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Heaven and God are best discerned through tears scarcely perhaps are discerned at all without them. The constant association of prayer with the hour of bereavement and the scenes of death suffice to show this.

James Martineau

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James Martineau
Age: 94 †
Born: 1805
Born: April 21
Died: 1900
Died: January 11
Philosopher
Norwich
Norfolk
Without
Perhaps
Bereavement
Prayer
Scarcely
Hours
Scenes
Heaven
Association
Show
Hour
Death
Constant
Shows
Tears
Discerned
Best
Scene
Suffice

More quotes by James Martineau

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Trust arises from the mind's instinctive feeling after fixed realities, after the substance of every shadow, the base of all appearance, the everlasting amid change.
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High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service.
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Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.
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There is no human life so poor and small as not to hold many a divine possibility.
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We are each of us responsible for the evil we may have prevented.
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If it is permitted to the enlightened but baffled Statesman, when deserted and fallen from his place, to appeal from the voices of the moment to the judgment of more impartial times, with what right can we call in question the loftier form of the same prophetic trust which looks to a present God rather than to future men?
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The pinafore of the child will be more than a match for the frock of the bishop and the surplice of the priest.
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There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness instead of quietness and reverence. To souls baptized in Christian nobleness the largest sphere of command is but a wider empire of obedience, calling them, not to escape from holy rule, but to its full impersonation.
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Grief is only the memory of widowed affections.
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We should count time by heart-throbs.
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Nothing less than the majesty of God, and the powers of the world to come, can maintain the peace and sanctity of our homes, the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit of patience and tender mercy in our hearts. Then will even the merest drudgery of duty cease to humble us, when we transfigure it by the glory of our own spirit.
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The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, to drink, and sleep to be exposed to darkness and the light to pace around in the mill of habit, and turn thought into an instrument of trade-this is not life. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone can give vitality to the mechanism of existence.
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I bow in reverence before the emotions of every melted heart....The more intense the delight in their presence, the more poignant the impression of their absence....When the tears of bereavement have had their natural flow, they lead us again to life and love's generous joy.
James Martineau
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The scepticism which men affect towards their higher inspirations is often not an honest doubt, but a guilty negligence, and is a sign of narrow mind and defective wisdom.
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Human character is never found to enter into its glory, except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation.
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There is no room in the universe for the least contempt or pride but only for a gentle and a reverent heart.
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God is infinite and the laws of nature, like nature itself, are finite. These methods of working, therefore, - which correspond to the physical element in us, - do not exhaust His agency. There is a boundless residue of disengaged energy beyond.
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Every man's highest, nameless though it be, is his 'living God'.
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We can neither change nor overpower God's eternal suffrage against selfishness and meanness.
James Martineau
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The incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly.
James Martineau