You need the living, loving heart of living, loving men and women to quicken other hearts, which can live too and love too, and, in their turn, will quicken others which are dying now.
The Resurrection miracle is nothing to you and me if it is only an event of eighteen centuries bygone. Unless we can live the immortal life - unless we can receive God to his own home in these hearts of ours - the texts are nothing to us unless these daily lives illustrate them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that the significance of religious events lies in their application to our daily lives and spiritual existence.
Edward Everett Hale suggests that the resurrection miracle holds true value only if it inspires us to embody its teachings in our daily lives. Without a personal, living faith and the practice of these teachings in our hearts, such historical events become insignificant and without purpose. The essence of spirituality should be reflected in our actions and choices, making it vital to genuinely integrate these beliefs into our everyday existence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a religious service to highlight the importance of living one’s faith.
More from Edward Everett Hale
All quotes →'Do you pray for the senators, Dr. Hale?' No, I look at the senators and I pray for the country.
Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.
It seems as if, for every dragon head that is lopped off, two more terrible appear. Seems so. But in truth, Life is gaining all the while. Brute force, such power as there seems to be in things, cannot stand against ideas which are eternal.
Life seeks life and loves life. The opening of a catkin of a willow, in the flight of the butterfly, in the chirping of a tree-toad or the sweep of an eagle - my life loves to see how others live, exults in their joy, and so far is partner in their great concern.
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.
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Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.
I'm in a period of growth and expansion. I'm taking long, hard looks at the world and what's happening in it, analyzing and thinking. I'm trying to become acquainted with the universe - with the part of it I occupy - and trying to settle, for myself, what my relationship with it is.
Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.
The atheist does not say 'there is no God,' but he says 'I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God'; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. ... The Bible God I deny; the Christian God I disbelieve in; but I am not rash enough to say there is no God as long as you tell me you are unprepared to define God to me.