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If I had had this experience earlier in life, I would have been much wiser, much more compassionate. I really didn't understand what it was that made ...more

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But there is something about human beings that too often makes our love for the world look very much like hatred for it.

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She was a music I no longer heard, that rang in my mind, itself and nothing else, lost to all sense, but not perished, not perished.

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When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is t...more

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Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that ...more

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I could have married again while I was still young. A congregation likes to have a married minister, and I was introduced to every niece and sister-in...more

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I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful.I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.

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It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire.

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You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh,...more

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How I wish you could have known me in my strength.

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. . . there is an absolute disjunction between our Father's love and our deserving.

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It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into ...more

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There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.

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There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embrac...more

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There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forg...more