Famous quotes containing the words angel, problem, sketch and/or proof:
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The problem of the novelist who wishes to write about a man’s encounter with God is how he shall make the experience—which is both natural and supernatural—understandable, and credible, to his reader. In any age this would be a problem, but in our own, it is a well- nigh insurmountable one. Today’s audience is one in which religious feeling has become, if not atrophied, at least vaporous and sentimental.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“the vagabond began
To sketch a face that well might buy the soul of any man.
Then, as he placed another lock upon the shapely head,
With a fearful shriek, he leaped and fell across the
picture—dead.”
—Hugh Antoine D’Arcy (1843–1925)
“War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)