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Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

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Famous Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

“It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his might actions comprehensible to our finite minds.”

PeopleIfsGivingTryingMindBelieveIdeasMightActionWhiteMorningOur LivesImpossibleSixDignityQueensGloriousBreakfastGood IdeasRejoiceEvery MorningFiniteImpossible Things
Book:Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
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“We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it.”

IfsWorldGivingTryingLooksChildrenFallEvilGrowsParentResponsibilityGrowing UpGrowingHavensProtectDespairWeaponsOur ChildrenErrorsParentingPeacefulSecureSelfishnessIndifferenceGoing AwayCivilizedIsolatedIrrationalIrresponsibleGrownups
Author:Madeleine L'Engle
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“what I must learn is to love with all of me, giving all of me, and yet remain whole in myself. Any other kind of love is too demanding of the other; it takes, rather than gives. To love so completely that you lose yourself in another person is not good. You are giving a weight, not the sense of lightness and light that loving someone should give.”

GivingShouldKindPersonsWholeLightLosesLove IsWeightLoving SomeoneLosing YourselfKinds Of LoveLightness
Book:Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
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“An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy... If I try self-consciously to become a person, I will never be one. The most real people, those who are able to forget their selfish selves, who have true compassion, are usually the most distinct individuals”

PeopleIfsGivingTryingPersonsRealSelfAbleJoyIndividualAnswersForgetCompassionLaughterInfiniteSelfishDestroyedFiniteLaughter And Joy
Author:Madeleine L'Engle
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“As I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory.”

GivingTryingMeanArtFeelingsUniverseSilenceChristianityShareGloryTragedyCreatorAttemptingInseparable
Book:Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
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“Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madness in the poet. It is a frightening thing to open oneself to this strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go our sane self control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting it go is part of listening to the silence, and to the spirit.”

GivingMeanSelfSpiritSidesDarkSilenceDivineStrangePoetListeningLetting GoIllusionMadnessSafetyOneselfSpokesSaneFrighteningSelf ControlPlatoLet It GoDark Side
Author:Madeleine L'Engle
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