Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions
Jonathan EdwardsRead
Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Truth is aligned with divine understanding and beliefs. It signifies that what we consider true should match with a higher moral or spiritual reality.
In this quote, Jonathan Edwards emphasizes that truth is not merely subjective or based on human perception; rather, it is the coherence between our thoughts and the divine ideas of God. This suggests that true understanding and wisdom stem from aligning our reason and beliefs with a greater spiritual authority, indicating that our grasp of truth should aspire to reflect divine insight.
Themes
TruthIdeasGodUnderstandingPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a public speech on ethics, one might use this quote to emphasize integrity.
More from Jonathan Edwards
All quotes →Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
Jonathan EdwardsRead
So that it must be only by the imagination that Satan has access to the soul, to tempt and delude it, or suggest anything to it. And this seems to be the reason why persons that are under the disease of melancholy are commonly so visibly and remarkably subject to the suggestions and temptations of Satan... Innumerable are the ways by which the mind may be led on to all kind of evil thoughts, by the exciting of external ideas in the imagination.
Jonathan EdwardsRead
The deceitfulness of the heart of man appears in no one thing so much as this of spiritual pride and self-righteousness. The subtlety of Satan appears in its height, in his managing persons with respect to this sin. And perhaps one reason may be that here he has most experience; he knows the way of its coming in; he is acquainted with the secret springs of it: it was his own sin. Experience gives vast advantage in leading souls, either in good or evil.
Jonathan EdwardsRead
Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.
Jonathan EdwardsRead
True virtue never appears so lovely as when it is most oppressed; and the divine excellency of real Christianity is never exhibited with such advantage as when under the greatest trials; then it is that true faith appears much more precious than gold, and upon this account is "found to praise and honour and glory.
Jonathan EdwardsRead
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There will never be any more perfection than there is now.
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We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.
Christopher HitchensRead
The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality. The tree that you are aware of intellectually, because of that small time lag, is always in the past and therefore is always unreal. Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past and therefore unreal. Reality is always the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place. There is no other reality.
Robert M. PirsigRead
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
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I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.
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They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
Boris PasternakRead