Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
John DonneRead
God affords no man the comfort, the false comfort of Atheism: He will not allow a pretending Atheist the power to flatter himself, so far, as to seriously think there is no God.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that no one can genuinely believe in atheism without some inner conflict about the existence of God.
In this quote, John Donne expresses the idea that true atheism is an illusion, as he believes that God does not permit individuals to find real solace in rejecting His existence. According to Donne, even those who claim to be atheists are, on some level, aware of God's presence, and this awareness leads to an internal struggle where one cannot fully embrace atheism without self-deception.
In practice
In a debate about faith and belief, one could cite this quote to emphasize the struggle many face with atheistic views.
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity
All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology, which has all the inevitability of fate, so long as he does not understand it.
It is because good is always stronger than evil. Always remember that, Antonio. The smallest bit of good can stand against all the powers of evil in the world and it will emerge triumphant.
So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself.
Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster. This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome.
There may be women to emerge who will be able to formulate a new and possible concept that homosexual persecution and condemnation has at its roots not only social ignorance, but a philosophically active anti-feminist dogma.
The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
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