If the Mayans have taught us anything, it is that if you don't finish something, it's not the end of the world.
— Writemonkey #monkeywisdom
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To force conscience is worse than cruelly to kill a man...
At a time when nearly all his contemporaries held to the view that "error has no rights," Castellio's plea for toleration and respect for the rights of conscience was certainly exceptional. "To force conscience is worse than cruelly to kill a man," he wrote, "because I must be saved by my own faith and not by that of another... Religion resides not in the body but in the heart, which cannot be reached by the sword of kings and princes. The Church can no more be constructed by persecution and violence than walls can be built by cannon blasts." When Calvin asked how then was the true church to be recognized, Castellio answered, "By an assured faith concerning things which are hoped for, not known, by love which is better than faith and may be clearly discerned, by the doctrine of piety which is to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, to hunger and thirst after righteousness and endure persecution for righteousness' sake."
— Sebastian Castellio in All Saints (1997) by Robert Ellsberg
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All things were given to me...
"Ah, if one only knew what one gains in renouncing all things!", Saint Therese of the Child Jesus tells us. This is the way to happiness, because if we leave God free to act in His way, He is infinitely more capable of rendering us happy than we ourselves are, because He knows us and loves us more than we can ever know or love ourselves. Saint John of the Cross expresses this same truth in other terms: "All things were given to me from the moment when I no longer sought them."
— Father Jacques Philippe
Searching for and Maintaining Peace / Recherche la paix et poursuis-la (1998)