public for the first time in his 1852 statement calling for black slavery. The dissertation also drew a number of conclusions relative to the perpetuation of the black priesthood and temple ban. The ban was firmly established by the time of Brigham Young’s death in 1877, given that the Mormon leader repeatedly affirmed its divine legitimacy over the previous quarter century. Further assuring perpetuation of the ban was official LDS embrace of the historical myth that Joseph Smith established the restriction. Such mythmaking received scriptural justification through canonization of the Pearl of Great Price in 1880, a work consisting of the Books of Moses and Abraham. All such developments made the subordinate status of Mormon blacks virtually “irreversible by 1880,” enabling the ban to continue unchanged into the mid-1970s.13

Do something so radical that you become the very first of your kind in that deed, and you shall never be forgotten so long as human life exists.