Thursday, January 31, 2008

I've been learning

that the more I know, the more I am aware of how little I know. If that makes since. Knowledge is infinite; the All-Knowing is God.

My Goals:

I started this blog because I want to write more, and this is the best way to get started. I've realized the more I write, the better I become at writing. And since I am starting college a little later than I intended, I have made it a goal to write, hopefully, everyday. Now that this blog is up and running I am going to make some goals so I don't end up wasting away in New York City. They are in no real order.

1. Study grammar
a. Read 'The Elements of Style' by Strunk & White
b. Read 'Word Power Made Easy' by Norman Lewis
2. Get a job (maybe at a bookstore?)
3. Take a summer college program
4. Finish high school!
5. Finish reading all those books I almost finished but haven't
6. Save money
7. Read one book everyweek (and only one at a time)

and others, but I'm not there yet.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Some of My Favorite Quotes

Too quick an intelligence, like the total lack of it, is generally held to be close to madness. Nothing is good but mediocrity. A majority vote has settled that, and the said majority will snap at anyone who detaches himself from the crowd, by whatever door he makes his escape. I make no difficulty about it and am perfectly content to sit in the middle; but I flatly refuse the lower end, not because it is low, but because it is "end"--and I would equally refuse if the end were at the top. If we leave the middle way, we part company with humanity. The greatness in the human mind lies in knowing how to hold to that middle way. It is no sign of greatness that a man should separate himself from humanity: it is a more convincing sign of greatness if he does not part company with it.

Pensee 191. of Blaise Pascal


The humblest of us, in a state of Grace, can have some "knowledge-by-acquaintance", some "tasting" of Love Himself; but man even at his highest sanctity and intelligence has no "direct knowledge" about the ultimate Being--only analogies. We cannot see light, though by light we can see things. Statements about God are extrapolations from the knowledge of other things which the divine illumination enables us to know.

CS Lewis in 'The Four Loves'


Hell is a state of mind... And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly.

CS Lewis in 'The Great Divorce'