More Francis Spufford

Christianity is a religion of continuity and discontinuity as well. It's about what stays the sa...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

If you're a believer, God is not a thought-experiment requiring a special sub-creation to be tri...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

I think I have made allowances for the kind of despair which would test my faith, but you cannot kno...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

What I absolutely want is to suggest that before it's anything else, redemption is God mending t...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

For a believer, Christian faith is true to the human heart, not in the sense that any old thing we f...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

I am a fairly orthodox Christian. Every Sunday, I say and do my best to mean the whole of the Creed,...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of read...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a spe...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, dem...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

Why do I write? From selfishness. Because this state of liquefied, complex concentration, however fa...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

...what goes on inside believers is mysterious. So far as it can be guessed at - if for some reason ...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using diff...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

In a hundred years, Christianity will have mutated into something utterly unpredictable which, never...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

Christians are as subject to complacency as anybody else, and we can certainly settle into repetitio...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-approval, any more than imagination is the same thing a...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

Belief demands that you dispense with illusion after illusion, while contemporary common sense requi...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

You don't have to become an investment banker as a way of demonstrating that education has worke...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD

What we need in Europe is to push back against the idea that religion is so farfetched that it's...
FRANCIS SPUFFORD If God is real, I'm going to be sadly disappointed in Science...
FRANCIS “Everytime Illegal Immigration is brought up in the Good 'Ol U.S. of part of America, 'Native Amer...
FRANCIS Family ain't blood or sharing a last name, Family are those who treat you like it.
FRANCIS Humans come equipped with Bullshit.
FRANCIS Our thoughts and dreams make this world, and reality is only as true as we perceive it to be.
FRANCIS Friends let friends wear purple.
FRANCIS It prolly' subscribes to some type of Personal Jesus, otherworldly devices, or a Higher Power...
FRANCIS Mensa, n. Head case with delusions of grandeur.
FRANCIS

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
FRANCIS BACON

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has ...
POPE FRANCIS

The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and t...
POPE FRANCIS Woman is always fickle - foolish is he who trusts her.
FRANCIS I

Right now, we don't have a very good relation with creation.
POPE FRANCIS

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
FRANCIS BACON

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.
POPE FRANCIS

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not tr...
FRANCIS BACON

Abortion isn't a lesser evil, it's a crime. Taking one life to save another, that's what...
POPE FRANCIS

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity...
FRANCIS BACON

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
FRANCIS BACON

Money has to serve, not to rule.
POPE FRANCIS

Find new ways to spread the word of God to every corner of the world.
POPE FRANCIS

We all have the duty to do good.
POPE FRANCIS

From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve ...
POPE FRANCIS

In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, R...
POPE FRANCIS

When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without ...
POPE FRANCIS

The Church is or should go back to being a community of God's people, and priests, pastors and b...
POPE FRANCIS

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do giv...
FRANCIS BACON

I actually do not believe that there are any collisions between what I believe as a Christian, and w...
FRANCIS COLLINS We should be the natural home for the millions of Britons of immigrant origin. But we're not. Be...
FRANCIS MAUDE I remember being in Atlantic City once when I was 18 or 19, and a sea of people were screaming and p...
GENIE FRANCIS

Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of to-day. It i...
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Our God and Souldiers we alike adore,Evn at the Brink of danger; not before:After deliverance, both ...
FRANCIS QUARLES

Between my head and my hand, there is always the face of death.
FRANCIS PICABIA

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him...
FRANCIS BACON

To become a thoroughly good man is the best prescription for keeping a sound mind and a sound body...
FRANCIS BOWEN

I could fill my whole time doing interviews, speaking to crowds, and there's this natural human ...
FRANCIS CHAN

The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.
POPE FRANCIS Manchester was a fantastic place to go out in. There were 10 clubs with world-class cabaret and come...
FRANCIS LEE My soul is more at rest from the tempter when I am busily employed.
FRANCIS ASBURY We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and fairly upon the broad prairie.
FRANCIS PARKMAN

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with d...
FRANCIS BACON

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
FRANCIS BACON

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider...
FRANCIS BACON

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
FRANCIS BACON

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
FRANCIS BACON Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; the clouds were like light piles of cott...
FRANCIS PARKMAN

Religion brought forth riches, and the daughter devoured the mother. [Lat., Religio peperit divit...
FRANCIS BACON

The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions.
FRANCIS BACON

There was never law, or set, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion dot...
FRANCIS BACON

But no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth.
FRANCIS BACON

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and co...
FRANCIS BACON

Maybe men are separated from each other only by the degree of their misery.
FRANCIS PICABIA

A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds ...
FRANCIS BACON

Knowledge is ancient error reflecting on its youth.
FRANCIS PICABIA

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
FRANCIS BACON

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
FRANCIS BACON

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
FRANCIS BACON

Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, It is...
FRANCIS CRAWFORD

In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea fir...
FRANCIS DARWIN

There is no expeditious road To pack and label men for God, And save them by the barrel-load. ...
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of to-day. It i...
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in others' pain ...
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Nothing destroys authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power, pressed too far...
FRANCIS BACON

One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught,...
FRANCIS BACON

We cannot command nature except by obeying her.
FRANCIS BACON

Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the...
FRANCIS BACON

We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.
POPE FRANCIS

Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation. and honor the reward of action.
FRANCIS QUARLES

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for...
FRANCIS BACON

Fear nothing but what thy industry may prevent; be confident of nothing but what fortune cannot de...
FRANCIS QUARLES

Riches are a good handmaiden, but the worst mistress.
FRANCIS BACON

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.
FRANCIS QUARLES

That friendship will not continue to the end which is begun for an end.
FRANCIS QUARLES

The act is unjustifiable that either begs for a blessing, or, having succeeded gives no thanksgiving...
FRANCIS QUARLES

God invented concubinage, Satan marriage.
FRANCIS PICABIA

To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.
POPE FRANCIS

For knowledge, too, is itself a power. [Lat., Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.]
FRANCIS BACON

Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up.
FRANCIS BACON

Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect.
FRANCIS BACON

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itsel...
FRANCIS BACON

If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.
FRANCIS BACON

Men have always need of god! A god to defend them against other men..
FRANCIS PICABIA The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
FRANCIS HUTCHESON Anger may repast with thee for an hour, but not repose for a night; the continuance of anger is ha...
QUARLES FRANCIS

So that every wand or staff of empire is forsooth curved at top. [Lat., Adeo ut omnes imperii virg...
FRANCIS BACON

States are great engines moving slowly.
FRANCIS BACON

They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body;...
FRANCIS BACON

All beliefs are bald ideas.
FRANCIS PICABIA

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and soli...
FRANCIS BACON Education is too important to be left solely to the educators.
FRANCIS KEPPEL

Those good men who take such pleasure in relieving the miserable for Christ's sake, would not have b...
FRANCIS ATTERBURY

They who are not induced to believe and live as they ought by those discoveries which God hath made ...
FRANCIS ATTERBURY

The greater absurdities are, the more strongly they evince the falsity of that supposition from when...
FRANCIS ATTERBURY

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused m...
FRANCIS BACON

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin wit...
FRANCIS BACON

Lukewarm living and claiming Christ's name simultaneously is utterly disgusting to God.
FRANCIS CHAN

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
FRANCIS BACON

The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss;...
FRANCIS BACON Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.
DICK FRANCIS

Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
FRANCIS BACON

If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to ...
FRANCIS BACON

No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being.
FRANCIS BACON

Money makes a good servant, but a bad master.
FRANCIS BACON

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
FRANCIS BACON

Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must...
FRANCIS BACON

The essence of a man is found in his faults.
FRANCIS PICABIA

For we are born in other's pain, and perish in our own.
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in others pain And per...
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Nature is unfair? So much the better, inequality is the only bearable thing, the monotony of equalit...
FRANCIS PICABIA

A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself.
FRANCIS PICABIA

Pain has its reasons, pleasure is totally indifferent.
FRANCIS PICABIA

Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, a...
FRANCIS QUARLES

To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the b...
FRANCIS BACON

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
FRANCIS BACON

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend...
FRANCIS BACON

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
FRANCIS BACON

For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal,...
FRANCIS BACON

Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.
FRANCIS BACON

All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from...
FRANCIS BACON

It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what ...
FRANCIS BACON

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy...
FRANCIS BACON

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
FRANCIS BACON

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their f...
FRANCIS BACON

Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil...
FRANCIS BACON

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great ent...
FRANCIS BACON

An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident.
FRANCIS THOMPSON

No one will ever shine in conversation, who thinks of saying fine things: to please, one must say ma...
FRANCIS LOCKIER

Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for where thou...
FRANCIS QUARLES

Christianity provides a unified answer for the whole of life.
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy ...
CLARENCE FRANCIS

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be de...
FRANCIS BACON

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom driv...
FRANCIS BACON

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
FRANCIS BACON

The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is mor...
BRENDAN FRANCIS

The road to perseverance lies by doubt.
FRANCIS QUARLES

If God exists and we are made in his image we can have real meaning, and we can have real knowledge ...
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER

Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all, and death is but the sounder sleep.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
FRANCIS BACON

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the...
FRANCIS BACON

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
FRANCIS QUARLES

The world is divided into two categories: failures and unknowns.
FRANCIS PICABIA

To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
FRANCIS CRAWFORD

Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Heaven finds an ear when sinners find a tongue.
FRANCIS QUARLES

Anger may repast with thee for an hour, but not repose for a night; the continuance of anger is hatr...
FRANCIS QUARLES

Let us never forget that the greatest man is never more than an animal disguised as a god.
FRANCIS PICABIA

If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself,...
FRANCIS QUARLES

The devil doesn't know how to sing, only how to howl.
FRANCIS THOMPSON

Wickedness is its own punishment.
FRANCIS QUARLES

Temper your enjoyments with prudence, lest there be written on your heart that fearful word satiety.
FRANCIS QUARLES

My ass contemplates those who talk behind my back.
FRANCIS PICABIA

Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor.
FRANCIS QUARLES

The family spirit has rendered man carnivorous.
FRANCIS PICABIA

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester.
FRANCIS QUARLES

He that hath promised pardon on our repentance hat not promised life till we repent.
FRANCIS QUARLES

Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER

Silence is the virtue of fools.
FRANCIS BACON

It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT

Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as ...
FRANCIS BACON

People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and ...
FRANCIS BACON

Science is but an image of the truth.
FRANCIS BACON

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and co...
FRANCIS BACON

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.
FRANCIS BACON

Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortun...
FRANCIS QUARLES

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
FRANCIS BACON

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
FRANCIS BACON

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed...
FRANCIS BACON

The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
FRANCIS BACON

The average person's ear weighs what you are, not what you were.
FRANCIS QUARLES

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discou...
FRANCIS BACON

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discou...
FRANCIS BACON

The true way to gain much, is never to desire to gain too much.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT

I hold every man a debtor to his profession.
FRANCIS BACON

He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and ...
FRANCIS BACON

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
FRANCIS BACON

All colors will agree in the dark.
FRANCIS BACON

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far...
FRANCIS BACON

It is a strange desire, to seek power and lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose pow...
FRANCIS BACON

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.
FRANCIS BACON

In thinking, if a person begins with certainties, they shall end in doubts, but if they can begin wi...
FRANCIS BACON

Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars,...
FRANCIS BACON

God doesn't want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity.

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Francis Spufford

God doesn't want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity.

Francis Spufford

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