Temporal Things Quotes

• Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time: and not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections, not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time.

  Meister Eckhart

  Time, Light, Smell

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• God does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers, because he is always ready to give to us his light, not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one; but we are not always ready to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of a desire for temporal things.

  Saint Augustine

  Spiritual, Prayer, Light

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• It gives me a deep comforting sense that Things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.

  Helen Keller

  Science, Unseen Things, Giving

  Helen Keller (2016). “The Story of My Life”, p.70, Om Books International

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• Let temporal things serve thy use, but the eternal be the object of thy desire.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Priorities, Desire, Use

  Thomas a Kempis, James Jones (1842). “The Following of Christ...”, p.214

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• We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things that are not seen are eternal.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Philosophical, Looks, Eternal

  Madeleine L'Engle (2013). “A Wrinkle in Time Trilogy”, p.100, Macmillan

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• Realize that illness and other temporal setbacks often come to us from the hand of God our Lord, and are sent to help us know ourselves better, to free ourselves of the love of created things, and to reflect on the brevity of this life and, thus, to prepare ourselves for the life which is without end.

  Ignatius of Loyola

  Hands, Helping, Realizing

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• If we really want to achieve true prayer, we must turn our backs upon everything temporal, everything external, everything that is not divine.

  Johannes Tauler

  Prayer, Want, Achieve

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• Time is not a thing, thus nothing which is, and yet it remains constant in its passing away without being something temporal like the beings in time.

  Martin Heidegger

  Passing Away, Time Passing, Constant

  Martin Heidegger, Joan Stambaugh (2002). “On Time and Being”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former - Being - be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter - time - be addressed as a being.

  Martin Heidegger

  Latter, Former, Determine

  Martin Heidegger, Joan Stambaugh (2002). “On Time and Being”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.

  Simone Weil

  Spiritual, Men, Class

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.174, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• It is ignorance or at least lack of consideration of heavenly things that make the temporal things of this world, whether good or evil, greater than they really are.

  Tom Patton

  Christian, Inspiration, Ignorance

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• Things that are seen are temporal; things that are unseen are eternal.

  John Calvin

  Faith, Religious, Unseen

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• To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things.

  Saint Augustine

  Wisdom, Knowledge, Intellectual

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• A man who hates the passion cuts off their causes. But a man who remains among their causes experiences even against his will the conflict from the passions. It is not possible to be mentally inclined toward a passion if one does not love its cause. For who, disdaining shame, is given to vainglory? Or who, loving lowliness, is bothered by dishonor? Who, having a broken and humble heart, accepts fleshly sweetness? Or who, believing in Christ, is concerned about temporal things, or argues about them?

  Marcus Eremita

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

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• For reason's measurements, which attain unto temporal things, do not attain unto things that are free from time-just as hearing does not attain unto whatever is not-audible, even though these things exist and are unattainable by hearing.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Doe, Unattainable, Hearing

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• It [covetousness] is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Men, Greed, Sake

  "Summa Theologica".

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• By means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and the spiritual.

  Saint Augustine

  Spiritual, Mean, May

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• The stronghold of the contemplation of Christ's glory affords the soul rest, for it will be made evident that our troubles grow on the root of an over-valuation of temporal things. The mind is its own greatest troubler.

  John Owen

  Roots, Soul, Mind

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