Proof of God?

“a cable which is made up of a number of separate threads, each feeble, yet together as sufficient as an iron rod. An iron rod represents mathematical or strict demonstration; a cable represents moral demonstration, which is an assemblage of probablilities, separately insufficient for certainty, but when put together irrefragable.”
John Henry Newman

Liturgy and Justice

I note that while there are several places where God rejects liturgy for want of justice, I know of no biblical location where God rejects justice for want of liturgy. Liturgy is the symbolic celebration of divine justice so that in the latter's absence the former is empty.
John Dominic Crossan

Defining love

“God is love” (1 Jn. 4:16). But someone eager to define this is blindly striving to measure the sand in the ocean…
John Climacus

Wisdom

“The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know…. Do justly, Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough…. So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather.”
John Adams

Virtue of War?

War necessarily brings with it some virtues, and great and heroic virtues too… What horrid creatures we men are, that we cannot be virtuous without murdering one another.”
John Adams

Public Service

“Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise men refuse it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not. A young man should weigh well his plans. Integrity should be preserved in all events, as essential to his happiness, through every stage of his existence. His first maxim then should be to place his honor out of reach of all men. In order to do this he must make it a rule never to become dependent on public employments for subsistence. Let him have a trade, a profession, a farm, a shop, something where he can honestly live, and then he may engage in public affairs, if invited, upon independent principles. My advice to my children is to maintain an independent character.”
John Adams

Reading

“I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.”
John Adams