Earthly Things Quotes

Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.

John of the Cross

Heart, Soul, World

262 Copy quote
Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction and earthly things. They have no forethought for their eternal state, the present hour absorbs them. They turn to another and another of earth's broken cisterns, hoping to find water, where not a drop was ever discovered yet.

Charles Spurgeon

Men, Broken, Water

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When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

C. S. Lewis

Love, Marriage, Valentines Day

80 Copy quote
There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.

John Masefield

Beautiful, Hate, Ignorance

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Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Matthew McConaughey

Bible, Biblical, Jesus Christ

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I cannot say Who Art in Heaven-If all my interests and pursuits are in earthly things.

Ken Blanchard

Art, Heaven, Pursuit

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No matter how much we may study, it is not possible to come to know God unless we live according to His commandments, for God is not know by science, but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and learned men came to the belief that God exists, but they did not know God. It is one thing to belief that God exists and another to know Him. If someone has come to know God by the Holy Spirit, his soul will burn with love for God day and night, and his soul cannot be bound to any earthly thing.

Silouan the Athonite

Inspirational, Christian, Religious

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My soul has learned yet more fully than ever, this day, that there is no satisfaction to be found in earthly things-God alone can give rest to my spirit.

Charles Spurgeon

Giving, Soul, Satisfaction

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1869). “Evening by Evening; Or, Readings at Eventide for the Family Or the Closet”, p.29

29 Copy quote

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Love is the simplest of all earthly things.
It needs no grandeur of celestial trust
In more than what it is, no holy wings:
It stands with honest feet in honest dust,
And is the body's blossoming in clear air
Of trustfulness and joyance when alone
Two mortals pass beyond the hour's despair
And claim that Paradise which is their own.
Amid a universe of sweat and blood,
Beyond the glooms of all the nations' hate,
Lovers, forgetful of the poisoned mood
Of the loud world, in secret ere too late
A gentle sacrament may celebrate
Before their private altar of the good.

Arthur Davison Ficke

Hate, Love Is, Dust

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That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.

Barbara Tuchman

Age, Problem, Conflict

Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.6, Random House

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To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think.

Lillian Smith

Life, Dream, Art

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Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention - purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God, - purity apprehends and tastes Him.

Thomas a Kempis

Men, Wings, Two

"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

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God wants us to prosper. Our need, however, is to evaluate things as they should be evaluated - to esteem earthly things lightly - to put first things first.

Kenneth E. Hagin

Needs, Want, Firsts

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I have read of a glass kept in an idol temple in Smyrna that would make beautiful things appear deformed, and deformed things appear beautiful; carnal sense is such a glass to wicked men, it makes heavenly things which are beautiful to appear deformed, and earthly things which are deformed to appear beautiful.

Ralph Venning

Beautiful, Men, Glasses

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Gold is a living god and rules in scorn, All earthly things but virtue.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Gold, Virtue, Scorn

Percy Bysshe Shelley, G. Cuningham (1856). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: With Notes”, p.81

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Entranced by the denotative power of words to define, to order, to represent the things around us, weve overlooked the songful dimension of language so obvious to our oral [storytelling] ancestors. Weve lost our ear for the music of language -- for the rhythmic, melodic layer of speech by which earthly things overhear us.

David Abram

Order, Ears, Speech

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The Logos came down out of love for us. Let us not keep Him down permanently, but let us go up with Him to the Father, leaving the earth and earthly things behind, lest He say to us what He said to the Jews because of their stubbornness: 'I go where you cannot come (Jn. 8:21).

Maximus the Confessor

Christian, Father, Leaving

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Avoid duplicity, that is, do not let your heart be divided between attachment to God and attachment to earthly things, 'You cannot serve God and mammon' (Mt. 6:24); cling to God alone, put your trust in Him alone; for the Devil, by inciting us to duplicity, seeks himself to gain possession of our heart, which is single and indivisible.

John of Kronstadt

Christian, Heart, Attachment

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God warns us not to love any earthly thing above Himself, and yet He sets in a mother's heart such a fierce passion for her babes that I do not comprehend how He can test us so.

Geraldine Brooks

Mother, Passion, Heart

Geraldine Brooks (2002). “Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague”, p.28, Penguin

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It is no small advantage to the holy life, to "begin the day with God." The saints are wont to leave their hearts with him over-night, that they may find them with Him in the morning. "When I awake, I am still with thee," saith holy David. Before earthly things break in upon us, and we receive impressions from abroad, it is good to season the heart with thoughts of God, and to consecrate the early and virgin operations of the mind.

Thomas Case

Christian, Morning, Heart

"Puritan sermons, 1659-1689: being the morning exercises at Cripplegate, St. Giles in the Fields, and in Southwark".

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To this shadowy land, that knows neither sin nor redemption from sin, where evil is not moral but is only the pain residing forever in earthly things, Christ did not come. Christ stopped at Eboli.

Carlo Levi

Pain, Land, Evil

Christ Stopped at Eboli ch. 1 (1945)

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Classically, very few people have considered that cleanliness is next to godliness. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of prophets whose injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap.

Terry Pratchett

Hair, People, Office

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For aging is an art. The years between its first intimations and the time of the ultimate letting go of all earthly things can-if the readiness and resolve are there-be the real harvest of our lives.

Sherwin B. Nuland

Letting Go, Art, Real

Sherwin B. Nuland (2007). “The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being”, p.12, Random House

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With all the strength of my soul I urge you young people to approach the Communion table as often as you can. Feed on this bread of angels whence you will draw all the energy you need to fight inner battles. Because true happiness, dear friends, does not consist in the pleasures of the world or in earthly things, but in peace of conscience, which we have only if we are pure in heart and mind.

Pier Giorgio Frassati

Christian, Heart, Angel

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I thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast so set eternity within my heart that no earthly thing can ever satisfy me wholly.

John Baillie

Heart, Eternity, Lord

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