Literary and Spiritual Excerpts

RSS New story alertsAlerts

Homeric Hymn

O universal Mother, who dost keep From everlasting thy foundations deep, Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee! All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea, All things that fly, or on ...

Empedocles

Behold the sun, everywhere bright and warm, and all the immortal things that are bathed in heat and bright radiance. Behold the rain, everywhere dark and cold; and from the earth issue forth close-pressed and ...

Heraclitus

(1) It is wise to hearken, not to me but to my word, and to confess that all things are one…. (57) Good and ill are one…. (59) Couples are things whole and things not ...

Abu Hanifa

Know that guidance in belief in God and His prophets is not like guidance in what is legislated as to acts. And how does this disturb you? You call a man a true believer for ...

Xenophanes

Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another. Since they have uttered many lawless deeds of ...

Lao-Tzu

The appearance of Virtue in its fullest exuberance is no more than the result of compliance with the Tao. Tao, considered as an entity, is obscure and vague. Vague and obscure! yet within it there ...

Hilaire Belloc

Europe is the Church, and the Church is Europe. It is immaterial to the historical value of this historical truth whether it be presented to a man who utterly rejects Catholic dogma or to a ...

Jane Kenyon

“Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993” On the domed ceiling God is thinking: I made them my joy, and everything else I created I made to bless them. But see what they do! I ...

St. Bonaventure

The Ascent of the Mind to God It is possible to contemplate God not only outside us and within us, but also above us. Outside us we contemplate Him through His vestige, within us through ...

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Those to whom what I have said is plain will also, I think, plainly see why God should be loved: that is, whence He deserves to be loved. But if unbelievers blind themselves to these ...

St. Anselm of Canterbury

Therefore, Lord, you have given understanding to faith, grant me that I may come to understand (as much as You think best) that You exist, as we believe, and that You are what we believe ...

Boëthius

“Wherefore I much marvel why these things are thus turned upside down, and the punishment of wickedness oppresses the good, while evil men obtain the rewards of the good. And I desire to know of ...

Anonymous

The countenance of the Buddha is like the clear full moon, Or again, like a thousand suns releasing their splendor. His eyes are pure, as large and as broad as a blue lotus. His teeth ...

Anonymous

I offer my sacrifice and homage to thee, the Fire, as a good offering, and an offering with our hail of salvation, even as an offering of praise with benedictions to thee, the Fire, O ...

Anonymous

The Golden God, the Self, the immortal Swan Leaves the small nest of the body, goes where He wants. He moves through the realm of dreams; makes numberless forms, Delights in sex; eats, drinks, laughs ...