Quotes from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Riches take wings, comforts vanish, hope withers away,but love stays with us. Love is God.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The happiness of love is in action; its test is what one is willing to do for others.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The architect had not stopped to bother about columns and porticos, proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature - art can go no further.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“It is more beautiful to trust in God. The beautiful in this world is all from his hand, declaring the perfection of taste; he is the author of all form; he clothes the lily, he colours the rose, he distils the dewdrop, he makes the music of nature; in a word, he organized us for this life, and imposed its conditions; and they are such guaranty to me that, trustful as a little child, I leave to him the organization of my Soul, and every arrangement for the life after death. I know he loves me.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Youth is but the painted shell within which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing the spirit of a man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in some than in others.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor,the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graves are there no dreams.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Perfection is God; simplicity is perfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let truths like these alone.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Pride is never so loud as when in chains.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Religion is merely the law which binds man to his Creator: in purity it has but these elements--God, the Soul, and their Mutual Recognition; out of which, when put in practise, spring Worship, Love, and Reward.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“To begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Believing in God, invisible yet supreme, I also believed it possible so to yearn for him with all my soul that he would take compassion and give me answer.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“We of the sea come to know each other quickly; our loves, like our hates, are born of sudden dangers.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Would you hurt a man keenest, strike at his self-love; would you hurt a woman worst, aim at her affections.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“They to whom a boy comes asking, Who am I, and what am I to be? have need of ever so much care. Each word in answer may prove to the after-life what each finger-touch of the artist is to the clay he is modelling.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or in the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“From the depths of the well I had discovered a light above, and yearned to go up and see what all it shone upon. At last--ah, with what years of toil!--I stood in the perfect day, and beheld the principle of life, the element of religion, the link between the soul and God--Love!”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Father of all--God!--what we have here is of thee; take our thanks and bless us, that we may continue to do thy will.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing of a trifle; nor was his anger like the fool's, pumped from the wells of nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; it was the wrath peculiar to ardent natures rudely awakened by the sudden annihilation of a hope --dream, if you will-- in which the choicest happinesses were thought to be certainly in reach. In such case nothing intermediate will carry off the passion --the quarrel is with Fate.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“It is neither wise nor honest to detract from beauty as a quality. There cannot be a refined soul insensible to its influence.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Death, you know, keeps secrets better even than a guilty Roman.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“I see, I see! From association Messala, in boyhood, was almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might have become a proselyte, so much do we all borrow from the influences that ripen our lives; but the years in Rome have been too much for him. I do not wonder at the change; yet”--her voice fell--“he might have dealt tenderly at least with you. It is a hard, cruel nature which in youth can forget its first loves.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“For to-day I take or give;
For to-day I drink and live;
For to-day I beg or borrow;
Who knows about the silent morrow?”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“For power, you know, is a fretful thing, and hath its wings always spread for flight.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“In every four there is one the slowest, and one the swiftest; and while the race is always to the slowest, the trouble is always with the swiftest.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The most perfect life develops as a circle, and terminates in its beginning, making it impossible to say, This is the commencement, that the end.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“for I thought there was a relation between God and the soul as yet unknown. On this theme the mind can reason to a point, a dead, impassable wall; arrived there, all that remains is to stand and cry aloud for help.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

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“There was no way I was going to let him die. He was my other half; without him, I felt incomplete. I wasn't sure if this was my dragon talking or me,but I couldn't imagine a world without Riley.”
― Julie Kagawa, quote from Rogue

“We all know our dates of birth but . . . every year there is another date that we pass over without knowing what it is but it is just as important it is the other date the death date.”
― Ali Smith, quote from Hotel World

“THE POWER TO CHOOSE Choice implies consciousness — a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious, spiritually speaking. This means that you are compelled to think, feel, and act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind. Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life. Similarly, if you are one of the many people who have an issue with their parents, if you still harbor resentment about something they did or did not do, then you still believe that they had a choice — that they could have acted differently. It always looks as if people had a choice, but that is an illusion. As long as your mind with its conditioned patterns runs your life, as long as you are your mind, what choice do you have? None. You are not even there. The mind-identified state is severely dysfunctional. It is a form of insanity. Almost everyone is suffering from this illness in varying degrees. The moment you realize this, there can be no more resentment. How can you resent someone's illness? The only appropriate response is compassion. If you are run by your mind, although you have no choice you will still suffer the consequences of your unconsciousness, and you will create further suffering. You will bear the burden of fear, conflict, problems, and pain. The suffering thus created will eventually force you out of your unconscious state.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from the Power of Now

“Aware of our deep failings, we pour contempt on our own hearts for wanting more. Oh, we long for intimacy and for adventure; we long to be the Beauty of some great story. But the desires set deep in our hearts seem like a luxury, granted only to those women who get their acts together. The message to the rest of us – whether from a driven culture or a driven church – is try harder.”
― John Eldredge, quote from Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“She’d ceased spying upon him, that was true, but the damage was done. Every time he sat at his desk, he could feel her eyes upon him, even though he knew very well she’d shut her curtains tight. But clearly, reality had very little to do with the matter, because all he had to do, it seemed, was glance at her window, and he lost an entire hour’s work.

It happened thus: He looked at the window, because it was there, and he couldn’t very well never happen to glance upon it unless he also shut his curtains tight, which he was not willing to do, given the amount of time he spent in his office. So he saw the window, and he thought of her, because, really, what else would he think of upon seeing her bedroom window? At that point, annoyance set in, because A) she wasn’t worth the energy, B) she wasn’t even there, and C) he wasn’t getting any work done because of her.

C always led into a bout of even deeper irritation, this time directed at himself, because D) he really ought to have better powers of concentration, E) it was just a stupid window, and F) if he was going to get agitated about a female, it ought to be one he at least liked.

F was where he generally let out a loud growl and forced himself to get back to his translation. It usually worked for a minute or two, and then he’d look back up, and happen to see the window, and the whole bloody nonsense cycled back to the beginning.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from What Happens in London

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