A Quote by Jonathan Edwards

Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life.

Jonathan Edwards

Quote Topics

Business Christian Christian Life Consider Heart Labor Labor Of Love Life Love Love Is Main Principle Real

Quote Author

Jonathan Edwards
American - Priest
October 5, 1703 - March 22, 1758

When we assume God to be a guiding principle well, sure enough, a god is usually characteristic of a certain system of thought or morality. For instance, take the Christian God, the summum bonum: God is love, love being the highest moral principle; and God is spirit, the spirit being the supreme idea of meaning. All our Christian moral concepts derive from such assumptions, and the supreme essence of all of them is what we call God.

Carl Jung

For millions of Christians, nevertheless, God is no more real than He is to the non-Christian. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is an unchristian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what not, it was the work of love which was his life.

Soren Kierkegaard

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle - the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.

Karl Popper

You may take this as a general and central principle in criticism: that all science, literature or song, which recognizes conscious life as the ruling principle of the universe, is Christian.

Edward Everett Hale

Principle of "Christian love": it insists upon being well paid in the end.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Such true worship will stand the test of Christ's great principle, “By their fruits you shall know them”. It sanctifies the Christian's life, and makes them walk with God, lifting them above fear and love of the world. It enables a Christian to show God to other folks. Such worship comes from heaven, and has the mark of God upon it.

J. C. Ryle

... the main principle by which human beings must guide the future course of their development is love.

Ashley Montagu

Principles are what people have instead of God. To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child. Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them. 'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'.

Frederick Buechner

Honesty is a principle. Service is a principle. Love is a principle. Hard work is a principle. Respect, gratitude, moderation, fairness, integrity, loyalty, and responsibility are principles. There are dozens and dozens more. They are not hard to identify. Just as a compass always points to true north, your heart will recognize true principles.

Sean Covey

Kantian ethical theory distinguishes three levels: First, that of a fundamental principle (the categorical imperative, formulated in three main ways in Kant's Groundwork); second, a set of duties, not deduced from but derived from this principle, by way of its interpretation or specification, its application to the general conditions of human life - which Kant does in the Doctrine of virtue, the second main part of the Metaphysics of Morals; and then finally an act of judgment, through which these duties are applied to particular cases.

Allen W. Wood

Retributive justice did not arise from any Christian principle; almost every pre-Christian society dealt with wrongdoers by causing them pain.

Lewis B. Smedes

Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Christian ideal. We have no word for 'love' as I understand you to mean it. Duty, loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, all that we need.

James Clavell

If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without love is self-centeredness; forgiveness without love is self-abasement; fortitude without love is recklessness; generosity without love is extravagance; care without love is mere duty; fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated, or informed, by love.

Richard Rohr

A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment.