The Wonder of the Universe
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Napoleon on Jesus Christ!
Napoleon's thoughts on Jesus Christ while exiled on the isle of St. Helena.
He asked Count Montholon if he could tell him who Jesus Christ was. The count refused to respond. Napoleon himself answered:
Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him....I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than a man....I have inspired multitudes with an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me.... but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lightened up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts.... Christ alone has suceeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative power. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
Quoted in Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2000), p.149-150; as quoted in Henry Parry Liddon, Liddon's Bampton Lectures 1866 (London: Rivington, 1869), 148.
He asked Count Montholon if he could tell him who Jesus Christ was. The count refused to respond. Napoleon himself answered:
Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him....I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than a man....I have inspired multitudes with an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me.... but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lightened up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts.... Christ alone has suceeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative power. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
Quoted in Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2000), p.149-150; as quoted in Henry Parry Liddon, Liddon's Bampton Lectures 1866 (London: Rivington, 1869), 148.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Augustine of Hippo, Quotations from "Confessions"
"For great are you, Lord, and you look kindly on what is humble, but the lofty-minded you regard from afar. Only to those whose hearts are crushed do you draw close. You will not let yourself be found by the proud, nor even by those who in their inquisitive skill count stars or grains of sand, or measure the expanses of heaven, or trace the paths of the planets.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“Too late came I to love you, O Beauty both so ancient and so new! Too late came I to love you - and behold you were with me all the time . . .”
― Augustine of Hippo, Les Confessions
“Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. This alone I know, that without you all to me is misery, woe outside myself and woe within, and all wealth but penury, if it is not my God.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“No one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him...Let me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know, because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like bright noon before your face.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“I recall how miserable I was, and how one day you brought me to a realization of my miserable state. I was preparing to deliver a eulogy upon the emperor in which I would tell plenty of lies with the object of winning favor with the well-informed by my lying; so my heart was panting with anxiety and seething with feverish, corruptive thoughts. As I passed through a certain district in Milan I noticed a poor beggar, drunk, as I believe, and making merry. I groaned and pointed out to the friends who were with me how many hardships our idiotic enterprises entailed. Goaded by greed, I was dragging my load of unhappiness along, and feeling it all the heavier for being dragged. Yet while all our efforts were directed solely to the attainment of unclouded joy, it appeared that this beggar had already beaten us to the goal, a goal which we would perhaps never reach ourselves. With the help of the few paltry coins he had collected by begging this man was enjoying the temporal happiness for which I strove by so bitter, devious and roundabout a contrivance. His joy was no true joy, to be sure, but what I was seeking in my ambition was a joy far more unreal; and he was undeniably happy while I was full of foreboding; he was carefree, I apprehensive. If anyone had questioned me as to whether I would rather be exhilarated or afraid, I would of course have replied, "Exhilarated"; but if the questioner had pressed me further, asking whether I preferred to be like the beggar, or to be as I was then, I would have chosen to be myself, laden with anxieties and fears. Surely that would have been no right choice, but a perverse one? I could not have preferred my condition to his on the grounds that I was better educated, because that fact was not for me a source of joy but only the means by which I sought to curry favor with human beings: I was not aiming to teach them but only to win their favor.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“Too late came I to love you, O Beauty both so ancient and so new! Too late came I to love you - and behold you were with me all the time . . .”
― Augustine of Hippo, Les Confessions
“Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. This alone I know, that without you all to me is misery, woe outside myself and woe within, and all wealth but penury, if it is not my God.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“No one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him...Let me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know, because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like bright noon before your face.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“I recall how miserable I was, and how one day you brought me to a realization of my miserable state. I was preparing to deliver a eulogy upon the emperor in which I would tell plenty of lies with the object of winning favor with the well-informed by my lying; so my heart was panting with anxiety and seething with feverish, corruptive thoughts. As I passed through a certain district in Milan I noticed a poor beggar, drunk, as I believe, and making merry. I groaned and pointed out to the friends who were with me how many hardships our idiotic enterprises entailed. Goaded by greed, I was dragging my load of unhappiness along, and feeling it all the heavier for being dragged. Yet while all our efforts were directed solely to the attainment of unclouded joy, it appeared that this beggar had already beaten us to the goal, a goal which we would perhaps never reach ourselves. With the help of the few paltry coins he had collected by begging this man was enjoying the temporal happiness for which I strove by so bitter, devious and roundabout a contrivance. His joy was no true joy, to be sure, but what I was seeking in my ambition was a joy far more unreal; and he was undeniably happy while I was full of foreboding; he was carefree, I apprehensive. If anyone had questioned me as to whether I would rather be exhilarated or afraid, I would of course have replied, "Exhilarated"; but if the questioner had pressed me further, asking whether I preferred to be like the beggar, or to be as I was then, I would have chosen to be myself, laden with anxieties and fears. Surely that would have been no right choice, but a perverse one? I could not have preferred my condition to his on the grounds that I was better educated, because that fact was not for me a source of joy but only the means by which I sought to curry favor with human beings: I was not aiming to teach them but only to win their favor.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Famous Quoations!
A quote from Isaac Newton in which he asserts that "No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible!" He is considering the religion of the Bible as one of the "sciences," as the sciences were considered the pursuit of knowledge in quest of ultimate truths. So he is saying that the religion of the Bible is better attested to or has more proofs or empirical evidence than every other science! Richard Dawkins would have his hands full with the likes of Isaac.
But it just shows you how fast things change. England has gone from a nation where the truth was preached and known and the Bible cherished to an atheistic secular state where God is mocked and the Bible eliminated from education. No doubt much of this is a result of false religiosity and narrow minded religionists who made the Word of God of no effect because of their traditions, i.e., traditions of man made religions, doctrines of men, the hypocrisy of the religious elite and the compromises with the state for power, wealth and security. American´s religionists have basically gone the same way and we will soon see the same results in a fastly dechristianized western world!
Friday, June 1, 2012
Immanuel Kant- German Philosopher
The Bible is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German Philosopher
Monday, February 27, 2012
Daniel Webster on America's Undoing!
“There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing.” ― Daniel Webster
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Wonder of the Universe
A Special Collection of Quotations From Great Minds Throughout History
"I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God."- Abraham Lincoln
"O Lord, thou givest everything, at the price of an effort."- Leonardo Da Vinci
"If a book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But for the sake of God, let us freely hear both sides if we choose."- Thomas Jefferson
"Great thoughts come from the heart."- Marques de Vauvenarques
"The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence."- Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Science brings men nearer to God."- Louis Pasteur
"The visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of the creation that a rational creature, who will but seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity."- John Locke
"As a house implies a builder, and a garment a weaver, and a door a carpenter, so does the existence of the Universe imply a Creator."- Marques de Vauvernargues
"It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being."- George Washington
"From a knowledge of His work, we shall know Him."- Robert Boyle
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."- Galileo Galilei
"Of what I call God, and fools call Nature."- Robert Browning
"So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have exited through all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to one, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe."- Thomas Jefferson
"Nature is the art of God."- Dante Alighieri
"The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator."- Louis Pasteur
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Michelangelo
Michelangelo; Italian Sculpture, Painter, Architect and Poet; 1475-1564
"I die for the faith of Jesus Christ, and in the firm hope of a better life."
