Glen's Quotes Db (3173 total)

A rabbi asked G-d about heaven and hell. "I will show you hell," G-d said, and he took the rabbi into a room with a large pot of stew in the middle. The smell was delicious, but around the pot sat people who were famished and desperate. All were holding spoons with very long handles which reached to the pot, but, because the handles were longer than their arms, it was impossible to get the stew back into their mouths. "Now I will show you heaven," G-d said, and they went into an identical room with an identical pot of stew and people with identical spoons, but they were all well-nourished and happy. "It's simple," G-d said. "They like to feed one another."

It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is to be praised. The mosquito is swatted.

By: Marie O'Connor

Martin Luther on work in the mid-1500s, said, “...[household work] has no appearance of sanctity; and yet these very works in connection with the household are more desirable than all the works of the monks and nuns.... Seemingly secular works are a worship of God and an obedience well pleasing to God.”

By: Martin Luther
Source: in commentary on Gen. 3:15 as cited by Forrester

The Anvil

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith's door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime:
Then looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.

"How many anvils have you had," said I,
"To wear and batter all these hammers so?"
"Just one," said he, and then, with twinkling eye,
"The anvil wears the hammers out, you know."

And so, thought I, the anvil of God's word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed . . . the hammer's gone.