"There are words too big for you and me: all is one of them, and ever is another."
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Annie Dillard on No One But Us
A blur of romance clings to our notions of 'publicans,' 'sinners,' 'the poor,' 'the people in the marketplace,' 'our neighbors,' as though of course God should reveal himself, if at all, to these simple people, these Sunday School watercolor figures, who are so purely themselves in their tattered robes, who are single in themselves, while we now are various, complex, and full at heart. We are busy. So, I see now, were they. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart…
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Sterne on Religion Without Morality
"As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion;—so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from 'religion without morality;' nevertheless, 'tis no prodigy to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself in the light of a religious man. "He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable,—but even wanting in points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks aloud against the infidelity of the age,——is zealous for some points of religion,——goes twice a day to church,—attends the sacraments,—and amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of religion,—shall cheat his conscience into a…
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Dave Barry on How to Argue Effectively
I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.
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Pieper on the What it Means to Philosophize
To philosophize means to remove oneself, not from the things of the everyday world, but from the usual meanings, the accustomed evaluations of these things. And this is not motivated from some decision to think "differently" from the way most people think, but rather for the purpose of seeing everything in a new light. This is just how it is: in the everyday things (not in some separated sphere of an "essential" world, or what have you) to be able to see the deeper visage of the real so that the attention directed to things encountered in everyday experience comes up against what is not so obvious in these things…