“It is almost a truism that heresy, or exploratory theology, serves a useful purpose by forcing orthodoxy to formulate appropriate responses.  The church without heresy may ultimately be in the greater danger of heresy.”
- Geoffrey Bromiley, Historical Theology: An Introduction, 26

“And to Robbe a poor man, is a greater Crime, than to robbe a rich man; because ’tis to the poore a more sensible damage.”
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 352 (ch. 27)

“We are fonder of spiritual sweetness than of crosses.”
- St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, 40 (Third Mansion, ch. 1)

“If the answer to his suffering is to face it and challenge it to do its worst because he knows that when it has exhausted itself it has only touched the outer walls of his dwelling place, this can only come to pass because he has found something big enough to contain all violences and violations – he has found that his life is rooted in a God who cares for him and cultivates his spirit, whose purpose is to bring to heel all the untutored, recalcitrant expressions of life.”
- Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit, 84

“The mind naturally believes and the will naturally loves. As a result, lacking true objects, they must attach themselves to false ones.”
- Pascal, Pensees, S544/L61