It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it.
Well, the world has a million writers. One would think, then, that good thought would be as familiar as air and water, and the gifts of each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we can count all our good books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty years.
But I am convinced that those Jews who stand aside today with a malicious smile and with their hands in their trousers' pockets will also want to dwell in our beautiful home.
Why is it that so many of us persist in thinking that autumn is a sad season? Nature has merely fallen asleep, and her dreams must be beautiful if we are to judge by her countenance.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
I deal with students every day - from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I've noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics. They lack any ability to sense what is beautiful or what is proper. They can be learned and skillful, but they lack the ability to make their own free judgment. It is really sad to see young adults of 20, 25 years who were never taught to make their own decisions. People who can't do that don't get a sense of responsibility. And if you lack a sense of responsibility, you push the blame onto the system.
O thou beautiful And unimaginable ether! and Ye multiplying masses of increased And still increasing lights! what are ye? what Is this blue wilderness of interminable Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden? Is your course measur'd for ye? Or do ye Sweep on in your unbounded revelry Through an aerial universe of endless Expansion,--at which my soul aches to think,-- Intoxicated with eternity.
Have you ever learned the beautiful art of letting God take care of you and giving all your thought and strength to pray for others and for the kingdom of God? It will relieve you of a thousand cares.
I am used to being beautiful. I have been beautiful for so long that it is an essential part of me. I would not be the same spiritually if I had not been beautiful.