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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| cfc7c60 | For all they had suffered during those first terrible winters in America, their best years were behind them, in Leiden. Never again would they know the same rapturous sense of divine fellowship that had first launched them on this quest. | puritans religion | Nathaniel Philbrick | |
| 7dae354 | During the forty-five months of World War II, the United States lost just under 1 percent of its adult male population; during the Civil War the casualty rate was somewhere between 4 and 5 percent; during the fourteen months of King Philip's War, Plymouth Colony lost close to 8 percent of its men. But the English losses appear almost inconsequential when compared to those of the Indians. Of a total Native population of approximately 20,000,.. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| 49e5957 | Philip's local squabble with Plymouth Colony had mutated into a regionwide war that, on a percentage basis, had done nearly as much as the plagues of 1616-19 to decimate New England's Native population. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| ac20211 | By doing their best to destroy the Native people who had welcomed and sustained their forefathers, New Englanders had destroyed their forefathers' way of life. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| e45e22d | The Pilgrims had come to America not to conquer a continent but to re-create their modest communities in Scrooby and in Leiden. When they arrived at Plymouth in December 1620 and found it emptied of people, it seemed as if God had given them exactly what they were looking for. But as they quickly discovered during that first terrifying fall and winter, New England was far from uninhabited. There were still plenty of Native people, and to ig.. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| 8583f9c | The future is never more important than to a people on the verge of a cataclysm. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| ab9ea80 | The Pilgrims' descendants have proven to be, if nothing else, fruitful. In 2002 it was estimated that there were approximately 35 million descendants of the Mayflower passengers in the United States, which represents roughly 10 percent of the total U.S. population. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| 2d5c890 | In a letter to Benjamin Franklin he described how the explosion of the Augusta created a cloud like none other he had ever seen: "a thick smoke rising like a pillar and spreading from the top like a tree." It did not become the symbol of a new and terrible age of destruction for another 168 years, but in the fall of 1777 the skyline of Philadelphia was darkened by the shadow of the mushroom cloud." -- | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| 2dee691 | The United States had been created through an act of disloyalty. No matter how eloquently the Declaration of Independence had attempted to justify the American rebellion, a residual guilt hovered over the circumstances of the country's founding. Arnold changed all that. By threatening to destroy the newly created republic through, ironically, his own betrayal, Arnold gave this nation of traitors the greatest of gifts; a myth of creation. Th.. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| fa66f00 | To write timelessly about the here and now, a writer must approach the present indirectly. The story has to be about more than it at first seems. Shakespeare used the historical sources of his plays as a scaffolding on which to construct detailed portraits of his own age. The interstices between the secondhand historical plots and Shakespeare's startlingly original insights into Elizabethan England are what allow his work to speak to us tod.. | timeless | Nathaniel Philbrick | |
| 49a2bfa | Thomas Paine was so inspired by the heroism displayed at Fort Mifflin that he published an open letter to William Howe: 'You are fighting for what you can never obtain and we are defending what we never mean to part with. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| 092f290 | POLLARD had known better, but instead of pulling rank and insisting that his officers carry out his proposal to sail for the Society Islands, he embraced a more democratic style of command. Modern survival psychologists have determined that this "social"--as opposed to "authoritarian"--form of leadership is ill suited to the early stages of a disaster, when decisions must be made quickly and firmly. Only later, as the ordeal drags on and it.. | Nathaniel Philbrick | ||
| bb25363 | It's tough to make a living in my racket. Most people who need detecting done just go to the cops. They're free. I have to charge money for essentially the same service. Another thing that makes it tough is that I'm not the best detective in town. In fact in this building you have to pass the offices of three detectives who are better than me to get to my place. So I guess I lose some business that way. | John Swartzwelder | ||
| 3fa7634 | This guy was making me tired. "Thanks for the afternoon's entertainment," I said. "I'll flush a copy of my bill down the toilet. You should be getting it in a couple of days." | humor humour insult | John Swartzwelder | |
| 29c3416 | and I said to him when you learn to read then you learn everything you didnt know before. But when you write you write only what you know allready so patientia Im better off not knowing how to write because the ass is the ass | Umberto Eco | ||
| 26c6127 | Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequentur. grasp the words, and the subject will follow. | Umberto Eco | ||
| c25781e | To be bored, therefore, does not mean that we have nothing to do, but that we question the value of the things we are so busy doing. The great paradox of our time is that many of us are busy and bored at the same time. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 63d4f64 | A spiritual life without discipline is impossible. Discipline is the other side of discipleship. The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small, gentle voice of God. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| b96cf0a | The world is evil only when you become its slave. The world has a lot to offer--just as Egypt did for the children of Jacob--as long as you don't feel bound to obey it. The great struggle facing you is not to leave the world, to reject your ambitions and aspirations, or to despise money, prestige, or success, but to claim your spiritual truth and to live in the world as someone who doesn't belong to it. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4fd829d | Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 9b9c4cf | How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: 'What is my poverty?' Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That's the place where God wants to dwell! 'How blessed are the poor,' Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means.. | god poor-in-spirit poverty | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| 72186fd | I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self... to enter into a deeper solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success and bring the light of Jesus there. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 347ee13 | God wants to bring joy not pain, peace not war, healing not suffering. Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the loving presence of God. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| a4df066 | Prayer for others, therefore, cannot be seen as an extraordinary exercise that must be practiced from time to time. Rather, it is the very beat of the compassionate heart. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 0782c8c | humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God's eyes and that all we are is pure gift. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4f879f8 | With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 9fa06d3 | Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently from the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 2899cdc | One of the reasons that hiddenness is such an important aspect of the spiritual life is that it keeps us focused on God. In hiddenness we do not receive human acclamation, admiration, support, or encouragement. In hiddenness we have to go to God with our sorrows and joys and trust that God will give us what we most need. In our society we are inclined to avoid hiddenness. We want to be seen and acknowledged. We want to be useful to others a.. | god solitude | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| bc907fe | When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing an.. | Melanie Shankle | ||
| e014cf6 | When we feel lonely we keep looking for a person or persons who can take our loneliness away. Our lonely hearts cry out, 'Please hold me, touch me, speak to me, pay attention to me.' But soon we discover that the person we expect to take our loneliness away cannot give us what we ask for. Often that person feels oppressed by our demands and runs away, leaving us in despair. As long as we approach another person from our loneliness, no matur.. | loneliness relationships | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| b7f9845 | Jesus' life is an invitation for us to believe, not primarily in him but in the relationship between himself and the God whom he names "Father." Furthermore, Jesus comes into the world to communicate to those of us who are listening that this very same relationship is uniquely available to each one of us. By his life and death Jesus announces the yearning in the heart of Love Divine, to be in relationship with each individual person. For yo.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| dc3aed4 | The word listen in Latin is audire. If we listen with full attention in which we are totally geared to listen, it's called ob-audire, and that's where the word obedience comes from. Jesus is the obedient one. That means he is total ear, totally open to the love of God. And if we are closed, and to the degree that we are closed, we are surdus. That is the Latin word for deaf. The more "deaf" we get, the more absurdus" | Henri J. M. Nouwen | ||
| 56ad8a2 | Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| ce1e1e6 | Thus, discipline is the creation of boundaries that keep time and space open for God. Solitude requires discipline, worship requires discipline, caring for others requires discipline. They all ask us to set apart a time and a place where God's gracious presence can be acknowledged and responded to. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| e2f29cc | Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and bla.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 05cd189 | I also came to see that I should not worry about tomorrow, next week, next year, or next century. The more willing I was to look honestly at what I was thinking and saying and doing now, the more easily I would come into touch with the movement of God's Spirit in me, leading me to the future. God is a God of the present and reveals to those who are willing to listen carefully to the moment in which they live the steps they are to take towar.. | god-of-the-present holy-spirit present revelation today tomorrow | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| 5603902 | Our clinging to the opinions of others reveals how superficial we are. We have little to stand on. We have to be kept alive by adulation and praise. Those who are deeply rooted in the love of God can enjoy human praise without being attached to it. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| dcaec49 | Dear friends, I want you to hear this: what is said of Jesus is said of you. I know this can be hard to affirm. You are the beloved daughter or son of God. Can you believe it? Can you hear it not only in your head through your physical ears but in your gut, hear it so that your whole life can be turned around? Go to the scriptures and read: "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have written your name in the palm of my hand from all .. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 02cce4b | The elder brother compares himself with the younger one and becomes jealous. But the father loves them both so much that it didn't even occur to him to delay the party in order to prevent the elder son from feeling rejected. I am convinced that many of my emotional problems would melt as snow in the sun if I could let the truth of God's motherly non-comparing love permeate my heart. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 73634e4 | God looks at his people as children of a family who are happy that those who have done only a little bit are as much loved as those who accomplish much. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 55db997 | To become like the Father whose only authority is compassion, I have to shed countless tears and so prepare my heart to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and forgive them from that heart. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| fafc6a9 | if I am able to look at the world with the eyes of God's love and discover that God's vision is not that of a stereotypical landowner or patriarch but rather that of an all-giving and forgiving father who does not measure out his love to his children according to how well they behave, then I quickly see that my only true response can be deep gratitude. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3475231 | I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| a010630 | Thus the authority of compassion is the possibility of man to forgive his brother, because forgiveness is only real for him who has discovered the | Henri J.M. Nouwen |