Reply Quotes - page 21
Eldorado Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old This knight so bold And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow 'Shadow,' said he, 'Where can it be This land of Eldorado' 'Over the mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,' The shade replied 'If you seek for Eldorado'
Edgar Allan Poe
When asked, "What did God do before he created the universe?" St. Augustine didn't reply, "he was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions." Instead, he said that time was a property of the Universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the Universe.
Stephen Hawking
Once Nasreddin was invited to deliver a sermon. When he got on the pulpit, he asked, Do you know what I am going to say? The audience replied "no", so he announced, I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about! and left.
The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time, when he asked the same question, the people replied yes. So Nasreddin said, Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time! and left.
Now the people were really perplexed. They decided to try one more time and once again invited the Mulla to speak the following week. Once again he asked the same question – Do you know what I am going to say? Now the people were prepared and so half of them answered "yes" while the other half replied "no."
Nasreddin
You have no business to be an unbeliever. You ought to stand for all the things these stupid people call superstitions. Come now, don't you think there's a lot in those old wives' tales about luck and charms and so on, silver bullets included? What do you say about them as a Catholic?'
'I say I'm an agnostic,' replied Father Brown, smiling.
'Nonsense,' said Aylmer impatiently. 'It's your business to believe things.
G. K. Chesterton
Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Would I if I could by pushing a button would I kill five thousand Chinamen if I could save my brother from anything. Well I was very fond of my brother and I could completely imagine his suffering and I replied that five thousand Chinamen were something I could not imagine and so it was not interesting.
One has to remember that about imagination, that is when the world gets dull when everybody does not know what they can or what they cannot really imagine.
Gertrude Stein
My next speculation is more difficult, and is addressed to those who not only take too terrestrial a view, but who deny the plausibility - nay, the possibility - of the existence of an unseen world at all. I reply we are demonstrably standing on the brink, at any rate, of one unseen world.
William Crookes
John asked what he could do to help my campaign for governor.
"Write a campaign song," I replied.
"Okay," said John, "what's the theme?"
"Our campaign slogan is 'Come together, join the party.'"
"Great title," said John. He grabbed his guitar and started improvising.
: Come together right now.
Don't come tomorrow, don't come alone,
Come together right now,
Over me.
:* On first proposing that John Lennon write a song for his California gubernatorial campaign; this eventually developed into the Beatles song, "Come Together", p. 281.
Timothy Leary
Only straight discovering in the nearest stone or tree, sound or thought, the shelter of His often desecrated goodness, the treasury of His waiting form man's heart to affiliate with His will - this is the rapture of faith. It is an echo to a pleading voice, a reply to the inconceivable in all beauty.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
A Jesuit once wrote a note to Father Arrupe, his superior general, asking him about the relative value of communism, socialism and capitalism. Father Arrupe gave him a lovely reply. He said, "A system is about as good or as bad as the people who use it." People with golden hearts would make capitalism or communism or socialism work beautifully.
Anthony de Mello
A zealous disciple expressed a desire to teach others the Truth and asked the Master what he thought about this. The Master said, "Wait."
Each year the disciple would return with the same request and each time the Master would give him the same reply: "Wait."
One day he said to the Master, "When will I be ready to teach?"
Said the Master, "When your excessive eagerness to teach has left you."
Anthony de Mello
A master was once unmoved by the complaints of his disciples that, though they listened with pleasure to his parables and stories, they were also frustrated for they longed for something deeper. To all their objections he would simply reply: "You have yet to understand, my friends, that the shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story."
Anthony de Mello
I hear you reproach, 'But delay was best, For their end was a crime.' Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view ...... Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Isthe unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
Robert Browning
