Desire is free to propose, seize, accept or reject, want or not want--but not to obey

david bentley hart, Christ and nothing

(see also this pascal quote)

We must  know where to doubt, where to affirm and where to submit when necessary. Whoever does not do this does not understand the force of reason. There are some who fall short of these three principles, either by affirming that everything can be demonstrated, lacking all knowledge of the demonstration, or doubting everything, lacking the knowledge of where to submit, or by submitting to everything, lack the knowledge of where to discriminate.

pascal, pensée 201


and just like that, pascal wipes away the arguments of descartes and most of modern/postmodern mathematical theory. beautiful. 

[Philosophers] inspired movements of pure greatness and that is not man's state.
They inspired movements of pure baseness and that is not man's state.
...
We need moments of greatness, arising not from merit but from grace, having passed through the state of abjectness.

pensée 17, blaise pascal

475. Act like you’ve been there before, especially in the endzone.

via 1001rules

it's not credited, but this is from the great Bear Bryant. his players acted like they'd been in the endzone before. 

When Luther looked at his family in 1538, he remarked, 'Christ said we must become as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Dear God, this is too much. Have we got to become such idiots?'

here i stand by roland bainton, ch.17 p.236

In 1912, working in an archive over a 13th century manuscript, I read this sentence on the parchment: 'Multi enim studio contradicendi amiserunt sensum.' 'Many in their eagerness to contradict at all costs lost the understanding.' I was impressed.

rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.12

You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

st. augustine, confessions, I.i.1

always at once humbling and encouraging, disturbing and emboldening. "batter my heart," indeed, till it rests in Thee.

"Vae! Puto deus fio."

("Well what do you know. I think I'm becoming a god."

translation mine)

the roman emperor vespasian, on his death bed. vespasian was putting down revolts in judea the late 60s aD when another general, vitellius, marched on rome and was defeated. the senate named vespasian emperor to avert civil war. as emperor, he patroned the arts like few others, built the colosseum, and caused much scandal when it was reported that he took off his own boots. needless to say, he was rather dubious about the deification of emperors.

Jurgensen, Ditka, Kilmer, Hart and Youngblood played during an era when “unfortunate plays” were the norm.

And don’t get started on Terrell Owens. Jurgensen had the perfect remedy for players like Owens, who are perceived to have “me-first” attitudes.

“Receivers I didn’t like I used to throw it in there easy so that they would get nailed,” Jurgensen said. “You know, hang ’em out to dry.”

“Especially if they dropped the pass before and they start yelling at you,” Kilmer said.

“That’s right,“ said Hart. “You run ’em across the middle and throw it in there just so.”

“Hang ’em out to dry,” Jurgensen said again, seeming to enjoy his cigar more than ever. “They’d get the message — in two minutes. They’d come back to the huddle and say, ‘I understand.’ Exactly!”

via a naples, fl newspaper

yeah, i was raised on football. and this pleases me to just short of no end.

The more I know, the more nearly is my faith that of the Breton peasant. Could I but know all I would have the faith of a Breton peasant woman."

louis pasteur, in a letter to one of his children