Fling away ambition; / By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, / The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
Tears such as angels weep.
He who loves goodness harbours angels, reveres reverence, and lives with God.
You can get lost on your way home. You can get lost looking for love. You can get lost between jobs. You can get lost looking for God. However it happens, take heart. Others before you have found a way in the wilderness, where there are as many angels as there are wild beasts, and plenty of other lost people too. All it takes is one of them to find you. All it takes is you to find one of them. However it happens, you could do worse than to kneel down and ask a blessing, remembering how many knees have kissed this altar before you.
It is in the path where God has bade us walk that we shall find the angels around us. We may meet them, indeed, on paths of our own choosing, but it will be the sort of angel that Balaam met, with a sword in his hand, mighty and beautiful, but wrathful too; and we had better not front him! But the friendly helpers, the emissaries of God's love, the apostles of His grace, do not haunt the roads that we make for ourselves.--_Alex. McLaren._
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above Enjoy such liberty.
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can man or angel come in danger by it.
Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other.
I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present.
Every one of the names given to this infinite Being by finite beings marks a stage in the evolution of religious truth. If once we try to understand these names, we shall find that they were all well meant, that, for the time being, they were probably the only possible names. The Historical School does not look upon all the names given to divine powers as simply true or simply false. We look upon all of them as well meant and true for the time being, as steps on the ladder on which the angels of God ascend and descend. There was no harm in the ancient people, when they were thirsting for rain, invoking the sky, and saying, 'O, dear sky, send us rain!' And when after a time they used more and more general words, when they addressed the powers (of nature) as bright, or rich, or mighty, all these were meant for something else, for something they were seeking for, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him. This is St. Paul's view of the growth of religion.
Of all the marvellous works of the Deity, perhaps there is nothing that angels behold with such supreme astonishment as a proud man.
Like angels' visits, few and far between.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
The glorious fault of angels and of gods.
Like angels' visits, short and bright; / Mortality's too weak to bear them long.
We are risen apes, not fallen angels—and we now have the evidence to prove it.
~Angels.~--In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put in theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.--_George Eliot._
Could we forbear dispute and practise love, / We should agree as angels do above.
Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distressed by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!
Our angels live in heaven, not on earth. We only recognise the angelic in man, even in those we love the most, when we can no longer see them. They are then nearer us than ever, we love them more than ever. Happy are those who have such angels in heaven, who draw our hearts away from earth and fill them with longing for our true home. They lighten the burden of life, they give a quiet, gentle tone to the joys of life, and they teach us to love those who are left to us on earth, it may be but for a few days or years, with a love which we never knew before, a love which bears all things, believes all things, and gladly pardons all things.
I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.
how bold these infants are before the throne of God? No one is bolder in the Kingdom of Heaven: Lord, you granted us life, they say to God, and just as we beheld it, you took it back from us. And they beg and plead so boldly that the Lord immediately puts them in the ranks of the angels. And therefore,’ said the saint, ‘you, too, woman, rejoice and do not weep. Your infant, too, now abides with the Lord in the host of his angels.
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd, Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd; With such old counsellors they did advise, And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
Think of that mystic ladder, which descends from the throne of God to the spot, however lowly, where you may be. It may be a moorland waste; a humble cottage; a ship's cabin; a settler's hut; a bed of pain; but Jesus Christ finds you out, and comes just where you are. The one pole of this ladder is the gold of His deity; the other is the silver of His manhood; the rungs are the series of events from the cradle of Bethlehem to the right hand of power, where He sits. That ladder sways beneath a weight of blessing for you. Oh, that you would send away your burdens of sin, and care, and fear, by the hands of the ascending angels of prayer and faith!--so as to be able to receive into your heart the trooping angels of peace, and joy, and love, and glory.--_F. B. Meyer._
Who does the best his circumstance allows, / Does well, does nobly; angels could no more.
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
She was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age when, if ever, angels be for God's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers. Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould, so mild and gentle, so pure and beautiful, that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions.--_Dickens._
I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful \x97 his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, / And hear the angels sing!
Il est aux anges=--He is supremely happy (_lit._ with the angels).
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I would perish in the embrace of his stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure and are awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Each single angel is terrifying.
We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Pride is still aiming at the blest abodes; / Men would be angels, angels would be gods; / Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, / Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.
Learning without humility has always been pernicious to the Church; and as pride precipitated the rebellious angels from heaven, it frequently causes the loss of learned men.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
Come, Desire of nations, come, fix in us thy humble home; rise, the woman's conquering Seed, bruise in us the serpent's head. Adam's likeness, Lord, efface; stamp thine image in its place. Second Adam from above, Reinstate us in thy love. Hark! the herald angels sing, "Glory to the new born King!"
O bitte um Leben noch! du fuhlst, mit deinen Mangeln, / Dass du noch wandeln kannst nicht unter Gottes Engeln=--O still pray for life; thou feelest that with those faults of thine thou canst not walk among the angels of God. _Ruckert._ [Greek: ho bios brachys, he de techne makre]--Life is short, art is long.
In spiritual as in earthly things there is great strength in hope, and, therefore, God's people are carefully to cultivate that grace. A well-grounded hope that, having been made new creatures in Jesus Christ, we are His; that with our names, though unknown to fame, written in the Book of Life, we have grace in possession and heaven in prospect; that after a few more brief years, pure as the angels that sing before the throne, we shall be brought with gladness into the palace of the King, to be like Christ and with Christ, seeing Him eye to eye and face to face--such hopes are powerful springs of action.--_Guthrie._
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Women who have lost their faith / Are angels who have lost their wings.
The human heart is like heaven; the more angels the more room.
Suppose two persons tell foolish stories, one whose words have a two-fold sense, understood only by his own followers, the other which has only the one sense, a stranger not being in the secret, who hears them both speak in this manner, would pass on them a like judgment. But if afterwards in the rest of their conversation one speak with the tongue of angels, and the other mere wearisome common-places, he will judge that the one spoke in mysteries and not the other; the one having sufficiently shown that he was incapable of absurdity, and capable of being mysterious, the other that he is incapable of mystery, and capable of absurdity.
Goodness answers to the theological virtue of charity, and admits no excess but error; the desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess: neither can angel or man come into danger by it.--_Bacon._
Man is his own star, and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man Commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early, or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
The saints have their empire, their glory, their victory, their lustre, and want no glory of the flesh or of the mind, with which they have nothing to do, for these add nothing to them neither do they take away. They are seen of God and the angels, and not by the bodily eye, nor by the curious spirit; God suffices them.
In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.
while it’s true that challenges do make us grow, the angels also say that peace leads to even bigger growth spurts. Through peace, our schedules and creativity are more open to giving service. Through peace, our bodies operate in a healthy fashion. Through peace, our relationships thrive and blossom. Through peace, we are shining examples of God’s love.
She was good as she was fair, None--none on earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are: To know her was to love her.
Nothing in the dealings of Heaven with Earth is so wonderful to me as the way in which the evil angels are allowed to spot, pervert, and bring to nothing, or to worse, the powers of the greatest men: so that Greece must be ruined, for all that Plato can say; Geneva, for all that Calvin can say; England, for all that Sir Thomas More and Bacon can say; and only Gounod's "Faust" to be the visible outcome to Europe of the school of Weimar.
More dear in the sight of God and His angels than any other conquest is the conquest of self, which each man, with the help of heaven, can secure for himself.--_Dean Stanley._
Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber! Holy angels guard thy bed! Heavenly blessings without number Gently falling on thy head.
"Righteousness is not that ye turn your faces [in prayer] to the east or west; but righteousness is to him who believeth in God and the Last Day, and Angels, and Revealed Books, and Prophets; who giveth cheerfully from his substance to kinsmen, orphans, the needy, the wayfarer, and to them that ask; who freeth the prisoner and the slave; who offereth prayers at their appointed times, and giveth the ordained alms; to them who fulfil the covenants to which they have bound themselves, and who are patient in times of distress, and pain, and struggle: these are they who are sincere [in religion], and who fear to do evil (_Koran_ 2, 172)."
To the Christian, whose life has been dark with brooding cares that would not lift themselves, and on whom chilling rains of sorrow have fallen at intervals through all his years, death is but the clearing-up shower; and just behind it are the songs of angels, and the serenity and glory of heaven.--_Beecher._
Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man Commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early, or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love... Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.
Religion is adapted to every kind of intellect. Some consider only its establishment, and this Religion is such that its very establishment is enough to prove its truth. Some trace it as far as the apostles; the more learned go back to the beginning of the world; the angels see it better still, and from earlier time.
But man, proud man, / Drest in a little brief authority, / Most ignorant of what he's most assured, / His glassy essence,--like an angry ape, / Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven / As make the angels weep.
But man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he 's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep.
I am a hopeful romantic. - Charlotte, In the Shadow of Angels
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer: Preventing angels met it half the way, And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Predestination. Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Power is! The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees. (The night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.
How fading are the joys we dote upon! Like apparitions seen and gone. But those which soonest take their flight Are the most exquisite and strong,-- Like angels' visits, short and bright; Mortality 's too weak to bear them long.
We should never leave our room until we have seen the face of our dear Master, Christ, and have realized that we are being sent forth by Him to do His will, and to finish the work which He has given us to do. He who said to His immediate followers, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you," says as much to each one of us, as the dawn summons us to live another day. We should realize that we are as much sent forth by Him as the angels who "do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word." There is some plan for each day's work, which He will unfold to us, if only we will look up to Him to do so; some mission to fulfil; some ministry to perform; some lesson patiently to learn, that we may be able to "reach others also." As to our plans we need not be anxious; because He who sends us forth is responsible to make the plan, according to His infinite wisdom; and to reveal it to us, however dull and stupid our faculties may be. And as to our sufficiency, we are secure of having all needful grace; because He never sends us forth, except He first breathes on us and says, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." There is always a special endowment for special power.--_F. B. Meyer._
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
She was a form of life and light That seen, became a part of sight, And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye, The morning-star of memory! Yes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire With angels shared, by Alla given, To lift from earth our low desire.
Fearfully he lifted his eyes and saw no one. “It was the Lord or one of His angels,” Joshua whispered, as he put on his sandals. Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed his sword, shoved it into his sheath, and turned. He headed for the camp at a dead run, and as soon as he was within hearing distance, he began to shout, “Caleb—Caleb! Where are you?” He found Caleb rushing to meet him, and Joshua’s eyes were glowing with excitement. “You asked for strategy for defeating Jericho. Well, I have it!” “Tell me,” Caleb demanded, his eyes blazing with excitement. He listened as Joshua related what he had heard from the man with the sword.
The best of angels do not live in community, but by themselves.
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you. Angels are painted fair, to look like you: There 's in you all that we believe of heaven,-- Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.
I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep.
Everything holy is before what is unholy; guilt presupposes innocence, not the reverse; angels, but not fallen ones, were created.
As far as angels' ken.
But sad as angels for the good man's sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
The tears of penitents are the wine of angels.
The misgiving which will creep sometimes over the brightest faith has already received its expression and its rebuke: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Shall these "changes in the physical state of the environment" which threaten death to the natural man, destroy the spiritual? Shall death, or life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, arrest or tamper with his eternal correspondences? "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. viii, 35-39. Natural Law, p. 230.
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.