Family Altar Quotes & Sayings

The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant. — John Banville

If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven,it is when we pass a home in winter, at night,and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside,we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn;the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knivesor somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast;the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy.I never passed such a house without feeling thatI had received a benediction. — Robert Green Ingersoll

You're all Helen talks about. She's been reading Welsh history books and plaguing the family with accounts of Owain Glynd and something called the Eistedfodd." His eyes sparkled with friendly mockery. "Helen was hacking and spitting so much the other day that we thought she was coming down with a cold, until we realized she was practicing the Welsh alphabet."
Ordinarily Rhys would have made some sarcastic retort, but he'd barely noticed the gibe. His chest had gone tight with pleasure.
"She doesn't have to do that," he muttered.
"Helen wants to please you," Devon said. "It's her nature. Which leads to something I want to make clear: Helen is like a younger sister to me. And although I'm obviously the last man alive who should lecture anyone about propriety, I expect you to behave like an altar boy with her for the next few days."
Rhys gave him a surly glance. "I *was* an altar boy, and I can tell you that reports of their virtue are highly exaggerated. — Lisa Kleypas

You broke the Man Code, dude. 'No man shall knowingly and with malice aforethought kick another man in the nuts.'"
"Okay, so I kicked him in the nuts. The little fucker was fleeing the scene of a crime where he'd pointed a weapon at my buddies."
[from short story "Beer Run" at the end of Skin Deep] — Pamela Clare

Let us set apart special seasons for extraordinary prayer. For if this fire should be smothered beneath the ashes of a worldly conformity, it will dim the fire on the family altar, and lessen our influence both in the Church and in the world. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionize society on this lawn?"
Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly.
"No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do. — G.K. Chesterton

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs — Henry Ford

No house was so poor as not to have its 'family altar,' its shelf of wooden gods, and table of offerings. A religious atmosphere pervades Tibet and gives it a singular sense of novelty. — Isabella Bird

A dynamic praying church must be built from the inside out, employing all four levels of
prayer: the secret closet, the family altar, small group praying and finally, the
congregational setting. — Richard Burr

Frank Ocean is our modern-day Marvin Gaye. In our house, we have nothing but respect for him. — Neneh Cherry

You have to be a warrior and say, "Maybe it's everyone else's system, but it's not mine." (from her recent interview here, on Goodreads) — Anne Lamott

Some questions are not meant to be asked as long as the answers are right. — Judith Krantz

Let us labor for the security of free thought, free speech, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion; ... leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate. — Ulysses S. Grant

A dining room table with children's eager hungry faces around it, ceases to be a mere dining room table, and becomes an altar. — Simeon Strunsky

Was this humanity? Was this nobility? Was this the Christian glory that presumed to hold itself above the heathen Turk? To suffer innocents be sacrificed on an altar of corruption, merely that a lofty family be spared discomfiture? Oh, this was tenfold more abominable than the crime itself, that high authority should wink at it! — Ray Russell

[ ... ] the red-haired aesthete politician flashed a welcoming smile and extended a hand in greeting. — James Luceno

I'm the idiot box. I'm the TV. I'm the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I'm the boob tube. I'm the little shrine the family gathers to adore.'
'You're the television? Or someone in the television?'
'The TV's the altar. I'm what people are sacrificing to.'
'What do they sacrifice?' asked Shadow.
'Their time, mostly,' said Lucy. 'Sometimes each other.' She raised two fingers, blew imaginary gunsmoke from the tips. Then she winked, a big old I Love Lucy wink.
'You're a God?' said Shadow.
Lucy smirked, and took a ladylike puff of her cigarette. 'You could say that,' she said. — Neil Gaiman

The fastest way to success is stewardship. — Sunday Adelaja

Despair is not solid. Neither is joy. They alternate, and contain each other. There is no joy that is not also touched by sorrow, no grief that is not rendered sharper by the memory of bliss. If things move forward in one direction and not another, they do so by rolling there, passing through the same tight orbit, touching here an ecstasy, there another shattering loss. — Ben Ehrenreich

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. — Ulysses S. Grant

As I view it, in every family a record should be kept ... that record should be the first stone, if you choose, in the family altar. It should be a book known and used in the family circle; and when the child reaches maturity and goes out to make another household, one of the first things that the young couple should take along should be the records of their families, to be extended by them as life goes on ... each one of us carries, individually, the responsibility of record keeping, and we should assume it. — John Andreas Widtsoe