Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I've listened to Preachers, I've listened to fools. I've worshipped the dropouts, who've made their own rules.

I think that the essential instruction of the Bible is very much topical. The sole problem is that with every change of historical setting, you need to readjust the interpretation of the message.

The Divine mind does not think for us, or inspite of us, but works in us to think, and to will, and to do.

I don't claim anything of the work. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it.

That was the thing about Prabhupada, you see. He didn't just talk about loving Krishna and getting out of this place, but he was the perfect example. He talked about always chanting, and he was always chanting. I think that that in itself was perhaps the most encouraging thing for me. It was enough to make me try harder, to be just a little bit better. He was a perfect example of everything he preached.

It is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Republican. It's philosophically absolutely opposed - if they could only think about what they were saying for a minute. That's when you get caught up in the webs of what people call themselves and how they behave.

On Sundays I give the sermons like my dad used to give. I utilize it as a revolutionary tool, as a thinking tool, as a tool where I can recruit people, DM them, and give them information that I feel that they need going forward.

I think you could say every pastor is writing this book [ Max on Life]; for many it just never gets published.

In church I was told that if I so much as smoked a cigarette or tasted alcohol, I’d be damned in hell for all eternity... it didn’t take long for me to start thinking that sounded all wrong... I didn’t cotton to the idea that your religion should be flaunted to other people. Your religion is for you, and is best kept close to your heart.

Do you think there is any chance the Lord would have inspired his prophets to prophesy about us, only to then take a chance on the outcome of the latter days by sending men and women he couldn't count on? There is no chance - zero chance - He would have done that.

I am content to live and die as the mere repeater of Scriptural teaching - as a person who has thought out nothing and invented nothing - but who concluded that he was to take the message from the lips of God to the best of his ability and simply to be a mouth for God to the people. - mourning much that anything of his own should come between - but never thinking that he was somehow to refine the message or to adapt it to the brilliance of this wonderful century and then to hand it out as being so much his own that he might take some share of the glory of it.

The men of God are like fishes in the ocean; they pop up into view on the surface here and there and everywhere, as they please.

Love is not easy. All great religions postulate love as one of the greatest accomplishments. If it were that easy, or as easy as most people think, certainly, the great religious leaders would have been rather naive.

I don't know whether any religious leader would say that we must ultimately win, because we're on God's side. If they do say that, it's bad religion.

I create work, and I devote myself to the creative process, and I try to stay pure in that process and be worthy of the messages that I receive. You can't sit down and write 300 compositions in a three-month period and think that you're doing it all by yourself.

I do think it is very important that the religious communities do try to bring their teachings and their insights to bear on the stem cell debate and on the debate about genetic engineering.

In both the Holy Land of the New Testament and the promised land of the Book of Mormon, [our Savior] spent considerable time teaching and instructing and training His councils and council leaders, and then He sent them forth to share what they had learned with others.

I think you could say every pastor is writing this book, Max on Life; for many it just never gets published. All I did was collect a few of the questions I've been asked through the years, write up a brief response and put them in this publication.

I recently found myself going through a period of uncertainty about my future as a performer, my status as a personality, the believability of my Christian witness and the knowledge of God's will in my life. I felt a force bigger than myself saying, 'Lay back. Take it easy. Study hard. Read your bible. Think, write and keep your mouth shut for awhile.'

I may not be as active in it as some people are, but I think that the church has taught me great life lessons.

God lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.

don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.

Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths.

I didn't intend to write about totems or people searching. I tried not to constrain myself, and this is what I ended up with. There's this great Auden quote: "I look at what I write so I can see what I think."

Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that's just me) as if you've never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you'll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time.