Saturday, January 12, 2019

Commonplace Book

A collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

“[E]ven after [a big bell] is silent you can put your hands on the metal and feel the last tingle of vibrations, as though it were still singing to itself, private music of its own which we can't hear “
(Peter Dickinson, English author, Time and the Clock Mice)

 “If you lay silently in nature, the animals come to you.”
(Anonymous)

 “Behaving and knowing are inseparably linked. So defined, the gospel is inexhaustible because there is not only so much to know, but also so much to become! The vital truths are not merely accumulated in the mind but are expressed in life as well.”
(Neal A Maxwell, The Inexhaustible Gospel, BYU Devotional, August 18,1982)

“Our eyes capture thousands of beautiful pictures every day.”
(Pradeepa Pandiyan, amateur photographer, India)

“Sometimes, in the mutual climb along the straight and narrow path, brothers and sisters, we need friends to shout warnings to us or to give us instructions, but we also need those moments when warm whispers can help us to keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
(Neal A Maxwell, Insights from my Life, BYU Devotional, October 26,1976)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
(Galatians 5:22-23)

“You may be exhausted, but don’t ever give up.”
(Neil L Anderson, Wounded, October Conference 2018)

“Because any life you take is not just one life. There will always be a family connected to that life.”
(Rukiye Abdul-Mutakallim, spoken to the boy (Javon Coulter) who murdered her son, Suliman Ahmed Abdul-Mutakallim, November 2, 2017 in South Cumminsville, OH, offering her family to help Javon live a better life then and when he is eventually released from prison)

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness that comes it.”
(Albert Einstein, written in 1922, in German on hotel stationery, and given to a messenger who refused a tip. In 2017 the note sold at auction for $1.56m)

“Neal [Maxwell] said his testimony came in three ways. Early in his home life, he experienced the witness of the Spirit, followed afterward by intellectual and experiential conversions. He found that the witness of the Spirit is more sure but that the other witnesses would increasingly corroborate his spiritual impressions.”
(Bruce C Hafen, A Disciple's Life, the Autobiography of Neal A Maxwell, Deseret Book 2002, 67)

“What was the object of gathering the … people of God in any age of the world? … The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby He could reveal unto His people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach the people the way of salvation”
(Joseph Smith, Teachings of the President's out e the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 415-19)

“Never has anyone offered so much to so many in so few words as when Jesus said, “Here am I, send me.” (Abr. 3:27.)
(Neal A Maxwell, Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King, April Conference 1976)

“In these days of uncertainty and unrest, liberty-loving peoples’ greatest responsibility and paramount duty is to preserve and proclaim the freedom of the individual, his relationship to Deity, and the necessity of obedience to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only, thus will mankind find peace and happiness.”
(David O McKay, Improvement Era, December 1962, p. 903.)

“Just as a flood-lighted temple is more beautiful in a severe storm or in a heavy fog, so the gospel of Jesus Christ is more glorious in times of inward storm and of personal sorrow and tormenting conflict.”
(Harold B Lee, Conference Report, Apr. 1965, p. 16).

“Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness”
(In The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life, New York: Forbes, Inc., 1968, p. 88). 

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