theology

Quotes & Thinkers in theology

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Augustine of Hippo

Philosophy

354–430

"Don’t hold yourselves cheap, seeing that the creator of all things and of you estimates your value so high, so dear, that he pours out for you every day the most precious blood of his only-begotten Son."

"One who liberates his country by killing a tyrant is to be praised and rewarded."

"Out of love, God becomes man. He says: "See, here is what it is to be a human being."

"The sinners … did not even have the consolation of feeling they were in God’s good books. The educated people told them that they were displeasing to God and “they ought to know."

"The supreme and only Judge of the universe stands before the tribunal of an earthly judge."

"For this, to draw a right line from every point, to every point, follows the definition, which says, that a line is the flux of a point, and a right line an indeclinable and inflexible flow."

"It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer."

"The substance of all realities is in this religion of Jesus Christ; but it can be real only to those who will do His will."

"In early times of Christianity, even those who used animal food themselves came to think of the vegetarian as one who lived a higher life, and approached more nearly to Christian perfection."

"... my dear friend Poverty, nurse of philosophy"

"There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence."

3 quotes

🇫🇷Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Religion

1881–1955

"The Human Phenomenon Excerpts from the book"

"Theology as critical reflection thus fulfills a liberating function for man and the Christian community, preserving them from fetishism and idolatry, as well as from a pernicious and belittling narcissism."

"Montefiore's impression of Jesus was wrong. Jesus loved the Pharisees, although He denounced them publicly. And I love the Communists, as well as their tools in the Church, although I denounce them."

17 quotes

Ephrem the Syrian

Religion

"The hutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord, just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty."

"Question from an audience member: What role does the Holy Spirit play in your ministry?"

"Purely philosophical assertions which do not pertain to theology should not be solemnly condemned or forbidden by anyone, because in connection with such anyone at all ought to be free to say freely what pleases him."

"If you have a sloppy religion you get a sloppy atheism."

"Theological writing always transgresses itself, just as theological speech feeds on the silence in which, at last, it speaks correctly."

"Jesus appeared unto the ancient Nephites, in the northern part of what we call South America…"

"I had a serious offer made me again to be a Cardinal. ... But my answer again was, that something dwelt within me which would not suffer that, till Rome were other than it is."

"A society, or for that matter, a political party, that tolerates antisemitism, that tolerates any hate, has forfeited all moral credibility."

"The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God."

"The Common Sense of Political Economy and Selected Papers and Reviews on Economic Theory, vol. I and vol. II"

"From childhood to the age of six, I do not remember anything but shaving my head and suffering from it."

"It is human love, not that of a god, which is glorified in the Song, and that with a wealth of detail, which rules out an allegorical interpretation."

"Words spoken in deep love or deep hate set things in motion within the human heart that can never be reversed."

"What of the souls already released from their bodies? We believe that they are overwhelmed in that vast sea of eternal light and of luminous eternity"

"The taste of mole was the most repulsive I knew until I tasted a bluebottle ."

"Schumacher ... rightly saw that in the world today Buddhism is a more potent basis for resisting the economism that rules the West and through it most of the East."

4 quotes

🇮🇹Raniero Cantalamessa

"God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in beginnings. God is the God of the whole show."

"Being black in America has little to do with skin color. Being black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are."

35 quotes

🇺🇸William Stringfellow

Religion

1928–1985

"The Bible deals with the sanctification of the actual history of nations and of human beings in this world as it is while that history is being lived."

"Hate is not a creative force. Love is a creative force."

"...Though His Passion sufficed for all, yet all would not profit from it, for some would be reprobate, hard-hearted, and impenitent."

"I know of no condition worse than that of the man who has little or no light on the supreme religious questions, and who at the same time is making no effort to come to the light."

5 quotes

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