Immortals

I have had my commonplace book for quite a long time now, and I love finding common themes among the quotes. Here are some of my favorites...

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"How small and frail seemed the life in that cottage, as contrasted with the rich pulsing world of the woods and hills and their serene continuance. But it was they that were the shadows in God's sight. The immortal thing was the broken human heart that could say in its frailty that its Redeemer liveth."
John Buchan, Witch Wood

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"Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

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"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzling apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency for us."
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

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"We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps.
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Resignation

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"We mere mortals are not simple either. We are pitiful, yet we have mighty passions. We are weak, yet we dream of doing wonders. We are transient, but eternity is written on our hearts." John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

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"What you will find in your heart is not heaven but a picture of heaven, a silhouette of heaven, a heaven-shaped shadow, a longing unsatisfiable by anything on earth."
Peter Kreeft, Heaven

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One short sleepe past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
John Donne, Death Be Not Proude

"We all know something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars... everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has got to do with human beings. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."
Thornton Wilder, Our Town

And my favorite...

"You have never talked to a mere mortal. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."
CS Lewis, Weight of Glory