And so one may be without connection with any church, and even without connection with any established religion, and yet be in spirit, hence in reality, a much truer Christian than hosts of those who profess to be His most ardent followers, as indeed Jesus Himself so many times says. "By their fruits ye shall know them," said He. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
Ralph Waldo TrineThe optimist is right. The pessimist is right. Point of view is the determining factor in the life of each.
Ralph Waldo TrineAnd so it is true in this sense that there is essentially but one religion, the religion of the living God. For to live in the conscious realisation of the fact that God lives in us, is indeed the life of our life, and that in ourselves we have no independent life, and hence no power, is the one great fact of all true religion, even as it is the one great fact of human life. Religion, therefore, at its purest, and life at its truest, are essentially and necessarily one and the same.
Ralph Waldo TrineThe life that goes out in love to all life is the life that is full, and rich, and continually expanding in beauty and in power.
Ralph Waldo TrineLove is everything. It is the key to life, and its influences are those that move the world.
Ralph Waldo TrineIf angels come not to minister us it is because we do not invite them, it is because we keep the door closed through which they might otherwise enter.
Ralph Waldo TrineMan is the individualised expression or reflection of God imaged forth and made manifest in bodily form. How is it, then, I hear it asked, that man has the limitations that he has, that he is subject to fears and forebodings, that he is liable to sin and error, that he is the victim of disease and suffering? There is but one reason. He is not living, except in rare cases here and there, in the conscious realisation of his own true Being, and hence of his own true Self.
Ralph Waldo Trine