Quote of the Day

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History

Literally Life Changing

At a veritable crossroads in my life, when I was unemployed and living in a motel, I turned to Leon Uris, one of my favorite authors, for guidance. I was reading Mitla Pass for the first time, and this is what I found:

“One of the cheapest commodities in the world is unfulfilled genius. All of us want to be known as a unique individual, the one who broke out of the pack. So, you offer yourself up as a sacrifice and what you’re afraid of is losing and being thrown back into the pack. One question taunts you. Do you want to have, or do you want to be?”

I copied that quote down and put it on the mirror of my motel room. My answer to that question got me out of the motel and back on track. It literally changed my life. How has literature impacted your life?

Quote of the Day

“Books written by thinkers – men who thought and dared to express their thoughts – are always worth reading. I care not whether their authors were Atheists or Methodists, Heathen or Mohammedan; the life’s blood of the author circulates through them, and in reading you feel its pulsations. But books written by men who never saw with their own eyes, who never put out their hands, and felt the world for themselves, nor took one manly step, are the faintest echoes from the distant hills compared with the heaven-shaking thunder that produced them.”

Denton, title page of Rocky Mountain Saints