Theo Of Golden Quotes

the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

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faith, hope, and love endure, but the greatest of these is love.

The myth of the Islamic Golden Age The medieval philosophers and thinkers who dedicated their lives to science and philosophy, who stood up to Islam and paid a dear price for rejecting its teachings and discrediting its founders are currently introduced as Muslim scholars.

It’s hard enough to define what art is, much less ‘good art.’ I wonder if there is such a thing. Maybe there are just good responses. But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we ought to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as ‘good.’ If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.

for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. I’m not even sure I know fully what that means, but the older I get, the more I believe it. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.

Perhaps I am mistaken but, at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment. I am quite certain that your portraits help some people, in a very tender and courteous way, to ask themselves, maybe for the first time, ‘Who is that person? What do I know to be true, really true, about that face?’ . . .

A man who loves all women loves no woman. A man who loves only one woman loves all women.

Theo, do not become materialistic like Tersteeg. The problem is, Theo, my brother, not to let yourself be bound, no matter by what, especially not by a golden chain.

Theo shook his head. “No, my dear. Sadness might be many things, but it is rarely stupid. The good sadness, I think, is always trying to tell us something very important.

Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.

It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.

Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.

music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.

There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.

Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete without the other.

Theo could have come to us with great fanfare. He could have flaunted his importance and impressed us with his great wealth and long list of accomplishments. Instead, he came with anonymous handwritten letters and no last name. Instead, he came, as did His Lord, not to be served but to serve.

And so, I say to you, my friends and neighbors, followers of Christ and those not, if you would honor the memory of Gamez Theophilus Zilavez, then do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leads to life everlasting, and draw from the fountain that never runs dry. “Like Theo did. “For heaven’s sake. “Amen.

Wolves stood outside our fires, and humans were terrified,” answered Ahanu. “Yet our warrior-fathers did not kill them. The wolves came from Mother Earth. They were part of us. So, we brought what we feared to the warmth of the flame. Before the fire, we trained them. We loved them. We bred them to be useful to our tribes. Over the many years, what had frightened us now became our greatest allies. Together, these dogs and we people fought against the darkness of the wood.” Theo blinked, trying to understand. He looked at the golden puppy on the ground, running through the feet and legs of the adults. Then to Ahanu. “But, sir, why do you tell me this?” Theo asked. “This dog, who shall be under your care, belongs to the best of humankind’s creation. For man transformed that which he feared into something which could love him. The dog, Theo, is the great witness to the one truth. There is but the one truth. Four words like my tale. The truth is this: Love triumphs over fear. Remember what I say for I know you. Do not ask me how I know that you live in a storm of fury . . .” Then he said softly, intimately, “. . . and fear. But take heart, for love has overcome the wild world. Dogs were once wolves.

It turned out that she was in love. She had this boy, Theo. I met him once. He was pretty golden, too. The sweetest, sweetest thing, he was, and handsome right off the handsome scale. He shook my hand and he made proper eye contact and he was clever, clever, clever and I found myself thinking, Just imagine the babies that these two lovebirds could make, would they not be just spectacular. That might well have been the root of it, thinking about it now.

person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.’ Tintern Abbey, yes? Little. Nameless. Unremembered. I think it has never been our nature to think that way, but especially now, we like ‘big’ and ‘viral’ and all that. But I think Mr. Wordsworth was right. “At this point, the handful of people who’ve gotten their portraits — on this very bench, in fact — only know that a stranger, for some strange reason, gave them a gift. If those

Yet Theo had become engrossed in his own tale, transporting himself back to the night of which he spoke. In the distance, he could again see the faces he had encountered on that fateful night, the twisted bodies and pained expressions of the men who no longer walked the realms of men, but those of the underworld gods.

Just Right Café, Theo said, “Another business with a cute name.” “Hey, easy on the sarcasm. I resemble that remark. Besides, the woman who runs it has the last name Behr, so it’s appropriate.” “Does she have golden locks?” “Very funny.” “Sorry,

The hour was a pleasant combination of cool air and sunbathed pavement. The shadows of early evening were feather soft, and joie de vivre prevailed up and down the Promenade.

Immediately, the confusion began to subside, affirmation that a gentle answer (still) turns away wrath. “Ellen,

Singing was a total-body experience for Basil Cannonfield. His shoulders rose and fell, his neck bobbed rhythmically, and his knees bent as feet tapped or shuffled vigorously in service of the songs. He was pulled like a marionette by the strings of music in his head. From

anyone as old as me could say the same. When we’re young, we’re usually too busy or too self-absorbed to see it, but by the time one is almost ninety, this world has beat the sadness into him quite deeply. Every week there is some tragedy or reminder to keep it alive and well.

The phrase “poisonous beauty” formed in his mind. He wondered if there might be other things that, like azaleas, were beautiful and toxic at the same time. Let me think . . . rattlesnake, jellyfish, hemlock, black widow, words without wisdom, power without compassion, appetite without boundaries, pleasure without gratitude, art without humility.. . . I wonder if Basil could write a song called “Poisonous Beauty.

In the original Orphico-Pythagorean sense, philosophy meant wisdom (sophia) and love (eros) combined in a moral and intellectual purification in order to reach the “likeness to God” (homoiosis theo, [Plato, Theaet. 176b]). This likeness was to be attained by gno-sis, knowledge. The same Greek word nous (“intellect,” understood in a macrocosmic and microcosmic sense) covers all that is meant both by “spirit” (spiritus, ruh) and “intellect” (intellectus, ‘aql) in the Medieval Christian and Islamic lexicon. Thus Platonic philosophy (and especially Neoplatonism) was a spiritual and contemplative way of life leading to enlightenment; a way which was properly and intrinsically intellectual; a way that was ultimately based on intellection or noetic vision (noesis), which transcends the realm of sense perception and discursive reasoning. Through an immediate grasp of first principles, the non-discursive intelligence lead to a union (henosis) with the divine Forms. “Knowledge of the gods,” says Iamblichus, “is virtue and wisdom and perfect happiness, and makes us like to the gods” (Protr.

He was handsome... she would give him that. Although not in the way of Theo, who had been blessed with the refined features and golden hair of a young Apollo. Devon Ravenel's dark good looks were bold and raffish, weathered with a cynicism that made him look every bit his twenty-eight years. She felt a shock every time she looked up into his eyes, the blue of a rough winter ocean, the vivid irises rimmed with blue-black. His face was smooth shaven, but the lower half was shadowed with a beard grain that even the sharpest razor would not completely remove.

Overlooked by her parents, and ignored by her brother Theo, who had spent most of his short life at boarding schools or in London, Helen had turned to her inner world of books and imagination. Her suitors had been Romeo, Heathcliff, Mr. Darcy, Edward Rochester, Sir Lancelot, Sydney Carton, and an assortment of golden-haired fairy tale princes.

The porch ceiling was painted powder blue. An old superstition held that such a practice was effective at keeping bad spirits from entering a house and also at keeping spiders from spinning webs in the corners. Perhaps it worked. No bad spirits seemed to be present as Theo waited for Asher’s welcome, nor did he see any spiders.

That means, of course, that ‘good art’ varies from one person to another, doesn’t it? And that good art can come from a child or a master. I don’t think the critics, especially the moderns, appreciate that idea very much. I think they like telling us what’s legitimate as art, what has worth and what doesn’t.

There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.

You are strong. And you are brave. And you are kind. Even when you are sad.

words without wisdom, power without compassion, appetite without boundaries, pleasure without gratitude, art without humility..

Yes, we can be such a terrible race at times, but, at the same time, terribly wonderful. All capable of saintliness.

For the year he dwelled there, the Eye of God was always near.

And at some point, those two pilgrims realized that their mysterious walking partner was no ordinary man. He could tell them the story because He wrote the story. “Because He was the story. “We are told that ‘their eyes were opened.’ “And this is what the pair subsequently recalled when they spoke of their seven-mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. “‘Our hearts burned within us.’ Their hearts burned within them.” Father Lundy allowed the phrase to linger in silence for a few seconds before he resumed. “We all walk roads of various descriptions in life. The long and winding road. The road to ruin. Easy Street. The road less traveled. “Along the way, there are questions, there is news, there are concerns and fears and uncertainties that furrow our brows, trouble our souls, and break our hearts. Death terrifies many of us. “But God, in His sublime goodness, has always sent others, mysterious others, to walk with us — prophets, preachers, friends, teachers, artists, storytellers, wives and husbands, children, songbirds and rivers, even hardship and loss — to help us see clearly. They are ones who make our hearts burn within us, who call us out of our indifference, our lethargy, our death and defeat. They call us to be fully alive, or at least more alive than we were before we met them. “And so . . . Theo. “For a year, he was in our midst and now, looking back, can’t we say that, when we were with him, our hearts burned within us, our souls stood on tiptoe, our eyes recognized something good and true, and our minds could believe, if not fully, then ever so slightly, that love and heaven and forgiveness are the most real things that we can know in this world? “I think we are only beginning to understand and appreciate what a unique man Theo was. Can you call to mind anyone who quite so beautifully integrated the concrete and the spiritual? Who lived with such a winsome commitment to the seen and the unseen, the ultimate and the proximate, the wide grace and the narrow way?

Baby, they’s justice and they’s mercy. If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other, I say always go the mercy way. If you make a mistake, make it for mercy. Bad mercy don’t hurt nearly like bad justice, and always remember, the eye of God can see.

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Theo, I appreciate that you’re such a sensitive man. You have a tender heart.” “Not tender, Asher. Broken. My expertise in sadness is hard-earned. But I realize more and more that it is a gift. Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete without the other.

have a close friend who is an eye doctor and a man of great depth. He holds firmly to the belief that the most important (and formative and effortless) thing a parent can do for a baby is to gaze into his or her face, to hold him or her close and engage the eyes. Could anything be simpler? Is anything more profound? Does anything more deeply change parent and child? I wonder if, like newborn children, we go through our entire lives looking for a face, longing for a particular gaze that calms and fills us, that loves and welcomes us, that recognizes and runs to greet us. Is that perhaps what this day, Christmas, is all about?

So, you’re an expert in sadness?” Theo shrugged. “I suppose anyone as old as me could say the same. When we’re young, we’re usually too busy or too self-absorbed to see it, but by the time one is almost ninety, this world has beat the sadness into him quite deeply. Every week there is some tragedy or reminder to keep it alive and well.

So, you’re an expert in sadness?” Theo shrugged. “I suppose anyone as old as me could say the same. When we’re young, we’re usually too busy or too self-absorbed to see it, but by the time one is almost ninety, this world has beat the sadness into him quite deeply.

Asher, we are masters at masking our sadness, but deep down inside, if we are honest, we know that there is an unsatisfied longing deep inside all of us. Your portraits invite people to be alone and quiet and truthful with themselves; to admit the longing and to discover the goodness in their sadness. Maybe?

What about the child? That one there?” Asher pointed to the beaming face of a young boy. Theo looked. “OK. That one: no sadness. But draw him again in thirty years.

Perhaps I am mistaken but, at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment.

your wardrobe is a small, visible way to honor the music you play as well as the guests who listen to you play it. Look beautiful. Play beautiful. Be beautiful.

gussied up as well, out of respect for the young musician.

possessed of power no less potent than thunder and lightning. No wonder Simone was so protective of it. This cello was his flesh and bone, heart and soul, language and voice. It did not merely belong to him. It was part of him. The demure Simone, with cello cradled in his arms, was a force of nature. Electrified. Ravished and ravishing. Arms, hands, shoulders, neck, head, eyes, legs and feet: every part of him felt the song and brought it to life for the audience.

Herbivores eat Brussels sprouts, carnivores eat birds, cashivores eat dollar bills, and verbivores eat words.

She loved to hear me play, even when I was just beginning. Her ears were very kind.

Toccata capricciosa, Opus 36,” by Miklos Rozsa.

His weapons of choice, all crowded into his right hand as he drew with his left, were 2B and 2H pencils, a stick of charcoal, a well-worn tortillon, and a kneaded eraser. With those simple tools, that arsenal, he waged daily war against mediocrity and was rewarded with masterpiece after masterpiece.

beauty, throughout my life, has always seemed to hint at something more. I long, as one has said, not just to see it but to verily become part of it. Enough of this standing on the outside looking in. Soon, if the Grand Artist has spoken truthfully, soon enough, the door will open for me.

The thought of water filled Theo’s mind. The incessance of its movement. The hidden life beneath its surface. The utter dependence of all living things on its presence. The gentle beauty and surprising strength of its flow. Its surrender to forces about and around it: gravity, temperature, ingratitude. The deathlessness of it.

it was better to see one thing well than many poorly.

It’s hard enough to define what

It would be a healing that would never, at least in this life, be total or final. But it was the moment when the fever broke for him. And the moment when heaven took possession of his soul.

the history contained in and represented by this single structure: the baptisms and burials, the marriages and messages, the hearts mournful and glad and bored and worshipful that had filled the long benches over the generations.

heaven can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.

Benign eccentricity’?

maybe yes. Ellen, the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.

She understood the difference between “troubled mind” and “troublemaker,

teachers,

There is another teaching about kindness,” Theo said. “‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.’ In other words, do good, but try to do it without notice or hope of reward.

at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment.

we are masters at masking our sadness, but deep down inside, if we are honest, we know that there is an unsatisfied longing deep inside all of us.

Minnette. You are strong. And you are brave. And you are kind. Even when you are sad.

do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leads to life everlasting, and draw from the fountain that never runs dry. “Like Theo did. “For heaven’s sake.

hell no, I won’t talk to you! Get your ink-wasting ass out of here.

Make beauty.

He was fully invested in the art of living.

To some, he was Zila the mysterious recluse. To us,” Father Lundy looked at the first rows, at Ellen, Kendrick, and at Tony’s tear-filled eyes, “to us, he will always be the face of heaven.

Beautiful things sometimes get separated from their rightful place.

when we are born, our first instinct — “far deeper than intention” — is to find a face. Our weak and blurry little eyes, wide open but not yet trained to see, search for something, someone, with which to bond.

Do you recall the first time you leaned in close to look at your newborn daughter? Did you have a sense that you and she were both reaching toward each other somehow, to speak a language too deep for words?

I wonder if, like newborn children, we go through our entire lives looking for a face, longing for a particular gaze that calms and fills us, that loves and welcomes us, that recognizes and runs to greet us. Is that perhaps what this day, Christmas, is all about? It is an imponderable thought that the Giver of Faces, the face of heaven itself, the face for which every heart yearns, became a wee babe, misty eyed and helpless, looking Himself for the tender face of His mother on the night of the angels.

We all walk roads of various descriptions in life. The long and winding road. The road to ruin. Easy Street. The road less traveled. “Along the way, there are questions, there is news, there are concerns and fears and uncertainties that furrow our brows, trouble our souls, and break our hearts.

But God, in His sublime goodness, has always sent others, mysterious others, to walk with us — prophets, preachers, friends, teachers, artists, storytellers, wives and husbands, children, songbirds and rivers, even hardship and loss — to help us see clearly. They are ones who make our hearts burn within us, who call us out of our indifference, our lethargy, our death and defeat. They call us to be fully alive, or at least more alive than we were before we met them.

the beauty of early evening was entrancing, even if he had no words yet for the feeling of sacredness that was taking up residence inside him. Perhaps there are no such words.

You have a tender heart.” “Not tender, Asher. Broken. My expertise in sadness is hard-earned. But I realize more and more that it is a gift. Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete without the other.” “You don’t strike me as a sad man, Theo. If you are, you’re good at disguising it.” As if to prove the truth of Asher’s observation, Theo grinned. The resident sparkle in his eyes rose to the surface. Gleamed. “Thank you. I hope it’s true. There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either.

but beauty, throughout my life, has always seemed to hint at something more. I long, as one has said, not just to see it but to verily become part of it. Enough of this standing on the outside looking in. Soon, if the Grand Artist has spoken truthfully, soon enough, the door will open for me.

absorbing through their pores the good chemistry of the room.

Springtime. An end with a future.

We might just become a formidable force for good at this rate, yes? ‘On earth as it is in heaven.

And on many days, sometimes for many consecutive days at a stretch, he would check the local morning paper for the exact time of sunset to ensure that he would be punctual for his date with a ten-year-old girl whose laughter was a murmuration and whose memory was a single star, the brightest in all the sky.

Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete

The good sadness, I think, is always trying to tell us something very important.

There never was, there never will be another like you, dear child. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, a princess, a daughter of the King. Merry Christmas. Adoringly,

Katherine tried to follow his reasoning. She was used to interviewing people — praise-seekers and applause-junkies — who were all too eager to talk about themselves. And

The fountain exhaled a silver mist, like fairy dust, as the first bestowal began. The first of many.

souls stood on tiptoe, our eyes recognized something good and true, and our minds could believe, if not fully, then ever so slightly, that love and heaven and forgiveness are the most real things that we can know in this world?

The architecture of the place inside and out was a celebration of lines and angles, of stone and wood and glass, of mundane materials used majestically in celebration of order and mystery.