A Quote by Jonathan Franzen

The radical otherness of birds is integral to their beauty and their value. They are always among us but never of us. Their indifference to us ought to serve as a chastening reminder that we're not the measure of all things.
And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious group, an otherness that can repel us initially, but which can jerk us out of our habitual selfishness, and give us intonations of that sacred otherness, which is God.
Strength is a capacity for endurance. One of the dividends of suffering is the universal discovery the we posses a strength within us we never knew we had. Navigating through a difficult episode not only shows us that inner strength is there but convinces us it will always be there to serve us in the future. Overcoming gives us an assurance of personal confidence and value that far exceeds what we thought we possessed before our struggles began.
Eroticism is first and foremost a thirst for otherness. And the supernatural is the supreme otherness. This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there – the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.
As we pass through the trials of life, let us keep an eternal perspective, let us not complain, let us become even more prayerful, let us serve others, and let us forgive one another. As we do this, 'all things [will] work together for good to [us] that love God.'
For you, the state is an entity with purposes of its own that the people can be required to serve. For us the word is only a label for the arrangements by which we the people delegate to some among us responsibility for things that concern us in common.
Our physical illnesses serve us for medicines to purge us from worldly affections and retrench what is superfluous in us, and since they are to us the messengers of death, we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God.
I know that God loves us. He allows us to exercise our moral agency even when we misuse it. He permits us to make our own decisions. Christ cannot help us if we do not trust Him; He cannot teach us if we do not serve Him. He will not force us to do what's right, but He will show us the way only when we decide to serve Him. Certainly, for us to serve in His kingdom, Christ requires that we experience a change of thought and attitude.
We ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things....We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible, and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.
Women and men are constructed differently, cosmically differently, never mind the physiognomy, but the cosmic memory we carry within us. The purposes we serve, the things that drive us, the things that are important to us are basically different.
We are of such value to God that He came to live among us... and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to Himself. We can only respond by loving God for His love.
The image is made to order, tailored to us. An ideal, on the hand, has a claim on us. It does not serve us, we serve it. If we have trouble striding toward it, we assume the matter is with us, and not the ideal.
Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things- he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God.
Practicing in the trial work trenches of the law, I saw, too, that when we judges don our robes, it doesn't make us any smarter, but it does serve as a reminder of what's expected of us: Impartiality and independence, collegiality and courage.
Priceless things matter not for their value, but because they offer us an enduring reminder of stability and permanence.
Poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinion, of in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value.
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