“Unchecked, the dominating influences of money and of barren intellectualism would reduce the life of emotions to freezing point. And, unable to grasp the holier benefits of religion, the mysticism of the heart reacts in the art-intoxication. .... In this cold, irreligious and practical age the warmth of this devotion to art has kept alive many higher aspirations of our soul, which otherwise might readily have died, as they did in the middle of the last century.” HeartArtSoulMightAgeLastsCultureEmotionChristianityAliveInfluenceMiddleCenturyColdHigherBenefitsDiedPracticalsDevotionAspirationMysticismWarmthBarrenIntellectualismIntoxicationDominatingFreezing Book:Lectures on Calvinism Source: Lectures on Calvinism
“Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.” IfsMenWorldYearsHas BeensSoulJesusHalfCenturyRevolutionCircumstancesArmyPreparedGreat MenTemplesFollowersIdolsFifteenMosesMuhammadPaganFifteen YearsKnocked DownFalse Gods Author:Napoleon Bonaparte
“In a general way, the literature of the twentieth century is essentially psychological; and psychology consists of describing states of the soul by displaying them all on the same plane, without any discrimination of value, as though good and evil were external to them, as though the effort toward the good could be absent at any moment from the thought of any man.” MenWaySoulStatesMomentsValuesEvilLiteratureEffortPsychologyCenturyDiscriminationPsychologicalPlanesGood And EvilTwentieth CenturyAbsentDescribing Author:Simone Weil