Helen Keller on Education

"We should take our education as we would take a walk in the country, leisurely, our minds hospitably open to impressions of every sort. Such knowledge floods the soul unseen with a soundless tidal wave of deepening thought. 'Knowledge is power." Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the century; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life."

Helen Keller, Story of My Life

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CS Lewis on Truth In Heaven

"And the White Spirit said, 'Hitherto, you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched."

From The Great Divorce.

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A Sunday Joy

Sometimes, chat boxes just aren't enough. Apart from the fact that I really can't stare at a computer screen for long without getting a headache/my hands shaking, sometimes I really miss hearing my friends' voices.

I got to talk to my carissima today on the phone. And it was so wonderful. I really don't have the chance to talk to people 'for reals', as my brother says, especially since I stay at home so often. And right now, my only friend who actually lives in state is in Ireland. So my social life (which really was never very existent) is pretty much non-existent. I don't mind at all, but I do miss talking with friends.

And so, it was such a joy to talk with KB today. I laughed a lot. She always has the best stories. We talked about school, Inkdeath, our families, work, summer plans... everything and anything under the sun.

It almost makes me want to overcome my silly fear of making random phone calls so I can hear my other friends' voices.

Almost. Heh.

Thanks, Katie Beff :-)

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Golden Silence

Silence
Gliding faster than the sun's beams
Driving back shadows of pain and grief
Captured within a moment of time
Golden.

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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

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