“Fire, loveliest of the four elements of the world, and yet an element too in Hell. While it burned adoringly in the core of the Temple, it had also scorched the life from a city, this night, and spewed its venom over the land. How strange of God to speak from a burning bush, and of Man to make a symbol of Heaven into a symbol of Hell.” MenWorldNightSpeakHeavenCitiesHellFireFourLandStrangeElementsCoreSymbolsBurningTemplesBurnedVenomBurning BushFour Elements Book:A Canticle For Leibowitz Source: A Canticle For Leibowitz
“Catholicity seized on man... and the mystics, transcending all, taught him to ascend on high with the wings of contemplation the Ladder of Jacob composed of brilliant stones, by which God descends to Earth and man ascends to Heaven, till Earth and Heaven, and God and man, burning together in a conflagration of infinite charity, are transmuted into one.” MenEarthTogetherHeavenTaughtStonesInfiniteWingsCharityBrilliantBurningContemplationLaddersJacobTranscending Author:Juan Donoso Cortes
“There is a certain period of the soul-culture when it begins to interfere with some of characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wearing down the flesh, and the moral enthusiasm burning its way out to heaven, through the emaciation of the earthen vessel; and there is, in this indication of subduing the mortal by the immortal part, an ideal glory of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form. We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul than of, the fair and ruddy countenance of David.” ThinkingWaySoulCharacterFormCertainCultureHeavenPerfectBeautyMoralMaterialsHigherPeriodsGloryFairsIdealsWeakIntellectFleshEnthusiasmMortalsBurningRangeImmortalBelongingInterfereTypicalVesselIndicationStirringCountenance Author:John Ruskin
“Energy apparently increases with the amount of work to be done. When nothing of burning urgency is waiting, it decreases much sooner. Heaven seems to understand such economy.” DoneSeemsEnergyHeavenWaitingEconomyAmountIncreaseBurningUrgencyDecreaseWork To Be Done Author:Edith Stein
“Many a man who might walk over burning ploughshares into heaven stumbles from the path because there is gravel in his shoes.” MenMightHeavenWalksPathShoesBurningGravel Author:Edwin Hubbel Chapin