Famous quotes containing the words church, hymn and/or book:
“Baseball is the religion that worships the obvious and gives thanks that things are exactly as they seem. Instead of celebrating mysteries, baseball rejoices in the absence of mysteries and trusts that, if we watch what is laid before our eyes, down to the last detail, we will cultivate the gift of seeing things as they really are.”
—Thomas Boswell, U.S. sports journalist. “The Church of Baseball,” Baseball: An Illustrated History, ed. Geoffrey C. Ward, Knopf (1994)
“The starting point of the human and the end,
That in which space itself is contained, the gate
To the enclosure, day, the things illumined
By day, night and that which night illumines,
Night and its midnight-minting fragrances,
Night’s hymn of the rock, as in a vivid sleep.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians, no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a stumbling-block.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)