Needle Eye Quotes & Sayings

The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

Squished between my grandparents and moving at thirty miles an hour is a small price to pay to get to the vet's office, but today Luke begged to come along, so Papaw is driving even slower than usual. With Luke hunched don behind us in the bed of the truck, obviously without a seat belt, Mamaw keeps her eye on the odometer and yells about "precious cargo" every time the needle nears twenty. — Alecia Whitaker

The way the Beloved can fit in my heart, two thousand lives could fit in this body of mine. One kernel could contain a thousand bushels, and a hundred worlds pass through the eye of the needle. — Rumi

No rich man can walk through the eye of a needle. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

Mr. Dowler, could you go through this? Mr. Algie. Don't answer him, Dowler; he's going beyond all bounds. Paul Ruttledge. I was a rich man and I could not, and yet I am something smaller than a camel, and this is something larger than a needle's eye. — W.B.Yeats

The pieces of my broken heart are so small that
they could be passed through the eye of a needle. — Brian Helgeland

Again I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. — Anonymous

It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle's eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory. — Kwame Nkrumah

The things they have done to us! The truths they have turned into lies! The ideals they have fouled and made vile. Take Jesus. He was one of us. He knew. When He said that it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God - He damn well meant just what He said. But look at what the church has done to Jesus in the last two thousand years. What they have made of Him. How they have turned every word he spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if He was living today. Jesus would be one who really knows. Me and Jesus would sit across the table and I would look at Him and He would look at me and we would both know that the other knew. Me and Jesus and Karl Marx could all sit at a table and - — Carson McCullers

God had pulled her through a needle's eye so narrow that this thread in front of them was all that remained. — Anthony Marra

Arriving on Bainbridge Island is the opposite of arriving in Seattle. When you got in your car and waited to unload off the ferry in Seattle, you saw the Space Needle, cars, and a mound of urban construction. Once you exit the ferry terminal on Bainbridge, however, it's mostly trees. Pine as far as the eye can see. Well, pines, firework and coffee stands, and eventually a casino. You drive through the Port Madison Indian Reservation when you leave the island. I couldn't help but smile as I went past the casino. I didn't really get gambling, since I'd never had money to throw away, but as I passed through all the beautiful countryside that I'm sure once belonged to the tribe, I sort of hoped they would rob the white man blind. Perhaps not politically correct, but the feeling was there all the same. — Lish McBride

There is a better chance of seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really great man 'discovered' through an election. — Adolf Hitler

Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be "discovered" by an election. — Adolf Hitler

They told me of color, that it was an illusion of the eye, an event in the perceiver's mind, not in the object; they told me that color had no reality; indeed, they told me that color did not inhere in a physical body any more than pain was in a needle.
And then they imprisoned me in darkness; and though there was no color there, I still was black, and they still were white; and for that, they bound and gagged me. — M T Anderson

All the stream that's roaring by
Came out of a needle's eye ... — William Butler Yeats

Take a portion of wit, And fashion it fit, Like a needle, with point and with eye: A point that can wound, An eye to look round, And at folly or vice let it fly — Jacques Barzun

I heard someone say that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven. I decided to sculpt camels in a needle. — Willard Wigan

It would have been a help if at some time Baptist preacher, resting his forearms on the pulpit and hunching his shoulders, had said People neither get what they deserve nor deserve what they get. The gentle and the trusting are trampled on. The rich man usually forces his way through the eye of the needle, and there is little or no point in putting your faith in Divine Providence. . . . On the other hand, how could any preacher, Baptist or otherwise, say this? — William Maxwell

It is easier for a cannibal to enter the Kingdom of Heaven through the eye of a rich man's needle that it is for any other foreigner to read the terrible German script. — Mark Twain

In the borough, three boys circled a white camel
that wept because at dawn
there was no other way except through the needle's eye!
Oh cross! Oh, nails! Oh, thorn!
Oh, thorn driven to the bone until the planet rust to pieces! — Federico Garcia Lorca

It's easier for a rich man to ride that camel through the eye of a needle directly into the Kingdom of Heaven, than for some of us to give up our cell phone. — Vera Nazarian

The story thread suddenly dropped in a hopeless snarl, just as he was about to get it through the needle's eye of the first line. — Cornell Woolrich

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. — Ilona Andrews

The extent to which perception and, consequently, vision are dependent upon memory and imagination is a matter of every day experience. We see familiar things more clearly then when we see objects about which we have no stock of memories. The old seamstress, who cannot read without glasses, can see to thread needle with the naked eye. Why? Because she is more familiar with needles then with print. In man who can work all day at the office without undue fatigue of the eyes is worn out by an hour at the museum and comes home with a splitting headache. Why? Because in the office he is following a regular routine and looking at words and figures, the bike of which he looks at every day; whereas in the museum everything is strange novel, and outlandish. — Aldous Huxley

Between threading a needle and raving insanity is the smallest eye in creation. — Caitlin Thomas

But let me have silence always, in the centre of the shouting - that is essential! Let me have silence so that no pin may drop and not be heard, and not a whisper escape us for all our spouting, nor the needle's scratching upon this gramophone of a circular cosmic spot. Hear me! Mark me! Learn me! Throw the mind's ear open - shut up the mind's eye - all will be music! — Wyndham Lewis

I still believe the lessons I learned when I was raised in a Roman Catholic household. Like, it's harder for a rich man to get into Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. — Michael Moore

Sport is how poor kids from poor countries pass through the eye of the needle to riches and recognition. — A.A. Gill

...Thought lengths it, pulls
an invisible world through
a needle's eye
one detail at a time,

... — Jennifer Grotz

It's said that the Buddha's enlightenment is great than that of a traveler setting out, in the same proportion as the heavens are bigger than what can be seen of them through the eye of a needle. But in both cases, what you see is the sky. — Matthieu Ricard

Christians might return to the foundational book, which as ever is very timely. Jesus preached that it "is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." We should be modest, for "whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. — Timothy Snyder

Rich folks may ride on camels, but it ain't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye. — Charles Dickens

Ever since Constantine made Christianity the official "imperial faith, " Christians have been trying to push the camel of power and wealth through the slender needle's eye of the vision of Jesus. — Kurt Neilson

I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. — Jesus Christ

The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye. — William Butler Yeats

They might as well have been trying to fit a squirrel through the eye of a needle. — Embee

We were small and thought we knew nothing Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires In the shiny pouches of raindrops, Each one seeded full with the light Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves So infinitesimally scaled We could stream through the eye of a needle. — Seamus Heaney

We are going through the eye of the needle; make sure you leave what you don't need behind — Terence McKenna

Countries with high levels of atheism are also the most charitable both in terms of the percentage of their wealth they devote to social welfare programs and the percentage they give in aid to the developing world. The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christian values is belied by other indices of social equality. Consider the ratio of salaries paid to top-tier CEOs and those paid to the same firms' average employees: in Britain it is 24:1; in France, 15:1; in Sweden, 13:1; in the United States, where 80 percent of the population expects to be called before God on Judgment Day, it is 475:1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to pass easily through the eye of a needle. — Sam Harris

All things (e.g. a camel's journey through
A needle's eye) are possible, it's true.
But picture how the camel feels, squeezed out
In one long bloody thread, from tail to snout. — C.S. Lewis

The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spiderweb of the micrometer. — Maria Mitchell

Microbes are invisible to our naked eye, with a few exceptions that reinforce the rule. Millions can fit into the eye of a needle. But if you were to gather them all up, not only would they outnumber all the mice, whales, humans, birds, insects, worms, and trees combined - indeed all of the visible life-forms we are familiar with on Earth - they would outweigh them as well. Think about that for a moment. Invisible microbes comprise the sheer bulk of the Earth's biomass, more than the mammals and reptiles, all the fish in the sea, the forests. — Martin J. Blaser

If not for the rats you could crawl beneath a bush. A bush. A bench. The alliterative universe. Rats too can pass through that needle's eye to enter heaven ... This box held a refrigerator, the refrigerator is an apartment, a man is in the box ... Wake up on the grass, soaking wet. Dew is the piss of God. 'Another bullshit night in suck city, my father mutters. — Nick Flynn

When I came out of the wagon, he had her in a dramatic dip and was giving her a kiss. I set the needle and thread next to my shirt and waited. It seemed like a good kiss. I watched with a calculating eye, dimly aware that at some point in the future I might want to kiss a lady. If i did, I wanted to do a decent job of it.
After a moment my father noticed me and stood my mother back on her feet."That will be ha'penny for the show, Master Voyeur,"he laughed. "What are you still here for, boy? I'll bet you the same ha'penny that a question slowed you down. — Patrick Rothfuss

It doesn't escape him that the rock holding it up is the perfect fit for his fist. Or how easily one of those needle spokes would slide right through the girl's eye like Jell-O. — Lauren Beukes

How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. — Anonymous

Apocalypse is the eye of a needle, through which we pass into a different world. — George Zebrowski

It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make a blues record. — Hugh Laurie

Love is so small it can tear itself through the eye of a needle — Michael Ondaatje

We're a young species; We're only 175,000 years old. On the evolutionary scale, life on this planet is 4 billion years old. We're 175,000 years old. So we're trying something out. Who wouldn't think it would be better to have the most stuff to take as much as you could? As we do that, we see why the moral prophets come along and say, don't even store into barns, right? It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We've seen we plunder nature. We plunder our neighbor. We create enemies because we're against each other. — Tom Shadyac

My story is of such marvel that if it were written with a needle on the corner of an eye, it would yet serve as a lesson to those who seek wisdom. — Anonymous

And so it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a teenager to enter the kingdom of heaven listening to the Dave Matthews Band. — Douglas Wilson

When we speak of God or achieving union with God, we are often merely trying to put that great thing into a small container. One cannot drive a camel through the eye of a needle. — Chogyam Trungpa

When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn. Well, they were going to destroy it again, were they - this garden Earth, civilized and knowing, to be torn apart again that man might hope again in wretched darkness. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die. — C.S. Lewis

I guess like my good buddy Jesus said "it really is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle dude, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, so go for it, YOLO. — Cristian Matheson

The wealthy, Jesus says, can only get into heaven through the eye of a needle; the same applies to churches wealthy in numbers and programs. — Mark Galli