The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise to never have a headache or always to feel hungry.

The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the 'first fruits,' the pioneer of life,' He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.

If the world is meaningless, then so are we; if we mean something, we do not mean alone.

Because God created the Natural - invented it out of His love and artistry - it demands our reverence.

Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

The gap between those who worship different gods is not so wide as the gap between those who worship and those who don't.

But I remember more dearly autumn afternoons in bottoms that lay intensely silent under old great trees