WIST Quotations

Carlyle, Thomas -- Past and Present, Book 3, ch. 9 “Working Aristocracy” (1843)

Dave — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 21:55:55 +0000

In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel, of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil take the hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest Gospels ever preached on Earth; or altogether the shabbiest.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Past and Present, Book 3, ch. 9 “Working Aristocracy” (1843)
(Source)

Camara, Helder -- (Attributed)

Dave — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 23:51:17 +0000

Be careful how you live your life, it is the only Gospel many people will ever read.

Hélder Câmara (1909-1999) Brazilian Catholic Archbishop, social and political activist
(Attributed)

Quoted in 1985 in Basta, the national news letter of the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America.

Alt. trans.: "Watch how you live. Your lives may be the only gospel your brothers and sisters will ever read."

Jefferson, Thomas -- Letter (1814-01-24) to John Adams

Dave — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:36:26 +0000

But the whole history of these books [the Bible] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been plaid with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1814-01-24) to John Adams
(Source)

Tutu, Desmond -- “The Bishop and South Africa,” interview by Rafael Suarez, Jr., Worldview (Dec 1984)

Dave — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:04:08 +0000

I do not preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now, is that political, or social?” He said, “I feed you.” […] I can’t believe that you can compartmentalize life and say this is political and this is religious, because for us religion must permeate the whole of life. If people wish to say, “God’s writ does not run in the political sphere,” I want to ask, “Whose does?”

Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) South African cleric, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Laureate
“The Bishop and South Africa,” interview by Rafael Suarez, Jr., Worldview (Dec 1984)
(Source)