Spiritual Awakening

There are two equaly dangerous extremes- to shut reason out, and to
let nothing else in.                    Pascal


Conscience is God's presence in man.    Swedenborg


Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.    Old Testament
                                     Joel II, 28


A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.
                                     Havelock Ellis


Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it
because we are not the person concerned?


I remember, I remember 
The fir trees dark and high;
I use to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was  childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.
               Thomas Hood


God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.
                                        Emerson,  
                                     Essays\Intellect


Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise
himself.                                George Santayana


Oh Lord - if there is a Lord; save my soul - if I have a soul.
Amen.                                   Ernest Reman
                                    "Prayer of a Skeptic"


There is more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half
creeds.                                  Tennyson


The tulip and the butterfly
Appear in gayer coats than I:
Let me be dressed fine as I will,
Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.
                                   Isaac Watts


Jupiter has loaded us with two wallets: the one, filled with our
own faults, he has placed at our backs; the other heavy with the
faults of others, he has hung before us.       Phaedrus     


It was fear that first made gods in the world.   Statius


God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest
of human pleasures.                        Francis Bacon


The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the bird for mirth,
One is nearer God's Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
                    Dorothy F. Gurney


Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only
worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.
                                        R. G. Ingersoll


You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it
than to consume wealth without producing it.
                                        Bernard Shaw 
                                          "Candida"



An honest man is the noblest work of God.   
                                        Burns


I loaf and invite my soul,
I learn and loaf at my ease
observing a spear of summer grass.
                    Walt Whitman
                   "Song of Myself"


Is there beyond the silent night
         An endless day?                                          
Is death a door that leads to light?
         We cannot say.
                    R.G. Ingersoll                                
                "Declaration of the Free"


To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a
great mistake.                          Schopenhauer
                                 "The World as Will and Idea"

I swear I think now that everything without exception has an
eternal soul! The trees have, rooted in the ground! The weeds of
the sea have! The animals!                      Walt Whitman


Lo, the poor Indian! Whose untutor'd mind sees God in clouds or
hears him in the wind.                        Pope
                                          "Essay on Man"


To see the world in a grain of sand.
And a heaven in a wild flower,
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
                         Blake


Thou O God doest sell us all good things for the price of our
labor.
                                        Leonardo De Vinci



                             A New Day
     This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day
to use as I will. I can waste it- or use it for good, but what I do
today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for
it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in
it's place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be
gain, and not loss; good ,and not evil; success, and not failure;
in order that I shall not regret the price that I have paid for it.
                                        Dr. Heartstill Wilson


So often we seek a change in our condition when what we need is a
change in our attitude.


There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.


An atheist has been called "One without invisible means of
support."


If you insist on perfection, make the first demand on yourself.

You cannot draw neigh to God if you are at a distance from your
brother.


To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek
Him the greatest adventure; to find Him the greatest achievement.


Atheism is blind faith in the strange proposition that this
universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes no where.


Caring is the art of sharing.
Sharing is the art of living,
Living is the art of loving,
Loving is the art of caring.


My creed is this:
     Happiness is the only good.
     The place to be happy is here.
     The time to be happy is now.
     The way to be happy is to make others so.
                         Robert G. Ingersoll


The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there
is such a thing as physical mortality.  Herbert Spencer


Christmas is a strange time of the year.  That's when we celebrate
the Prince of Peace by buying rockets, submarines, artillery and
hand grenades for our children.

Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.