“Don't be fooled by strength you can see," he said at last. "Yahweh often hides His power in the simple things, the weak things, and so His strength seems foolish in man's eyes.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Shebna scraped the tablet clean and began drawing circles in the soft clay. "Suppose you had six figs and you ate two. How many would--"
"Four." Hezekiah answered before Shebna finished, and the tutor's thick black eyebrows rose in surprise.
"And suppose I had five figs. How many would we--"
"Nine."
"Have you done this before?"
Hezekiah thought the question was ridiculous. "I've eaten figs lots of times.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“And he realized that this was their attitude toward Yahweh, too. They either hurried through life, ignoring Him, or they regarded Yahwey and His commandments with contempt.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Only a coward would send his children to their deaths in order to save his own life.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Yes, of course Yahweh could defeat all of Judah’s enemies.” “Then why didn’t He, Grandpa?” Zechariah’s face looked sad as he shook his head. “Because our nation no longer believes in Him... and so no one bothered to ask Him to.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Hmm. Relationships between fathers and sons can be notoriously difficult, especially for two men who are as different as you and your father are."
"Yes, and he's also the king--that makes our relationship impossible.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Yahweh doesn’t owe us an explanation for what He does. He’s sovereign over all: ‘Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?... If he comes along and confines you in prison... who can oppose him?’ So you see? I don’t need to know why anymore.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“He had lived to please himself instead of God all those years, giving little more than lip service to His holy laws. And now when Zechariah cried out to God, his numberless sins swallowed up his prayers before they reached heaven. His guilt filled the yawning gulf between him and God.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Every time you compromise, something inside your spirit dies a little,”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“The only way to revive Temple worship is through repentance. The men of Judah must give up their idolatry and turn their hearts back to God.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Belief in Yahweh doesn't come with your mind. It comes with your heart. When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry...
To have faith in Yahweh is to know that there is a realm of the spirit beyond the comprehension of our minds... Trusting in Molech... or trusting in your own wisdom and intellect - there's no difference in God's eyes. It's all idolatry.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“Belief in Yahweh doesn't come with your mind. It comes with your heart. When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry.” Zechariah’s words stunned him. “Then I’m an idolater, too?” “To have faith in Yahweh is to know that there is a realm of the spirit beyond the comprehension of our minds,” Zechariah said. “Trusting in Molech, as Ahaz did, or trusting in your own wisdom and intellect—there’s no difference in God’s eyes. It’s all idolatry.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Gods and Kings
“اسمعي يا عزيزتي، إذا خلطتِ بين الشعر والسياسة فستحبلين قبل أن يرف جفنكِ.”
― Antonio Skármeta, quote from The Postman
“Even if his talk carried him to Paris, for example, to a place like the Faubourg Montmartre, he spiced and flavored it with his Attic ingredients, with thyme, sage, tufa, asphodel, honey, red clay, blue roofs; acanthus trimmings, violet light, hot rocks, dry winds, dust, rezina, arthritis and the electrical crackle that plays over the low hills like a swift serpent with a broken spine. He was a strange contradiction, even in his talk. With his snake-like tongue which struck like lightning, with fingers moving nervously, as though wandering over an imaginary spinet, with pounding, brutal gestures which somehow never smashed anything but simply raised a din, with all the boom of surf and the roar and sizzle and razzle-dazzle, if you suddenly observed him closely you got the impression that he was sitting there immobile, that only the round falcon's eye was alert, that he was a bird which had been hypnotized, or had hypnotized itself, and that his claws were fastened to the wrist of an invisible giant, a giant like the earth. All this flurry and din, all these kaleidoscopic prestidigitations of his, was only a sort of wizardry which he employed to conceal the fact that he was a prisoner—that was the impression he gave me when I studied him, when I could break the spell for a moment and observe him attentively. But to break the spell, required a power and a magic almost equal to his own; it made one feel foolish and impotent, as one always does when one succeeds in destroying the power of illusion. Magic is never destroyed —the most we can do is to cut ourselves off, amputate the mysterious antennae which serve to connect us with forces beyond our power of understanding.”
― Henry Miller, quote from The Colossus of Maroussi
“When you look at your sleeping daughter, you are confronted with a spiritual reality that you can’t deny. From the moment she was born, you sensed the awesomeness of her life, the fact that there is something mysterious and transcendent about it, that she goes beyond you and your spouse. A man can banter with his friends and colleagues about whether God exists. But a father looks at his daughter and knows.”
― quote from Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know
“There is something noble as well as terrible about suicide. The downfall of many men is not dangerous, for they fall like children, too near the ground to do themselves harm. But when a great man breaks, he has soared up to the heavens, espied some inaccessible paradise, and then fallen from a great height. The forces that make him seek peace from the barrel of a gun cannot be placated. How many young talents confined to an attic room wither and perish for lack of a friend, a consoling wife, alone in the midst of a million fellow humans, while throngs of people weary of gold are bored with their possessions.”
― Honoré de Balzac, quote from The Wild Ass's Skin
“Dear sensibility! Source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! Eternal fountain of our feelings! 'tis here I trace thee and this is thy divinity which stirs within me...All comes from thee, great-great SENSORIUM of the world!”
― Laurence Sterne, quote from A Sentimental Journey
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.