Ben Fountain Quotes

I'm your full blown charismatic evangelical freak daddy.

It used to be said that when the Baal Shem Tov came into a town, his impact was so strong, he didn't have to speak. His disciples had to dance or to sing or to preach to have the same effect. I think a real messenger, myself or anyone, by the very fact that he is there as a person, as a symbol, could have the same impact.

An unprecedented wave of enthusiasm for missionary work is sweeping the entire earth. It is not man-made! It comes from the Lord, who said, “I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73).

The ministers, who preached at these revivals, were in earnest. They were zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them science was the name of a vague dread - a dangerous enemy. They did not know much, but they believed a great deal.

Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore.

Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.

The Christian world is in a deep sleep; nothing but a loud shout can awaken them out of it!

How to raise this dead level of theistic belief is really a matter of life and death for all denominations. Therefore their tolerance; but it is a tolerance not of understanding; but of weakness.

Ages of faith and of unbelief are always said to mark the course of history.

It is my conviction that the fundamental trouble with the people of the United States is that they have gotten too far away from Almighty God.

He thought of men like Hitler, Stalin, and Napoleon. All it took was a lot of seemingly decent people to put the wrong person in power and then fall under their spell.

Yes, a dictator can be loved. Provided that the masses fear him at the same time. The crowd love strong men. The crowd is like a woman.

Art thaws even the frozen, darkened soul, opening it to lofty spiritual experience.

Let me beg you, not to rest contented with the commonplace religion that is now so prevalent.

A fanatic, either, religious or political, is the subject of strong delusions.

I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior. Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment.

Josiah has a tremendous reputation in the text. He rediscovered the Book of the Law; you remember how Hilkiah the High Priest somehow found it [2 Kings 22:8].

It's just that the churches have been sleeping for a long time. A lot of people argue that the churches are even dead. I don't believe they're dead, but they've been sleeping, but they, I hope, will wake up, and that's one of my tasks is to make sure they wake up as much as they do before I die.

Win back America for God.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there, Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to him of many.

What do the few existing mystics still do? -- They more or less mold the raw chaos of already existing religion. But only in an isolated, insignificant manner, through feeble attempts. Do it in a grand manner from all aspects with unified efforts, and let us awaken all religions from their graves, newly revivify and form the immortal ones through the omnipotence of art and science.

Adolf Hitler may have been wrong all down the line, but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up from lance corporal in the German Army to Führer of a people of almost 80 million. His success alone proved that I should subordinate myself to this man.

Nobody has ever had crowds like Trump has had.

O passing angel, speed me with a song, a melody of heaven to reach my heart and rouse me to the race and make me strong.