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Madeleine L'Engle

"Grandfather looked away from me and out to sea, and when he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. "The obligations of normal human kindness " chesed, as the Hebrew has it " that we all owe. But there's a kind of vanity in thinking you can nurse the world. There's a kind of vanity in goodness.I could hardly believe my ears. "But aren't we supposed to be good?"I'm not sure. Grandfather's voice was heavy. "I do know that we're not good, and there's a lot of truth to the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

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"Grandfather looked away from me and out to sea, and when he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. "The obligations of normal human kindness " chesed, as the Hebrew has it " that we all owe. But there's a kind of vanity in thinking you can nurse the world. There's a kind of vanity in goodness.I could hardly believe my ears. "But aren't we supposed to be good?"I'm not sure. Grandfather's voice was heavy. "I do know that we're not good, and there's a lot of truth to the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

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"Your moral foundation and character currently depend on what you hear."

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"People shouldn't have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty."

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"Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth."

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"Sometimes you will do good and not get an acknowledgement for it. Don't let that dishearten you, the world is a better place with your good deeds."

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"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable."
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"With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me."
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"You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future."
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"There's no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change."
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"You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father."
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"All right, all right, you go right on thinking you an act of God created in his image, and I'll go right on thinking I'm descended from an ape. When you look in the mirror I should think you'd feel pretty discouraged; I wouldn't be happy to look at myself and think that my faces is an Imago Dei. It wouldn't make me feel I'd done very well by God. But when I look in the mirror and that I'm descended from an ape, I feel I've done remarkably well."
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"Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security. But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessings stronger than cursing."
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"Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos."
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"Some of these questions don't have finite answers, but the questions themselves are important. Don't stop asking, and don't let anybody tell you the questions aren't worth it. They are."
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Madeleine L'Engle
"As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."
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